I begin my introductory first year composition courses with a multimodal project. I do this for a few reasons: first, it broadens student understanding of composition between alphabetic text, 12 point font, on and 81/2 x 11 piece of paper. Second, it introduces them to new technologies that I share with them as tools for composing their projects. Third, it serves as a building block for the semester in the sense that students can apply the visual elements they learned about in later, more traditional, compositions. Additionally, the project the student construct is a visual literacy narrative which means they are first writing about and analyzing a part of themselves. This is another building block for the semester.

Visual Literacy Narrative Assignment

  Below you will find the visual literacy narrative assignment sheet I provide to my students.

Visual Literacy Narrative Student Examples

  Below you will find two example student visual literacy narratives.

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Visual Essay Tools

  The tools for visual essays are rather endless. This is a list of many of the things my students have used and programs I show them: Windows Movie Maker, Imovie, PowerPoint, Adobe Flash, Photoshop, Microsoft Word 2007, and Youtube.

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