Response to Readings:
VOCABLES AS MODALITY
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Multimodalities include vocables. Vocables play a critical role in the creative process of composing and depicts the limitations of alphabetic writing. Vocables in Navajo songs are interspersed throughout the lyrics of a song. Vocables at the beginning of songs set the tune for the rest of the song as well as determining tune, attitude, and the character of song. Initial vocables also determine whether a song is for healing or entertainment. Many of these initial vocables are spelled the same alphabetically, but because Navajo is a tonal language, how you begin the song determines the rest of the song. For example, the vocable “eeyeneeyaaaghaghagha” begins most Navajo traditional Navajo songs for healing. These vocables have stories associated with them as well. The associated stories determine how you sing the vocable, which helps you tap into other visual and aural modalities as part of the composing process. At the same time your senses are awakened and become part of the experience of the creative process before its alphabetical manifestations. Many of our senses awakened by these vocables are missed in the translation process as well. Vocables demonstrate that alphabetic text has limitations in composition. Palmeri is correct to point out that alphabetic text is limited.
Building on What We have
Navajo students already are exposed to many modes of communication before they enter our classrooms: sand painting, rug weaving, and jewelry making. They also are exposed to dancing, singing, ritual drama, and music of all kinds. They come to us with exposure to and experience with creative processes that result in multimodal compositions!
Navajo Sand Painting
Navajo Earrings
Navajo Rug
Face-boo-king
I am troubled by the fact that new technology does change us individually and collectively, and unfortunately, often in negative ways. The medium indeed becomes the message, "that the personal and social consequences of any medium-that is, of any extension of ourselves-result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by the extension of ourselves, or by any new technology." (Understanding Media, 7) Facebook has become the message of complaint and put downs for and by many people. In some ways, people hide behind pseudo names and attack entire groups of people in generic ways without proofs. For example, many say that all politicians are corrupt and power hungry or that teachers only want money and don't care about the students. Many kind people have turned mean on Facebook, cheered on by fellow Facebookers. I guess the message is that since Facebook has become faceless for many, they can say whatever they want. Many people no longer distinguish between and respect what’s private and what’s public. Many have hung their families’ dirty laundry out on the virtual viewing line. Many also have been using four letter words to complain, and degrade others. There’s simply no respect for others. In one recent exchange, a niece responded to her aunt's post, "Say thoughts and not thots, thots are slang for hoes and whore lol." The aunt is a local leader and well respected. Like many she simply wrote something the way it sounded and her niece put her down in public. Soon families are arguing and depicting their problems in public. As one person writes something negative, others join in and before long it seems that the entire tribe is all negative.
Basketball and the Purple Cow
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I agree with DeVoss, P.G Perrin, and Peter Elbow that we need to interrogate our teaching beliefs and values so lessons from our reflections inform our teaching practices on a daily basis. (DeVoss et al. 26-27) I believe in and value student participation in the planning for and helping develop syllabuses, units, and lessons. One time my ninth graders helped me with my syllabus for their English class. They wanted to have fun and play games, so we played basketball and watched movies. After just playing basketball for about two weeks, I informed the students that we needed to stop because we were supposed to be studying English and writing. They immediately became so persuasive orally, articulating the physical, health, mental, and social reasons why we needed to continue playing basketball. Fitness literacy was born. Students read and wrote about athletes, studied their mental strategies, practices of self-discipline and teamwork, and habits of healthy eating and physical exercise. They translated these multimodal activities into alphabetic text in the form of newspapers, and flyers for sports events. They also interviewed their peer athletes as well as their parents and community members. They made videotapes of all their activities, which they showed on the local television station, The Purple Cow. Students wanted to have fun and play games, so they did and learned to be persuasive in all their research-based multimodal projects.
Unlikely Everyday Inspirations
I agree with Laura that composition often comes from moments off the screen ("I move, I write, I move"), with Amy that writing is based on moments with others ("Composing Relationships and Experiences"), and with Michael that distractions impact the writing process ("Creating a Slam Poem").
Often I do laundry with one of my children. They like to do laundry with me. They especially enjoy hanging the clothes to dry or to fold them. I would pick a old clothing item like a t-shirt with several holes in it and relate the story of how at one time we used it to wash dishes with as well as to clean a muddy windshield with. Or I would pick a old pair of Levi pants and explain the holes in it: we used it to get out of the mud. We put it underneath the spinning tire to gain traction. And many other stories that eventually became part of our family stories.
Most recently, I have been composing songs trying to calm my grandson Bryson. He would sit on my lap and I would sing old songs to him, then I would replace a word describing him with one of the words in the lyrics. In this way, I would integrate his current feisty life with enduring ancient songs of journeys of exploration and discovery, of delighting in becoming a person of greatness. His pouting distractions are a welcome addition to my collection of poems for Navajo children that I am working on.
We do make the most of our everyday lives to inspire us to compose whether it's to tell stories, write poetry, or sing songs.
Haas writes that "there is a long Western rhetorical tradition of constructing American Indians - via print, visual, oral, and digital compositions - in stereotypical, essentialized, and fetishized ways that contribute to a larger, monolithic fiction of who/what is 'the American Indian'" (Haas, 189). She is hopeful that the "decolonial digital and visual rhetoric pedagogy [will] redress the ways in which colonial histories and (mis)representations of Indianness extend to digital and visual spaces and places of inquiry" (Haas, 204). Unfortunately, the little we have gained as indigenous peoples in reclaiming rhetorical sovereignty are eclipsed by insensitive politicians and corporations. The "civilized savage" Pocahontas continues to storm the national scene. She is continued to be promoted as the hegemonic, monolithic Indian identity, especially by the president of the United States of America. President Trump depicts one of his political adversaries as Pocahontas. He even tweets,
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“Pocahontas is not happy, she’s not happy. She’s the worst. You know, Pocahontas — I’m doing such a disservice to Pocahontas, it’s so unfair to Pocahontas — but this Elizabeth Warren, I call her ‘goofy,’ Elizabeth Warren, she’s one of the worst senators in the entire United States Senate" (Trump, campaign rally in Virginia, June 10, 2016).
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Further, MAD, Disney, and Wikipedia continue to victimize and exploit the image of the daughter of a great chief for their own ends. An American Indian woman is used for comedic commentary, for entertainment and making money, and for re-crafting a story where the Indian is killed and the woman is saved. With such daunting dark forces at work, Haas's students have their work cut out for them.
Negotiation: Syllbus Creation
Creative Process
Multimodal Compositions
Student Input, Student Output
Accomodation is Celebration
Dance
Sing
Act
Draw
Paint
Sculpt
Weave
Cook
Play
Saxophone
How might we think about multimodal composing when considering universal design in our teaching, and what kinds of methods have you used/seen that prioritize accommodation?
In Navajo country, when a child with a disability is born, women celebrate, "The gods gave us a gift. Our love is challenged!"
TEAM WORK
Sincere thanks go to Wolmak, Palmeri, Arola et al.
Shipka “Multimodal Framework”; what elements of her framework sounds most useful? I believe the assessment part of the Shipka Multimodal Framework is most useful.
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I, too, find that most students learn by "testing goals through action," and by assessing their projects in meaningful and purposeful ways. When students "set their goals and make meaningful choices," they can look back on what they have done and find ways to assess what needs to be improved. The picture on the right shows Navajo youth leaders at the National Indian Health Board National Public Health Summit. By answering questions, they are re-visioning, re-imagining "their goals, the contexts, and consequences associated with their work" in public, in front of an audience of peers and health professionals (Shipka, 291). Students can make these on the spot evaluations and decisions only when they have spent ample time working on their projects. These Navajo youths are able to do orally in front of health professionals the kinds of detailed assessments of their projects what Shipka's students are able to do in writing on their goal-directed multimodal task-based projects.
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When students make their own decisions and work on projects that solve real local problems, they will do the work necessary and enjoy learning.
I'm a KATIE:
When I learned that my iPhone was such a powerful tool, which I used only for calls and texting, I got all excited. I started using the iMovie to work on what I thought was going to be a wonderful project. Then I read the Fulwiler, Middleton article. In Navajo they say, "shitsee' naakeez!" My tail dropped! I was a Katie. Text slide were emerging as prevalent in the initial stages of my video. Here are examples.
Working together using technology!
Youths learn by doing!
YOuths can learn from cartoons!
I also noticed that I was teaching, almost preaching! I also realized that I wanted all my still images aligned in a way that was clearly linear. As Katie did, I, too, was working from a script, which I started in detail about what I wanted to do. I didn't want "mode matching" - a flattened one-to-one correspondence - to prevent me "from considering the meaning-making potential of either the visual or aural modes, and thereby eliminat[ing] any role they might play in either invention or revision" (Fulwiler, Miiddleton, 47). I wanted my teaching with technology philosophy video to create a richly evocative, multimodal relationship between the visual and aural modes. So I threw out the script and what I started. I also decided just to work with my iPhone, using iMovie, to make my video. This is breaking new ground for me!
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