Weekly Response: Selfe's "The Movement of Air, the Breath of Meaning: Aurality and Multimodal Composing"

Selfe is arguing that FYW and Composition courses need to include other modes of communication besides writing. I am most certain that they contain discussion and often presentations. Many colleges now use CMS that allow for digital reading and writing, videos, tweets, linked readings, and online references. I understand her argument: that students now create aural compositions. If they are doing this on their own, do they need more in-class instruction? Why teach them what they already know? It seems that their writing skills are significantly weaker than their media skills. I have noticed that while students write electronically, compose in mixed media, and read tweets and texts, they lack the ability to read deeply and write clearly. Therefore, that is where teachers should be focusing their efforts in the classroom. Can we use pieces of other modalities? Sure, but they should not be the focus.

Weekly Response: Yancey's "Made Not Only in Words"

Yancey poses thought-provoking questions about writing at the beginning of this paper.

In the first "quartet" of her address to the CCCC, she talks about all the writing that is going on outside of school, and how the public is awakening to writing as the public awoke to reading during the industrial revolution. She references shifts in monetary allotment from schools to students, and how this changes education. She then discusses changes in writing, and that literacy is now screen based and media oriented.