Introduction:

Initially, when thinking about this week’s update topic, I decided to write about all of the ways I incorporate multiliteracies into the online courses which I teach. However, then my mind turned to the K.I.S.S principle—Keep It Simple Stupid [or Simple Short]—which is a guiding “approach,” so to speak, to most everything I do in life. This said, Simple Stupid does not mean that one dumbs down an instructional message, a concept, or a process, for there is a difference between difficulty and complexity. For example, one can require juniors in a college course for math majors to solve a very complex problem, but that does not mean it necessarily be difficult for the “average” student in the course to solve. The K.I.S.S. principle, as applied to learning, means to minimize cognitive overload with, for example, visuals that do not support the text or vice versa, minimize test questions that are over-complicated in how they are framed—the wording—and delete extraneous information and activities that do not directly support the learning outcome(s).

The following explains the K.I.S.S. principle in terms of being an effective leader, but this is just one domain in which the principle applies:

Main Points:

So how does K.I.S.S. relate to my teaching? Well . . . with over 20 years of experience teaching in higher-education settings (I teach composition and literature, by the way), I have tried a variety of approaches, from teaching the subject through film analysis to teaching only grammar, to teaching the modes of writing (narrative, descriptive, argumentative, etc.), to requiring portfolios of work, and the list continues. However, none of these approaches engaged students in higher-order and reflective thinking, or at least I found it difficult to measure their performance in these domains.

Therefore, I decided on a mixed approach:

1)Students practice analyzing texts, watch videos of how the experts do it, read material such as article reviews, and take quizzes that consist of short-answer questions. They then write two extended essays, one requiring a rhetorical analysis of a speech or an advertisement and the other requiring a rhetorical analysis of a photograph or painting.

a. To further prepare students to meaningfully engage and deconstruct some specific elements of the “texts” (speech, ad, etc.), we first explore the grammars of each and how they work and function as individual “assets” and how they do so to collaboratively shape the text’s message (or message) and the audience’s interpretations and even actions.

b.For example, in class, we deconstruct a speech for the speaker’s cadence as related to the speaker’s physical cues, verbal cues, and non-verbal cues. The students then discuss, in small groups, how cadence and these cues relate to the rhetorical appeals and the speech’s overall message.

c.From here, but usually during the next class period, we explore the affordances and constraints of speech (related to public delivery) as compared to those of writing. This topic really engages the learners because they have never considered modalities and meaning in relation to each other. Students address such questions as, “How is a written message spatially and temporally different from an equivalent message that is spoken?” “What would change and have to change were an essay translated into a speech?” “What would this process of intermodal translation entail?”

d.From here, students then deconstruct a speech or an advertisement of their choice. If they choose a speech, then they have to record themselves “speaking” their essay: not reading from it but actually making a speech about a speech. If they choose the advertisement option, they must construct a visual “text.”

e.We then follow a similar pattern of lessons in preparation for the second essay.

2)The second element of the course is grammar; lessons about syntax, diction, and punctuation are interwoven with lessons about multimedia and rhetorical analysis. The reason for these seemingly basic lessons are (1) students, ironically, come underprepared for writing even semi-polished essays, even though academics still privileges the Western written word; (2) students need the know the basics before they can manipulate and play with the written word; (3) and, good or bad, we are judged on our ability to communicate in writing . . . an expected skill and competency.

For these lessons, students complete interactive, multimodal practice exercises and open-book quizzes. I am more interested that they practice how to research and look-up “the rules,” than I am that they have every comma usage rule committed to memory (even though it is one the canons of rhetoric). In fact, when exploring the mode of writing in comparison to other modes of communication or expression, students can further appreciate the affordances and constraints of the written word if they know the rules of the written word.

Conclusion:

One cannot appreciate the overlaps and contrasts of the colors of the morning sky and of the evening sky if one has no exposure to both. Without exploring the foundational rules of the written word and the two main modes of communication—the verbal and the pictorial—one cannot appreciate multiliteracy.

Finally, to prevent cognitive overload (or at least minimize it), I practice the K.I.S.S. principle, and the class moves slowly, but progressively through the modules or lessons. So I suppose then that part of my approach involves scaffolding, which aligns with K.I.S.S., in that the course starts with the basics and moves through the more complex to multiliteracy, with students eventually creating a multiliteracy analytical work. They examine a multimedia work and must then create their own wherein they share their interpretation of how the media and modes a particular multimodal piece work together.

One can see K.I.S.S. at work with scaffolding to teach students about and to help them create their own multimedia works. Although this principle is not part of traditional pedagogy, it is well known among instructional designers and should be embraced by instructors as a teaching and learning approach that is applicable across disciplines, subject matters, professions, and cultures!

From this course, I hope to learn even more about how media work together so that I can better inform and engage my students and measure their performance improvement.