Writing and New Technologies
EXAMINING MULTIMODAL COMPOSING PRACTICES IN AN INTERCULTURAL WRITING CLASS IN TURKEY: EMPIRICAL DATA ON STUDENT NEGOTIATIONS
EXAMINING MULTIMODAL TEXTS IN AN INTERCULTURAL WRITING CLASS IN TURKEY: POTENTIAL SPACES FOR STUDENT NEGOTIATIONS
Maria Pilar Milagros
Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey
Academic Writing instructors in intercultural contexts can aid writers with intercultural backgrounds learn to communicate in our global community and negotiate classroom “border spaces” in various ways. Firstly, we should create classroom spaces wherein students compose texts that engage in negotiations among personal, local identities while also acquiring certain global identity traits. Secondly, we could also design activities and assignments that promote students’ active participation in their learning process so they can bridge gaps between acquired knowledge and prior life experiences and knowledge (Greenhow, Robelia, & Hughes 2009). Finally, we need to encourage students not only to consume but also to produce knowledge while using all the technology that has become an integral part of their lives (George, 2002; Trimbur, 2002). Objective Utilizing activities that incorporate technology and new media in our classrooms as research tools to discover how we can construct aforementioned classroom spaces. Encouraging intercultural students to create knowledge via multimodal texts wherein students’ prior knowledge is valued and incorporated. Results This proposal examines intercultural writers’ use and understanding of technology in an advanced academic writing class. Results report on rhetorical and discourse analysis on students’ multimodal texts and selfassessment to identify strategies students utilized to engage in negotiations. Issues of access, culture, gender and religion are examined as important identity traits that may be affected by/negotiated through the use of technology. Empirical results presented aim to help academic writing instructors in intercultural contexts understand how students may engage in negotiations of identity traits and classroom borders.
References
Greenhow, C., Robelia, B., & Hughes, J. E. (2009). ‘Learning, teaching, and scholarship in a digital age: Web 2.0 and classroom research: What path should we take now?’ Educational Researcher 38 [online] (4), 246259. available from <edr.sagepub.com> [20 August 2014]
George, D. (2002). ‘From analysis to design: Visual communication in the teaching of writing’. College Composition and Communication [online] 54 (1), 1139. available from <www.ncte.org/cccc/ccc/issues/v541> [1 January 2014]
Trimbur, J. (2002). ‘Delivering the message: Typography and the materiality of writing’. in Rhetoric and Composition as Intellectual Work. ed. by Olson, G. Carbondale, IL and Edwardsville, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 188202.