Module 5 reading reflection

                                       On the Way of Video Composing
        In the current information age, the movement from page to screen is a shift that opens up a new way to present our thoughts. For example, we can present our writing in video nowadays, which is called as video composing. Honestly speaking, I have never tried video composing before. Until today, reading After Digital Storytelling: Video Composing in the New Media Age written by Tim and Megan, I felt like my horizon got broadened. There was a paragraph impressed me most, “our focus should not rest on the fact that new media tools shift traditional notions of text-based practices, but rather must encompass the realization that an important set of new processes intrinsically tied to new technologies has come to light. In short, their research calls us to recognize that to make new media is to enact new methods of composing that are specific to new forms.” This sounds like a piece of advice for writing teacher who teaches video composing for me, and it is this piece of advice trigger my thoughts on what I should do if I will teach video composing in the future.
      First of all, I should realize what difficulties students might meet in the process of video composing. There are two cases involved in After Digital Storytelling: Video Composing in the New Media Age. One is with Candice, and the other one is with Katie.  Although the number of examples is very limited, there is much indication that we can get from them. Except for texts, some students might be unable to express their thought by other modalities. In Katie’s case, Katie feel uncomfortable by in engaging with the visual as a mode of conveying meaning. Spending lots of time showing text slides in the video and only using still pictures all reveal Katie’s uneasiness. Even students who are willing to express their thought in multimodalities, it doesn’t mean they can finish the video composing successfully. For example, they might discover new theme and reaches a new conclusion which is different from their original written script. As stated in Candice’s case, Candice meets a crisis in making a film because she discovers that her mother and she was so alike, and the new thought is opposite with her previous judgment on her relationship with her mother. Most students can be impeded in front of those difficulties, and it is teacher’s responsibility to help explore what the process of video composing should be.
       Video composing is a process that requires working with all the modes, such as alphabetic text, still/moving image, and escapes the tidy confines of a sequential model.  A video is not a translation or transformation of written script, but rather a way to generate new meaning. At the very beginning, teachers should work with the students to assess the multiple meaning-making modes, and students are the one who need to decide how those modes can be synthesized to create synchronous effect. What students should keep in mind is that video composing is not a liner process. On the contrary, it is a recursive process, where students can revisit and revise their original ideas. Moreover, students need to learn adjust the progression as they build new insights of their own experiences. 
       The basic understanding that every video composer should hold is that except for texts, all the other modes can also be used to convey meaning. Modes should not treated as tools to edit our video, but they should be used to “write” our video. Whether it is video composing or composing in other forms, they are a process of writing not a product of writing. As a teacher, they are more willing to see how students keeps improving in the writing, rather than where students achieves at the end. 

Works Cited:

Fulwiler, M., & Middleton, K. (2012). After digital storytelling: Video composing in the new 74 media age. Computers and Composition, 29(1), 39–50.

Module Four Reflections

    The Way to Deal with Errors

       When I read Chapter Nine: Assignments: Outline, Student Texts Drive Them in Teaching Writing Online, I was impressed by some ideas in the introduction. For example, using many informal assignments is a function both of what the students are doing and of the way we look at and evaluate their work; because students write so much online, we can free ourselves from tendencies to focus on error in students’ writing (94). However, when assignments are important, we end up trying to find reasons to state the flaws as a way of justifying grades rather than working with student texts. So, as an OW teacher, in order to deal with students’ error properly, we should understand what errors can do in our evaluation, and how to evaluate students’ work.

       First, errors can be unprofitable intrusions upon the consciousness of the reader, influencing the clarity of students’ work. When we are reading students’ work, we can ignore it if there is few grammar mistakes and continue reading. However, if there are too many grammar mistakes, we can’t ignore them, and those mistakes become an obstacle in our reading process. As a result, those technical errors discourage our access to larger ideas of students’ work, shifting the reader’s attention from where he is going (meaning) to how he is getting there (code).      

       Second, errors can be a reflection of students’ logic map in writing. A closer look for students’ work will reveal very little that is random or “illogical” in what they have written. Writers never make mistakes out of no reason, which can be they haven’t learned the specific writing rules before, or they are influenced by their first language, and so on. I used to have a student, who always used wrong conjunctions in his writing. One time, I had a conversation with him, asking him about why he used some specific conjunctions, and he told me that because he saw other students used them as well. Until then, I realized that he used those conjunctions improperly because he didn’t understanding the meaning of them, only knowing how to spell them.

       Last but not least, what should we expect toward errors in students’ work? On the one hand, we need to decide the type of error. Normally, they can be divided into two types, which are sentence issue and global issue. If it is a sentence issue, it may lie in punctuation, syntax, spelling, and vocabulary. If it is global issue, it may lie in the structure, the content, or the theme. Global issue is the prior concern for teachers when evaluating students’ writing. When faced with global issue, we should ask students questions, and try to get them to talk, listening what they think about their writing. As for sentence issue, if there are too many, some type of specific instruction may need to be taken into account seriously.

On the other hand, the type of assignments have something to do with the evaluation. Small assignments should be used for the purpose of allowing students to work out on a minor scale what we've taught them, and large assignments are a culmination of how well they learned those things. For example, for a journal or post, we may not need to be too picky for we care more about students’ ideas. However, for a term paper or a test, we may concern about students’ grammar as well.

To sum up, students errors definite influence our expectation toward their writings. In order to help students get rid of errors, we should look closely at their work, rather to be certain to see nothing but a chaos of errors when encountering their writing. As students produce a variety of texts in the OW course, our job is to help them to explore and take productive risks to develop their writing, not being scared by errors.

Works Cited

Warnock, Scott. Teaching Writing Online. NCTE: Illinois. 2009. Print.