Review of Toward a Composition Made Whole by Jody Shipka

Reviewed by Brandy Dieterle, University of Central Florida

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Introduction: Multimodality and communicative practice


John Seely Brown on how gamers approach learning in the 21st century.

Having drawn on many foundational texts in writing and communcation studies, Jody Shipka's (2011) introduction and first chapter are particularly interesting for Kairos readers seeking a theoretical grounding for multimodal composition.

Shipka explained the debate over what students need to know about writing was not new to the field of composition studies. She specifically referred to the Happening movment, which experimented with forms of writing during the late 1960s and early 1970s (p. 4). While we have left behind the nontraditional forms of that period, we revisited the idea of blended and mixed genres in the early 1990s and 2000s in an effort to connect the communicative practices that occur inside and outside the classroom (p. 5). An increased focus on nontraditional forms of writing along with technological change sparked a debate on what 21st century students should be learning about writing, and this led to Kathleen Yancey's 2004 article in Computers and Composition,in which she advocated the use of technology in writing. Almost a decade later, this debate continues and Shipka's view of multimodal composition brought it to a new level by asking readers to rethink composition.

Shipka expressed in her book that she was concerned about a tendency to focus soley on technology when thinking about writing through a variety of modes and genres. In response to Yancey, Shipka asked:

How might it position, whether rhetorically, materially, or technologically, texts that explore how print, speech, still images, video, sounds, scents, live performance, textures (for example, glass, cloth, paper affixed to plastic), and other three-dimensional objects come together, intersect, or overlap in innovative and compelling ways? (p. 8)

Ultimately the aim of this book was to advocate for an even more expanded defintion of composition that encompasses both digital and non-digital texts, a move that may be counterintuitive since we are moving to an increasingly digital world. Shipka held the position that non-digital texts still involve a complex rhetorical process that prove to be valuable writing experiences for students, which she supported by describing student texts that demonstrated this. Having students recognize non-digital texts as rhetorical acts would be particularly useful in terms of community activism or participation. Such skills could be beneficial for organizing a community event or participating in a political rally.

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