Literacy in the 21st Century

one of my favorite moments in Cathy’s book is where she hurries past Bush Man, “the weird guy at Pier 43 who hides behind the lamp-poles and jumps out at people” (106).  She avoids his shananigans by glaring at him over her sunglasses and pretending to reach into her purse for a can of pepper spray.  here’s a clip of the famous Bush Man for anyone who is interested.

well, i don’t want to spoil my presentation, but here are a few links in case you’d like to check them out:

Cathy’s Book (of course)

Cathy’s Book on Wikipedia (yes, i did just do that)

definition of pinged

Bay Area Rapid Transit (yay for BART)

 bay area² codes

gung hay fat choy

Spirited Away - Crossing the Bridge

Manga Moods

Guide for School Librarians

Reading Cathy’s Book got me thinking about multiliterate and/or multimodal works of art and how each moving part contributes to the overall whole. First, I started wondering what Cathy’s Book would be like as a film. Although much of its multiliteracy would be lost, what would be gained? How about a soundtrack? And that got me thinking, what would the soundtrack to the movie version of Cathy’s Book be? And that got me thinking, soundtracks can be an example of multimodality in art. And that got me thinking, what are some examples of films with a soundtrack that is truly effective? 

I thought Garden State was a pretty good film. A little self-indulgent, but funny and at times even poignant and moving. But I really liked the soundtrack. It was a strange experience the first time I heard it; it was like remembering. I had never heard some of the songs before, but once I did, it was like encountering an old friend after a long time of being apart. What is it that great art does, makes the new familiar and the familiar new? It was interesting to read that Zach Braff chose the soundtrack based on the songs he was listening to when he wrote the script. This could be why each song seems to fit so well. 

This leads me to another point. I grew up in a very musical household. My dad is very musically literate, and we always had something on the stereo. I can highlight a dozen songs as essentially being the soundtrack of my childhood. So, as we got older, my sisters and developed a refined and diverse taste of music. We also can become territorial, nay bitter, about sharing our discoveries with unworthies. 

I don’t want to give  a list of my top albums of all time, top songs, etc. Maybe another time. I do, however, want to share some recent discoveries in the spirit of charity and generosity in hopes of sparking some musical dialogue on this blog. If you’re not musically inclined, that’s fine. Just no Britney Spears songs, OK? (only if you have to, in which case I might have to make an emergency burned CD with certain musical fundamentals.)

I swear I’m not a music snob. 

Recent Albums I’ve purchased/listened to:

Solid Gold, Bodies of Water

French Miami, French Miami

Toots & the Maytals, Funky Kingston and The Very Best of Toots and the Maytals

Thievery Corporation, The Cosmic Game

Amadou & Mariam, Sou ni tile

Enjoy!

Last week, as we were leaving class, I had so much to say.  I’ll save it for the blog I thought.  But somehow, I let the whole week pass with no post.  And now in the final hour, I have nothing left to say.  Inspiration fizzled.  Things that seemed interesting a week ago now seem dull. Mostly, this week I have been reading and reading about Manga, but I don’t want to write anything about that here - want to save it for my presentation.

Here is something I thought might be interesting to hear from people.  As we discussed The Mutiliteracies Project last week, it sounded as though Richard didn’t fully approve of his Texas education.  I am wondering how others might feel about their educations.  If you take EDU courses, as some point someone is going to ask you to write an educational biography.  I wrote mine in 1992.  It was 22 pages long and wonderfully self-indulgent.  They all were.  For weeks, as we presented our papers, it was like we were inventing reality TV.  Except it was the 90’s.  So it was the Confessional Memoir.  One girl wrote about how a school bus accident, killing 40 kids, brought the whole student population together for about a week, melting away the cliques.  Another girl wrote about how she grew up in NYC.  Her father owned a jazz club.  She met BB king and Dan Akroid and watched celebrities doing coke when she was 13.  So the question is this:  In a nutshell, what would the biography of your education include?

Hey guys…

I have been pondering this for a few weeks and since I couldn’t think up a really great blog post for this week, I thought I would throw it into the mix.

The idea of multimodal media is to get the ‘viewer’ closer to the true meaning the ‘creator’ intended upon…right?  In short, the more mediums being used, the easier/better we understand the content.  But what if one of the mediums, say the video image of a broadcast, is not carrying the same ‘feel’ as the audio or written?  Think of the presentation I did on 99 luftballons and how the music and video seemed contrary to the lyrics.  To me, I feel like multimodal uses could become more problematic than beneficial…in certain circumstances, that is.

The more signs we have (the images, the sounds, the words) the more areas of interpretation open up.  Every word is interpreted in context to every other word, and image, and sound clip…the result is a wide-spreading tree, each branch is a possible meaning, which breaks off to another branch or meaning.  This was obviously the problem with the written word, the margin of error in meaning, but doesn’t this intensify when we bring in other conflicting modals?  Lets say we see a clip of the Vietnam War, with bombs falling over the jungle; the audio is playing Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land,” and lastly, scrolling over the screen is the number of Vietnamese refugees displaced and killed by both US and VC forces.  What would this video say to you?  Is it reasonable to think that everyone would get the same meaning?  What if you just saw/heard only one aspect of this video (either the song or the video or the refugee statistics), do you think that more people would come to a similar conclusion on the meaning or less?

To me, I feel like multimodality (done in the ‘right’ or perhaps ‘wrong’ way) could make meanings even more elusive.  I would love to hear what everyone thinks…or, say, tell me what you think Woody Guthrie’s song “This Land is Your Land,” means to you and then tell me what you think the Vietnam multimodal scenario could mean to you.  It would be an interesting experiment seeing which one brings the most diverse interpretations.

Lastly…the thing I LOVE about Multimodal mediums is precisely this interpretive quality it CAN bring.  This can make scenarios much more interesting and much more hilarious.  I stumbled across this sketch from the Kids in the Hall (great show!!) and I was thinking about all the possible interpretations of the clip.  The sketch is called “The Pear Dream” and if you don’t want to answer anything else in this blog, please tell me what you think this sketch is really about.  Not to say that I think it’s about anything or not, just curious about what others think.  To end, I will say that this interpretation found in Multimodalities can be great–funny, stimulating, just plain strange–but should we be more careful when using multimodal mediums when teaching/learning or watching the news?  Just a thought…hopefully this blog is semi-clear.  I mostly wanted to show this Kids in the Hall clip!

Pre-post reminder: this week’s Reading Response topic: “How would you make Cathy’s Book better? And now onto the post.

A few items of multimodal, multiliterate interest. First, my laptops are having problems. Ugh. The Mac PowerBook G4 has decided that Firefox is no longer interested in playing embedded YouTube videos. Other videos (mostly) work. But YouTube? Nope. There’s a URL-by-URL fix out there, but that doesn’t help with embedded videos. And yes, I’ve tried all of the suggested fixes. No good. So, on the Mac I surf with Firefox and keep Opera open to do nothing but watch videos. How tedious.

And then the sound capabilities of my PC laptop started to go. First the speakers got scratchy, then they crapped out altogether. Now the earphone jack does nothing, either. Double-ugh. Of course, the PC laptop does have its zombie sound moments — usually involving some irritating system sound or beep that comes out at ear-splitting decibels because I’ve forgotten to turn the previously uncooperative and utterly silent sound to off.

But to get to the good stuff, make the jump.

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most people i talk to in vermont don’t use the word “dude.”  what a shame.  but that doesn’t stop me from using the word, which, depending on how you say it, and the context in which it is said, has a variety of meanings. 

this relates to chapter 9, “multimodality” by gunther kress in Multiliteracies, when he says that: “language — either in the spoken or in the written mode — is a multimodal system” (186).  (As spoken language, for instance, makes use of intonations, gestures, and volume to convey a specific, multilayered meaning.)

here is a Rob Schneider clip that illustrates the multiple meanings of dude, though after the first minute he changes the subject.

Are there other common words that come to your mind (regional, cultural or otherwise) that allow us to see how written and spoken language in and of themselves are multimodal, too?  i’m sure there are many, though dude is what comes to my (own) mind initially…

As I briefly mentioned in our last class, some of our Multiliteracies readings have given me pause, especially those marked by a neo-marxist or utopian worldview. What is the difference between a practical and ideological application of mulitmodality and multiliteracy? Must digital literacy in the classroom necessarily  be ideological? I would think no, but I’m curious to see what others have to say.

These links are meant to accompany my presentation on Post Secret, and also for you guys to look at in the future if you’re interested:

FAQs

Sunday Secrets

Wikipedia entry

Okay, brief second post (I’m gonna count this one for next week).  A good chunk of my job includes surfing thousands of sites and mining data from them.  Usually that means a careful setup with two firefox windows, one for viewing, and one for pasting.  Typically, I’ll have six or seven sites open in one window.  Those sites are found by a googlespreadsheet with a list of names and urls.  So, I go down the list, click, click, click, and they begin to pop up as one tab after another.

Most of the time, that’s no problem.  Maybe I have to skip an advert here or there, but typically it’s a smooth process.  That’s what makes me hate autoplaying, embedded videos more than anything.  I will have six or seven tabs open, and ONE of them starts screaming at me through my small, but formidable sound system.  I then have to search through all of my open windows in a clicking frenzy to find and terminate the offending site.

I cannot conceive of a more annoying feature for a website.  Never once has a video automatically played on a site and I have sat and watched it.  Marketers have gone too far!  They assume because it makes noise, Web surfers will fixate on it.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  No person is as impervious to extraneous advertisement as an experienced internetitian (I want a copyright on that!). We close popup windows in split seconds with fluid motions, scroll past rows of advertisements, and ignore the constant movement of banner ads. The marketers know this, and thought to go one step beyond. Make a noise and surely your message will break down us browsers’ normal ad-impervious nature.

Yet, their jack-terrier like need for attention fails utterly, serving only to rile me up while I surf the web. Should I actually manage to pick up a name or product while experiencing the obnoxious yip-yip of an autoplaying embedded video ad, I make it a point to never purchase that product.

Good job marketers, your job is based on a mass hallucination whose extremities were congealed on nothing more than the interconnected network of corporate CEOs’ goal-(not logic)-driven minds. I should know, I work for a marketing company.