Multimodal Rhetoric in First Year Composition

KHM: How did the Multiliteracy Center support these first-year writing students in reflecting about their writing choices, especially when these choices have more to do with writing as designing?

DS: Right. Well, I think that both in class and in sessions with the Multiliteracy Consultants, we really impressed on these students the whole notion of rhetoric and that you can speak of a multimodal rhetoric, a visual rhetoric, a rhetoric of design. That color choice can be a rhetorical choice --that colors communicate certain things, that they communicate atmosphere, ideas, that they contribute to the overall message of a site.

We arranged for a visitor from a third non-profit, who we were not working with, to come in and talk about his process of designing a website for a non-profit. The non-profit was called 360 degrees, and it focused on prison-related issues. 360 degrees refers to the degrees a circle encompasses. The web designer for this non-profit was talking about the rhetoric of circles. He expressed that there was a desire in creating this website to present multiple perspectives, to provide a full picture, a full 360 degree picture, of these issues. Not just the perspective of one or two people, but to encompass a range of perspectives. And there was also a sense, I think, of a circle being inclusive, drawing a circle to include people.

We made a lot out of this in our conversations in class and in consultations. It's almost a rhetorical use of geometry. You wouldn't think that a circle could be a rhetorical device, but in this context, it was. And I think that, on some level, anyone who goes to that website gets some sense of that. You can even see they included digital video footage and there's even a use of revolving cameras -- that the camera's panning across, for instance, a cell environment. So you're getting a comprehensive view, a 360-degree view, not a narrow view.

We talked about the way we were reinventing rhetoric. I think we did perceive ourselves to be using rhetoric as our foundation.

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