Old Breadcrumbs in New Bread: Constru...

Old Breadcrumbs in New Bread: Constructing New Literacies from Familiar Materials

    In 1999, Michael Spooner and Kathleen Blake Yancey, under the constructed voice/persona, Myka Vielstimmig, explored the pedagogical implications of electronic media on composition in their collaborative "new essay," "Petals on a Wet Black Bough: Textuality, Collaboration, and the New Essay." Their conception of the new essay stems from the collaborative ethos of internet writing (91) and is defined by a different logic than that of the traditional, "old," linear academic essay: "The new essay seems to have its own logic: intuitive, associative, emergent, dialogic, multiple--one grounded in working together and in re/presenting that working together" (90). Vielstimmig argue(s) that internet communication has given rise to a new kind of essay, and thus a new kind of literacy, that combines rhetoric and poetic, is collaborative, is visual as well as textual, and that leaves traces of its own process of creation within the materiality of the final product. How can those of us in Rhetoric and Composition and in English Studies at large build a bridge for our students that connects "traditional" text-based literacy with this new kind of digital literacy? I argue that teaching the critical reading and creation of the comic book and graphic novel form can be that bridge, ideally allowing transport between traditional and newer digital forms of literacy.
   
    Vielstimmig's title belies that this associative mode of understanding is not entirely new. They allude to Ezra Pound's poem, "In a Station of the Metro," and in fact quote it in its entirety interspersed between their own dialogue-paragraphs. Poems are often associative, and they certainly do not rely on the world-wide-web or digital technology for their production. Vielstimmig admit(s) as much later in the essay: "my suggestion is that we are 'trained' associatively in consumption--we are trained to read poetry and fiction" (109). Those in English Studies should therefore be quite versed in associative literacy. In fact, Anne Wysocki offers a definition of "new media texts" that can include a range of texts outside and within digital media forms:
        I think we should call "new media texts" those that have been made by composers who are aware of the range of materialities of texts and         who then highlight the materiality: such composers design texts that help readers/consumers/viewers stay alert to how any text--like its            composers and readers--doesn't function independently of how it is made and in what contexts. (15)
So, according to Wysocki, not only might the range of new media texts include texts that do not make any use of the digital, but also they may not include all texts that are digitally constructed. She advocates a critical creative process that is aware of itself within its creation. So, for instance, if I type up a word document and then cut and paste it into a blog or webpage (see slide 1 and 2), this may not constitute a new media text according to her definition. Of course, to some degree the material conditions of the text are obvious. I had to have used a computer and internet access in order to create this text. But the text itself is not highlighting the material condition of being a web-text because it is not making use of the technology available as a web-text, nor is it making use of the associative logic that web-texts lend themselves to through hyperlinking. It is the same as a document printed on paper, except that you read it on a screen.
    
    Though this definition of new-media is sufficiently broad to include the comic/graphic novel form, it does not highlight a very important part of digital media literacy: the visual. Gunther Kress argues that "the visual is taking over many of the functions of written language" and therefore English Studies must address visual literacy as well as textual literacy (68). Cynthia Selfe also argues that teachers of composition can begin to address "new media" texts (here her definition seems more focused on digital media) through teaching visual literacy (66). Digital media invite visual composition and require visual literacy. Selfe defines visual literacy this way:
        the ability to read, understand, value, and learn from visual materials (still photographs, videos, films, animations, still images, pictures,            drawings, graphics)--especially as these are combined to create a text--as well as the ability to create, combine, and use visual elements            (e.g., colors, forms, lines, images) and messages for the purposes of communicating. (69)
Our students must understand how to read visual texts and how to create them. Additionally, taking Wysocki's definition into account, they must learn how to notice the materiality of these texts, and to include such awareness into the creation of their own texts. Add to that an understanding of associative logic, that Vielstimmig suggest(s), and our students have a lot to learn, as do we.
   
    Although, as Kress argues, the "visual turn" is affecting texts even outside the digital realm, texts that make use of the visual as well as the textual did not emerge with the advent of computers. Kress argues that the role of the visual has taken on the function of carrying meaning, when in the past its function alongside text was as illustration only. However, comics and graphic novels have always been communicating meaning through the visual and the textual, as well as through the white space ("gutters") between panels. In doing so, they are also making use of the associative mode of communication that Vielstimmig advocates in the "new essay" Even when they are narrative in structure, the comic form forces readers to make associations between the images presented, the words chosen, and the blank space between, in order to understand what is being communicated from panel to panel. Robert Watkins's video, "Words Are the Ultimate Abstraction: towards using Scott McCloud for teaching visual rhetoric," uses many different media to illustrate and argue that we must teach new media literacy through new media composition, and he begins his exploration with Scott McCloud's book, Understanding Comics, which Watkins uses in composition courses to teach visual rhetoric. Comics are, of course, texts that make use of the visual as well as the textual. They are also collaborative, in the spirit of Vielstimmig's brand of "new essay." So, comic books can serve as the bridge we need to get students and ourselves across the digital waters and back again, through offering a framework for viewing and creating new digital media as well as reinforcing some of the organizational and rhetorical skills needed for more traditional essays.
   
    Scott McCloud's book, Understanding Comics, enacts visual rhetoric while teaching the visual literacy needed for understanding comics. It is written in graphic novel form, so all of the critical theories are immediately reinforced with visual applications, and therefore it could be a very useful tool in a classroom examining comic books and/or graphic novels. Aside from introducing the reader/student to the techniques, terminology, and rhetorical choices that are particular to the comic genre, McCloud raises questions that are applicable to visual literacy in general, and he outlines a comic structure/process which reinforces skills any composer/writer must use. For instance, McCloud deals very early on with the separation of signified from signifier. He labels "any image used to represent a person, place, thing or idea" an "icon," consciously avoiding the term "symbol" because he considers it "loaded," as might our students (26-7). This could open a productive conversation of visual rhetoric and how icons are used to persuade us. McCloud also identifies a "path" that comics and other media follow, which consists of six steps: "idea/purpose" (analogous to thesis or theme); "form" (meaning which form of art: comic, essay, poem?); "idiom" (analogous to genre within the form: i.e. personal essay v. argumentative essay); "structure" (read organization); "craft" (particular skills needed); and "surface," defined as "the aspects most apparent on first superficial exposure to the work" (170-71). This path can be taught as a heuristic for understanding comics, and also as a path toward creation of any "new media text."

II. Application
    I suggest that students should be reading graphic novels critically, using the terminology and concepts taught in McCloud's book, and that subsequently they should be invited to create comics of their own, making use of their new found rhetorical-reading knowledge in rhetorical composing. Through doing this, they will learn visual literacy and rhetoric, how to read and create "new media texts" as Wysocki understands them, as well as attain some digital media skills and literacy. Also, to include one of the key aspects of Vielstimmig's definition of the "new essay," students should work on these collaboratively; comics after all are usually also produced through collaboration of various artists and writers. How do I see this happening in the classroom?
   
    After becoming familiar with the form of the graphic novel and the comic book, students would move on to planning their own projects, answering the six questions laid out in McCloud's six-step path to creation. They must decide what they are hoping to communicate, the form this will take, the idiom within that form, the structure, the craft-skills needed (and subsequently perhaps a way of defining roles within the group as well as defining their limitations), and finally what they hope their final project will look like (the surface). It would be additionally useful to introduce concepts from McCloud's subsequent book, Making Comics, in which he identifies some particular choices a comic-maker must make. These are: "choice of moment" (panel to panel transitions, what is left out?); "choice of frame" (like camera angle); "choice of image" (What image is necessary to communicate the message or action?); "choice of word" (when and what words are necessary); and "choice of flow" (the intended order for the reader/viewer to follow) (8-57). With these tools, students would engage in traditional as well as new composing practices. In storyboarding their potential comic, they are making use of a common planning strategy for many forms of composition. As they move into their choices of material and technology, they will themselves be aware of the materiality of their composition, and these material constraints will no doubt affect their original storyboard. In a moment, I will take you through a website colleagues and I designed that includes comic transformations of our own poetry. This tour will hopefully illustrate the process I am describing.
   
    Before I take you on this tour, I want to ask the question: Aside from rhetoric, how can introducing comics and digital technology be useful to other branches of English Studies? Graphic novels are, of course, fiction. Understanding their construction can help students understand narrative structure on a broader level in the forms of stories, novels, plays and films. Practicing their creation will also be useful within the field of creative writing, as much planning is involved as well as creativity. A less obvious connection, but one I'd like to make, is to the consumption and production of poetry.
   
    In November of 2008, Mary McVee, Nancy M. Bailey, and Lynn E. Shanahan offered a case study of a graduate education student who was required in their course to offer a digital interpretation of a poem through the use of Power Point. This class was not required to create a comic, but they were required to communicate their interpretations through visual, verbal, and digital means. McVee et.al. see poetry as already multi-modal (like digital media texts) in that it makes use of sound, text, and visual presentation on the page. They write:
        What is new is that digital media offer new potentials and possibilities for poetry as performance and interpretation because digital                    environments provide tools that allow composers to engage with the multimodalities of poetry in new ways. By engaging in what Lanham            refers to as 'the rich signal' of digitally created sound, color, video, animation, and image, composers can efficiently and quickly create                meaning through layering and combining multiple sign systems (114).
They see digital media as opening new access to poetry for students who have been reluctant consumers of poetry in the past. The case study examines Laura, a student who interpreted Walt Whitman's "A Noiseless Patient Spider" through the use of personal video clips, music, images from the movie Spiderman, and personal reflection. Through the poem and all the media, she connects herself to Spiderman to Whitman. You can view her project at their website, multimodalpoetry.org.
   
    But how can comics or digital media relate to creating poetry? Though Laura from this case study is not creating poetry, she offers an insight that might be applicable to student poets: "But the computer has a very open mind. Because Google cannot differentiate between a figurative meaning and a literal meaning, the Internet becomes an interesting metaphor machine" (123). In the process of searching for images of spiders for her presentation, she stumbled upon images of Spiderman, leading her to make the personal connection she eventually makes with the poem. A student creating poetry might also be inspired by the visual metaphors the internet and comics can provide.
   
    I would like now to show you a very specific example of how the comic form can be used to bridge the digital waters and in this specific case, how it might be used in conjunction with poetry. [I will now take audience on quick tour of Erratic Poeticomic Site and discuss my own and our group's process in creating the site and the comics. In particular, I wish to point out the specific rhetorical opportunities that opened up because of the visual/comic form, and because of the technology we were using. I will also provide a list of some of the useful software available for making webcomics and for creating comic images from photographs]
   
    I would like to end with this quote from McVee et. al., that I have commented on within our website:
        Although at times the technology glitches or learning curve frustrated participants, they learned to see the computer as software programs         not as technical skills they must learn for the sake of 'learning technology' but as mediators that helped them create signs used for                    communicative purposes. (132)

 In a very real way, I feel our computers and the software we have been using have collaborated with us on this project. For instance, in our blog I posted my first page of a comic, which was hand-drawn, scanned, and then minimally digitally refined. I was not pleased with it, not just because my artistic skills are limited but also because I wasn't really using digital media to create the images. Though learning to use Illustrator, Photoshop and their freeware counterparts have been very frustrating sometimes, and have meant I have spent hours learning how to do something before even creating an image, once I got the hang of it, the software opened up new possibilities for creating images and therefore new rhetorical choices. As a group, we became interested in creating comics partly because two of us had discovered the Comic Life application on our Mac Books, and so the option was suddenly possible. Our computers have been opening up rhetorical choices for us all along the way, and in that way have been collaborating with us. (http://www.skullsaflame.com/poeticomic/poetindex.html)

    This quote and observation highlights the way that the material conditions of composing influences our product, as Wysocki argues. I believe in our creation of this website and the comics within it, we are new media texts according to her definition, and their creation did lead to a new awareness of visual and digital literacy in myself and my colleagues.

Lydia McDermott
Ohio University

Works Cited

Kress, Gunther. "English at the Crossroads." Passions, Pedagogies and 21st Century Technologies. Eds. Hawisher and Selfe. Logan: Utah State UP, 1999.      
McCloud, Scott. Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels. NY: Harper, 2006.
----. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. NY: Harper, 1994.
McVee, Mary B., Nancy M. Bailey and Lynn E. Shanahan. "Using Digital Media to Interpret Poetry: Spiderman Meets Walt Whitman." Research in the Teaching of English 43 (2): 112-143. 2008.
Selfe, Cynthia. "Toward New Media Texts: Taking Up the Challenges of Visual Literacy." Writing New Media. Eds. Wysocki, Johnson-Eilola, Selfe, and Sirc. Logan: Utah State UP, 2004. 43-66.
Watkins, Robert. "Words Are the Ultimate Abstraction: towards using Scott McCloud for teaching visual rhetoric." <http://www.bgsu.edu/cconline/convergence/media/watkins-cite.mov>. Sept. 25, 2008.
Wysocki, Anne Frances. "Opening New Media to Writing: Openings and Justifications." Writing New Media. Eds. Wysocki, Johnson-Eilola, Selfe, and Sirc. Logan: Utah State UP, 2004. 43-66.