ABSTRACT
In my composition course, students engage in discussion of the “rhetoric of social commentary”—or the written, aural, visual, and performative rhetoric used when engaged in discourse on topics of social commentary—as a basis for critical analysis of print and digital sources, as well as a model for creating their own print and multimedia works, in both individual and collaborative projects.
What I have found is that by students examining the history and rhetoric of social commentary, they can better understand the evolution of technology and media as used to connect and promote discourse, and then apply the lessons and framework they learn to a more critical discussion of modern works of social commentary.
This chapter engages in discourse on the use of the collaborative multimedia project as a means to explore digital resources and spaces, using research in digital humanities, multimodal narratives, and collaborative pedagogy. I will also connect this to the measurable outcomes of a first-year writing course, and discuss how the discussion and engagement with multimedia rhetoric interpreted broadly are addressing these outcomes and engaging in discourse with the concerns of the discipline of composition.
