Hello, and welcome back to my blog. My second blog post is going to focus on creating my website for my English composition I class. We are going to discuss why we are making a website, get some insight on how multimodal modes affect our writing and also get into detail about how certain modes of writing can influence your readers point of view on your essays. We will also discuss CRAP and how it relates to our website content.
For more information on how to make a website or how to make your website successful you can visit: For more information on Multimodal writing, or if you wanted to form your own opinion you can visit: Why are we creating a website for our English Composition I course? We are creating a website because as writers there are different things that stand out to each of us individually. I also believe we are creating a website to be able to, not only write about certain things, but also be able to show a visual, give the reader something to look at besides just words. Some writers are more into pictures and videos over text, some are opposite. Having a website gives us all a chance to depict our writing in a way that we think is best. How do Ball and Charlton define "multimodal" writing? Ball and Charlton define multimodal writing as “Multiple+mode” They believe that every type of writing is considered multimodal and that all writing includes a combination of either these five modes; Linguistic, Gestural, Spatial, Aural and Visual. Do you agree with Ball and Charlton when they claim "all writing is multimodal"? I do agree that all writing is multimodal. When I am reading something I am never just reading. If I am engaged, am painting a picture in my head of what I am writing or reading. I think visual representation of a writing piece is a really important part of the writing process. The modes that they discuss in this read are all important parts of any good writing experience. As a website author who will create your own web page content in this course, how would you rank the importance of the five modes on a scale of 1-5? Please provide a brief rationale to support each mode ranking. As a website author I believe the most important modes rank from 1 being the most important to 5 being the least important. I would rank Spatial as being my first important mode. It sets a layout to your work, and I believe that if I was to go read something and it was all messy, unorganized with no structure I would get lost and would no longer be interested in whatever I am reading. Linguistic mode would be next on my list, the language you are using and what you are saying is what you are trying to describe to the reader. Your choice of words, the way you describe your story and what you are trying to portray from the way you are writing is very important. Visual would be the mode that comes in 3rd. When explaining something or telling a story I feel as though pictures and videos may help to describe what you cannot describe with words. For example, let's say you were talking about a news broadcast, it may be more interesting to the reader to actually view the same broadcast and fully understand the context rather than just reading words about it. Coming in 4th place the aural mode. Sounds, music and noises may be helpful when trying to explain a story, if you're trying to help the reader fully understand the situation you are speaking about you are going to want them to hear what you heard in the same surrounding you were in to give them a better understanding, also trying to have them understand the tone of voice used. Lastly, I think gestural mode comes into play. I believe this comes in as the last important mode because as it is used in writing it mostly comes into play when having a face to face conversation with another person. Gestural is using your hands, interaction and body language and while you can portray that in your writing, I think it is more important in day to day human contact rather than writing. What does the C.R.A.P. acronym stand for? The "C.R.A.P" acronym stands for: C: Contrast- Making things stand out R: Repetition- Makes reading a website easier (I.E- Same color text, bullets, lists ETC.) A: Alignment- Aligning texts to make things look neat and give an easier read. P: Proximity- Things that are associated with each other are put together, helps with navigation and spacing. As a website author who will create your own web page content in this course, how would you rank the importance of the four C.R.A.P. principles of design on a scale of 1-4? Please provide a brief rationale to support each design principle ranking. I feel for a website to have any type of success all aspects of CRAP are very important but if I was to personally put them in order according to importance I would say Contrast is first, Alignment is second, Repetition is third and lastly would have to be proximity. The reason I say contrast is most important is because if I was to click on a website and there were bright colors and it was interesting I would stay on that website and explore it. If i was to click on a website that was just black and white and boring I would instantly want to click off. Alignment comes in second for me because when I do click on a website I am immediately interested if it is something organized and has a structure, a big mess of random writing everywhere would confuse me and turn me off the website. Repetition comes in 3rd, it was very close to alignment for me because of what I mentioned about an organized website. Bullet points, lists and structure make me want to stay on a website, if it is easy for me to read and keep me interested I will want to keep reading. Last but not least, we have proximity. This one comes in last to me because I feel the others are more important but this one is least to me. Proximity is association of text, putting certain things together with one another to make the website easier to navigate, but I feel as though even when certain things are not put together on a website, it is fairly easy to find them when reading through a page. What are the seven sample criteria Borton and Huot suggest writers use to assess a multimodal composition? Borton and Huot suggest that to write a multimodal composition you have to have Purpose, Audience, Tone, Organized, Transitions, Synthesize and detailed. Do the Borton-and-Huot criteria seem similar or different from the criteria we would use to assess a traditional print essay? Why or why not? I think the Borton and Huot criteria is very similar to the criteria we use today to assess and essay. I think this because when we go to write an essay today we usually have a prompt or a specific question we are required to answer to write the essay giving the composition a purpose. When writing a composition you will more than likely choose words more wisely depending on who you know is going to read your writing. For example, if you were writing an essay for your teacher, you would not word the essay the same way you would if you were writing it for a friend, your writing style will depend on your audience. Going back to what I said prior about audience, your tone will also come into play when writing an essay, giving the reader an idea of how you are speaking. Organization in an essay is extremely important as well, when starting a new paragraph you always indent it to let the reader know that you are proceeding with a new topic in that paragraph, it keeps the essay flowing and gives it structure. Transitions also plays into organization in my eyes, like I said about indenting a paragraph. You can also use wording to transition your ideas along your essay. When you complete your last paragraph you will most likely include words like “In conclusion” letting the reader know that your essay is coming to an end. Synthesizing in an essay basically to me means that you are showing proof and providing evidence to claims that you are making in your writing. Your writing includes facts, research and citation to credit the original writer while also including your own opinions and research. Last but not least, when you are writing an essay you will always include detail to paint a picture for your reader. You will explain noises, sounds, give examples to your reader to give them an idea of what you are trying to say while not being able to physically show them.
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Ashley GaylorI use this blog as a place to reconnect with my author self Archives
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