Theory and practice

Poetry and Multimodality:

Modes Outside of Digital Spaces

Poems on the Page

Some people think that the best poets write their deepest feelings on the page with little to no forethought. When I first began writing poetry, my process looked a little something like this: I would sit down, think about how the world had troubled me anew that day (how my friends didn’t play with me at recess; how my cat ran away when I pet him), and then I would just slap the abstractions of those emotions down with my pen—poets always must write with pens, of course. I did not think about how the poem looked on the page, how it sounded when read aloud, or even the senses it could evoke through vivid imagery. I was focused on freeing my feelings (why oh why could I not hold you, Kitty-kitty?), not on the framing of them. What I was doing might as well have been journaling, which there’s nothing wrong with, but most people don’t dream of sharing or publishing their personal journals.

Mood vs. Mode

I was thinking more about emotion than I was about the actual effectiveness of my poems. While emotion is a big part of any writing (yes, even academic writing), it cannot be the sole component. To communicate in the most beneficial manner, you have to consider the use of different modes—the possible ways in which we can communicate.  

There are five modes of communication: visual, spatial, gestural, aural, and (of course) linguistic. I, like many other young writers, fell into the pattern of only considering the ways that abstract language could convey emotions within my pieces. Little did I know that the sounds of that language, the visual considerations of my lines on the page, and even the imagery within my poems could make those emotions become more tangible, more understandable, and more impactful for audiences and readers.

Make Way for Multimodality

Poetry, then, is far more effective when writers think of it as being multimodal. In fact, all forms of communication are ultimately multimodal. When we speak, we often use gestures to further our point; when we write a performance-based piece, such as a play or a podcast episode, we know that linguistic elements have to be involved in that writing process. There is no other way. Multimodality is within all that we do and create. Because of this ubiquity, we as instructors must make it a primary goal to communicate the possibilities, the benefits, and the nuances of multimodality to our students. Many educators have, thankfully, risen to the challenge of acknowledging and incorporating multimodality through the use of digital mediums within the classroom. This very blog post I’m currently writing, in fact, is the result of such online and multimodal considerations within teaching.  

The rise of the Digital Age has, in fact, had an overwhelmingly profound impact on composition pedagogy. The videos, instant newscasts, streaming platforms, and other forms of digital storytelling that surround each and every one of us do, undoubtedly, involve multiple modes just like everything else we consume, but the prevalence of the Internet in societal, personal, and professional spaces has made digital media a sort of juggernaut within the multimodal realm. My professor, Dr. Haimes Korne—the one who has prompted this post—writes in her article “Trailblazing in the Frontier Zone: Advice for Multimodal Pioneers” that educators who have embraced multimodal classrooms are “trailblazers”  who “forged trails in this uncharted terrain and learned much through [many] incremental steps and discoveries. Most importantly, these teacher/scholars have left markers along the way for those who are ready to explore” (169-170).  There is notable mention of digital significances within her writing, but I find that Dr. Haimes-Korn's promotion of exploration here and throughout the rest of her piece account for explorations well beyond online spaces.

Distancing the Digital 

It is undeniable that the Internet has had unimaginable impacts on our everyday functions, and students can absolutely make YouTube videos, write online reviews, or create informative social media posts to study elements of rhetoric and English composition in ways that become increasingly relevant to their future plans and positions. Effective writing can be found within all of these digitally-focused exercises. However, because classroom multimodality has become so intertwined with online or virtual-based compositions, there is a dangerous misconception pointed out by scholar Jody Shipka that multimodal texts and digital or “screen-mediated” texts are largely one and the same (8).  

As I said before, all forms of communication are, indeed, multimodal, but something becomes lost when teachers think only of how modes can be presented online. Shipka’s lament showcases how our habit of associating multimodality more strongly with digital texts than with any others is, in fact, a very limiting practice (7-8). Student explorations of multimodality should be as nuanced and varied as the different modes themselves have always been. Multimodality goes back as far as woodcut illustrations for children’s stories, and even further still. The Internet has created an age of bright, glaring spectacle, and that is something classrooms should represent, of course. But could we use other forms to teach some of the subtler means of multimodality so that students could build a solid foundation for understanding even the most minute considerations of compositional modes? Choosing vibrant colors for slides or sound effects for a recording are acts that offer their own sets of knowledge and awareness within modernity, but what about even simpler considerations? They can be impactful too. What about the fact that paragraphs that look just a little too long on the page can affect readers? What about the fact that words with too many syllables might create a different tonal atmosphere than what the writer was intending? 

If students can begin to answer these questions and build on their multimodal literacies within a variety of subtle and/or unique contexts, then they will be all the more prepared to enter virtual composing spaces with informed perspectives.

Should We Be Content with Creating Content? 

An overemphasis on digital forms of writing can also lead to thinking of writing exclusively in terms of profit-driven or interaction-oriented internet content (Dush). While there is nothing wrong with viewing certain forms of writing as business or analytics-based tools (and this is certainly something for English composition classes to begin addressing in this tech-driven world), the writer in me—who is at once the same as the learner, the artist, and the human in me—knows that writing must be more than this, even from a scholarly standpoint. All scholars and teachers write from a place of care, of passion, and yes, of love. Dr. Lisa Dush mirrors my sentiment in her article “When Writing Becomes Content” when she says that “[w]riting is connected to many things we value, and perhaps even love: books, authors, pens on paper, memories. Not so content” (191).

Poetic Meters and Modes 

To ensure that students see the many forms and layers of multimodality, and to help them even see some of the unabstracted beauty of writing—even as it stands as a necessary tool for business and an ever-more digitalized society—I would like to propose that instructors use poems as introductory tools to diverse modes. 

Within my shadowing course, I have used poetry as a tool for teaching about rhetorical messages and audience awareness, and I have seen impressive results with how students engage with such lessons that feature poetry. 

I would suggest creating a lesson around short poems that use simple vocabulary, such as the works of William Carlos Williams, because this will help keep students from becoming too overwhelmed with poetic language and length. Have students analyze a piece like “This Is Just to Say” by asking them to consider the use of different modes within the poem. They can talk about the different effects that the visual aspects of the poem have (such as the line breaks, the lack of punctuation, and the stanzas), they can talk about the way that the imagery adds to or mimics and combines certain modes, and they can then read the poem aloud to focus on the aural aspects (the pauses the poem permits, the way the words sound altogether, the rhythm or lack thereof that the poem creates, etc.).

Then, to connect the lesson to digital spaces once a foundational knowledge of modalities has been formed, students can listen to and discuss this recording of Adam Driver reading the poem:  

Now, dear reader, I’m off to pet my cat. Or to write about my woes. The ball is in his court, but thankfully, I’ve got enough modality experience to be ready either way.