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Jennifer Hewerdine teaches composition at Arizona Western College and is a Ph.D. candidate at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. Her scholarly interests include digital literacies, writing center practice, collaboration, and low-stakes writing. You can reach Jennifer at jennifer.hewerdine@azwestern.edu.
When I hear of composition instructors assigning public service announcements PSAs, it is often in the form of radio or video PSAs. However, when teaching students multimodal writing, it can help the composing process to begin with the visual mode before revising the PSA for an audio or audiovisual mode. Visual and audiovisual PSAs also require students to consider design and the ways in which visual elements communicate messages. Therefore, before students compose a video or audio PSA, I assign a poster PSA to help them conceptualize how image and limited wording communicates a message to the audience.
Students see PSAs often: on billboards, television, fliers posted around campus, and in radio advertisements. They may not, however, consider the means by which PSAs attract and speak to an audience. Prior to beginning their PSA, I ask students to locate and analyze other PSAs for audience, location, and rhetorical effectiveness. Students are also taught about establishing an authorial ethos through the ethics of fair use, copyright, permissions, and Creative Commons.
These texts from Andrea’s handbooks are useful introductions to multimodal writing and rhetorical choices:
Sergio Garcia, the designer of the PSA below, chose to discuss air pollution in Mexicali, Mexico, and the effects it has on residents. As a resident of Imperial Valley, California, just north of Mexicali, Sergio has experienced the effects of air pollution. When making his PSA, he was faced with a unique rhetorical choice. Because he was targeting an audience with both Spanish and English language users, he had to decide the language to use in his PSA.
The first draft of a PSA by Sergio Garcia about the effects of air pollution
When students submit their PSA, I ask that they write a short essay about their design and audience choices as well as other rhetorical choices they made as they created the PSA. I then ask them to reflect upon how those choices change when they consider a new audience or a new location. If students revise to create an audio or audiovisual PSA, the reflection can include the differences in rhetorical choices from one mode of communication to the other.
Want to collaborate with Andrea on a Multimodal Monday assignment or be a guest blogger? Send ideas to Leah Rang for possible inclusion in a future post.
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