Ingram 2014

All texts are multi-modal, meaning they communicate their messages to you, the reader, in a variety of ways. Were going to use 5 terms to help us view texts multi-modally. These terms come from the New London Group, a collection of education and literacy scholars who first promoted the concept of multimodal literacies (Arola, Sheppard, and Ball 4).

Spacial

Linguistic

Gestural

Visual

Aural

Linguistic Mode: word choice; the delivery of spoken or written text; the organization of writing or speech into phrases, sentences, paragraphs, etc; the development and coherence of individual words and ideas. Visual Mode: color, layout, style, size, perspective. Aural Mode: music; sound effects; ambient noise/sounds; silence; tone of voice in spoken language; volume of sound; emphasis on accent. Gestural Mode: facial expressions; hand gestures; body language; interaction between people. Spatial Mode: arrangement; organization; proximity between people or objects (Arola, Sheppard, and Ball 4-12).

All of these modes convey meaning!

Think about what that means for you as you construct your e-Portfolio! But well get to that later. Lets start by looking at our multi-modal textbook, Understanding Rhetoric: A Graphic Guide to Writing. What modes do the authors of this book primarily rely on? How do you know? What are some strategies for reading this textbook?

.. Arola, Kristin L, Jennifer Sheppard and Cheryl E. Ball. Writer/Designer: A Guide to Making Multimodal Projects. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2014. Print.