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Today’s guest blogger is Kim Haimes-Korn, a Professor of English and Digital Writing at Kennesaw State University. Kim’s teaching philosophy encourages dynamic learning and critical digital literacies and focuses on students’ powers to create their own knowledge through language and various “acts of composition.” She likes to have fun every day, return to nature when things get too crazy, and think deeply about way too many things. She loves teaching. It has helped her understand the value of amazing relationships and boundless creativity. You can reach Kim at khaimesk@kennesaw.edu or visit her website: Acts of Composition.
Overview
For this assignment, students explore historical contexts through oral and visual histories of a time period or event. They read, watch videos, listen to historical accounts, and follow up with an experiential journey to a museum on the same subject. Although teachers can choose any time period or subject that fits in with their course content, I had students focus on WWII oral histories and then attend a campus exhibit to extend upon that knowledge in this particular class. In addition to interacting with these digital and visual stories, students curate their own images at the museum to contribute to a collaborative slide show in which they both choose an individual perspective and work together to read across their ideas and images. Teams create a presentation with images, impressions, and take-aways.
Background Readings and Resources
The St. Martin's Handbook, 8e: Ch. 11: Conducting Research; Ch. 17: Oral and Multimedia Presentations
The Everyday Writer, 7e: (also available with Exercises😞 Ch. 10h: Conduct Field Research; Ch. 19c: Create Slides or Other Visuals
EasyWriter, 7e: (also available with Exercises😞 Ch. 11f: Doing Field Research, Ch. 10: Creating Presentations
Steps to the Assignment
Students briefly summarize and share their selected stories and ideas with others and through an online discussion.
Reflection on the Activity
I like this assignment because it involves students in several types of multimodal learning and composing experiences. They engage with digital oral and visual histories, visual artifacts, and experiential learning. The assignment asks them to move beyond passive reading and bring their subjects to life through these multimodal extensions. Although all of the students attended the same museum, it was interesting to see where they chose to focus their attention. Some students focused on the visual artifacts of the time period, such as propaganda posters, while others looked at gender roles during the war, racial disparity, and regional participation. Others explored lifestyle artifacts that represented cultural ideologies of the time, typical living spaces, lifestyle artifacts, and occupational trends. I found the students much more engaged when they connected with the interactive digital resources and immersive experiences than if they just read the texts on their own.
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