FALL 2019
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” as a way to rally the people of that day and call for a major societal change. Dr. Phil is a show that aims at fixing conflicts through being able to hear both sides of a conversation. This genre shows both the points the clergymen were trying to make and King’s rebuttals.
When reading my script, you should try to imagine the episode unfolding. Thus, being able to see King on television and picturing his possible expressions and gestures should help emphasize every word he says.
Reflection: Through these projects, I learned a lot about how to identify and use different modes and genres through digital sources. In Martin Luther King Jr.’s letter, I was able to identify the rhetorical appeals that he used such as ethos, pathos, logos, Kairos, structure, and biblical references. I was also able to turn it into a digital version using modes such as aural, linguistic, and gestural.
By integrating the aural mode, the viewer can watch the episode and hear the constant changes in King’s tone of voice. Moreover, he puts emphasis on certain parts of his speech that he is most passionate about such as his run-on sentence about waiting. The linguistic mode is defined as the way the speaker delivers their text. The conversational aspect of this episode was how I incorporated this mode. Finally, in order to incorporate the gestural mode, the reader of my script must be able to imagine the episode that I created. His facial expressions would most likely convey concern and a little bit of hurt – especially when talking about his family. Furthermore, every time he used the word “you,” he could be pointing at the audience, the clergymen, or even Dr. Phil himself.
This project did not reach a digital platform itself, so it did not really add to my digital identity. However, it did expose me to the preliminary requirements needed to create my digital tattoo. It also showed me what I need to incorporate to captivate whatever audience I am trying to reach.
This is a visual representation of the progression of my personal literacy narrative. More specifically, I go from the innocent middle school idea of literacy to the generic high school development of understanding literacy, and finally to my most recent college experience with writing in a new format.
Reflection: My literacy narrative was the first multimodal project I have ever done. I learned how the linguistic and aural modes and chronology can bring a piece of work together. The linguistic mode in any work is all about the word choice, delivery of text, organization of text, and coherence of ideas. Using the aural mode as the delivery of my text gave me freedom to communicate with the audience in a more personal way than just writing an essay. I organized my artifact drawings to be in chronological order so that there was a coherence of ideas that developed as I aged and learned new things about literacy. Other multimodal areas I incorporated were the use of differentiating colors, the speed of my video, and framing to emphasize the visual mode component and keep the audience engaged in the drawing of my life.
While creating this artifact, I learned more about not only creating a digital and multimodal project but also about how it would be viewed by others. My story telling ability and the tone of my voice creates an identity for me through this project. The different colors of my drawings show how I felt about each part of my literacy adventure and shows how my writing identity developed. Furthermore, the intricacy of this multimodal project can represent how much my digital identity and skills have developed.
Personally, I hold a lot of value and pride in my sorority, and I wanted to find out more about its origins. When I found the mention of our first Alpha Gam president here at Longwood, Dixie Hilliard, I was hooked on finding out more about her. After gathering all of my information, I thought it would be a fun idea to “spotlight” Ms. Hilliard on our very own Alpha Gamma Delta Instagram page.
The point of the post is to show how involved a student can get on campus and to encourage onlookers to do so as well. I posted it on the Alpha Gamma Delta Instagram page because it reaches a multitude of audiences and shows how much we, as an organization, are involved on campus, even back in the 1960s.
Reflection: The last project in this course was the biggest leap into my digital tattoo. This is because I actually had the opportunity to post this project online. I collected pictures of the various organizations Dixie Hilliard was in and compiled them to showcase her involvement on campus. The biggest rhetorical appeal I used was the arrangement of the photos. The arrangement of the photos caters to what students at Longwood may see as more involved on campus over other things. For example, she is an Alpha Gam alum, so that is the first and foremost picture. Then, I lead into the following pictures of her on the College Panhellenic Council, the sports teams, and even the honors fraternity she was in.
Being able to actually post this on Instagram was a very cool experience for me. People will actually view and interact with the post every day for as long as it is on the Instagram page. It was also posted on the Longwood Alpha Gamma Delta Facebook page which will make it easier for the other Alpha Gamma Delta alumni to see it.
Now that I have been introduced to, refined, and ultimately posted using the skills that go into creating a digital tattoo, I know how to progress my digital identity in the future. I can use the modes, genres, and rhetorical techniques that I have learned throughout this class to appeal to each type of audience that I encounter in different digital spaces.