As I began reading Shipka’s article, I was impressed by the creativity her students displayed in their multimedia composition projects. Thinking back to my own “goal-directed multimodal task-based” assessment (the Macbeth motif project I keep returning to), I remember that I had also been surprised and impressed by my students’ creativity and self-direction. I think that students – especially given my English department’s emphasis on timed analytical writing and my school’s traditional academic focus – can become starved of opportunities to set their own goals and assume complete responsibility for the presentation of their work. Nevertheless, even those who enthusiastically embrace the freedom and potential offered by such projects recognise that they often take more time and effort than a conventional essay and can easily become “time-consuming and frustrating” (291). As Shipka notes, working multimodally tends to be “more challenging as there is often, quite literally, infinitely more stuff for students to handle” (296).
Thus, I think that more instructional scaffolding is necessary for adapting Shipka’s framework for the high school classroom. Much of our reading concerns college composition courses, and high school teachers often face a different set of institutional structures/limitations and student populations. Shipka only touches on how she scaffolds her OED assignment, mentioning that her students must generate at least three tentative plans before attending an in-class workshop. At my high school, I would have to provide initial ideas and examples for students unused to such complete freedom, and then explain how various components of the assignment's process relate to its objectives. I would also dedicate more class time to actually planning, discussing, and creating the projects.
Similarly, I would need to clearly explain the purpose and expectations of the “highly detailed written account of their work” that Shipka calls the “heads-up statement” (287), so that they are not just descriptive accounts of students’ processes. I agree with the importance of a written statement, although I question whether it sends the message that we are still prioritising alphabetic text. Nevertheless, this statement is often critical for the teacher-audience to fully understand and appreciate each product. Moreover, it prevents rushed and thoughtless work by requiring students to articulate “how, when, why, and for whom [their] goals and choices afford and constrain different potentials for knowing, acting, and interacting” (288). After all, Shipka’s framework is important in encouraging not only inquiry and true revision, but also recognition of “questions associated with materiality and delivery, reception, and circulation of texts” as not “separate from or incidental to the means and methods of production, but as integral” (301) – in other words, the medium is the message.
Finally, Shipka does not seem to address the issue of accessibility. Lindsay had the time and financial resources to select and purchase gift materials; Prakas had the prior programming knowledge to write his MC Program; Mike had friends who were incredibly generous with their time and energy, allowing him to delegate his video-making tasks. Of course, students with less access to resources are still able to create multimodal projects, but their processes may be more frustrating or limited, further perpetuating inequalities in the classroom. Thus, teachers need to keep this in mind when designing and presenting assignments that afford students complete freedom and thus responsibility.
Nevertheless, I do not wish to discount Shipka’s revolutionary idea of transforming traditional composition courses. While her assignments may not be perfectly and directly imported into high school English classes, her main idea about the potential untapped by our current alphabetic focus can inspire more meaningful and student-driven work across various contexts.