Multimodality State of Mind

Good morning, all my environmental advocates! I'm sorry it's been so long since I last posted. However, I think this entry will make up for it. Now, I have a question for you. Have you all heard of Jody Shipka? Yes? No? Maybe? Don't worry, she is a newer name to me as well. Jody Shipka is a rhetorician and professor by day and genius by night, at least in my humble opinion. She is revered because she helped pave the way for multimodality. Multimodality is the ability to create new works beyond the formulaic essay. Shipka encouraged her students to create interactive texts that invited readers beyond a basic essay. For example, instead of explaining gender roles in an essay, one of her students used a real doll with strategically positioned paragraphs taped onto it. This exhibit allowed the student's audience to interact and think critically about the impact gender roles have and how early they are imposed. Multimodality allows both the author and audience to think and synthesize more critically. This is guaranteed because like most things in life there also has to be accountability. That is why she curated designers statements. These statements explain the how, what when, where, and why of the piece. It talks about the purpose, potentials, and consequences that are found in an exhibit. She states it best when she says that this new form of creating, "wants to facilitate the flexibility, engagement, and meta communicative awareness demonstrated by students who pursued the representational strategies that best suited the work they hoped to accomplish." By allowing the use of multimodality, Shipka has allowed her students to think more critically and be more cognizant of their communicative skills. This is vital to us. THIS is how we should be educating the masses. We cannot save the world if we are stuck in the past. I think us environmental educators can use Shipka's advice to create new exhibits that will be far more effective than the past.