Mia's Galleria

       Our second unit was titled “Multimodal composition.” During the last few days of this section, we did some activities in class that I thought would work great in the classroom. They were called Process Drama exercises. My favorites were acting out vocabulary words, character testimonials, and extended roleplay.       First, during our vocabulary word activity, we were given words to act out and our classmates had to guess which one we were emulating. My group had the word “nook” and we represented it by having one of our members crouched in the corner with a book. I think this is a really creative way to practice vocabulary in the classroom. Worksheets and copying definitions are not engaging to the students. We learn better when we have fun, and these activities give kinesthetic learners the opportunity to learn in the way they do best.       After that, we wrote testimonials for different characters in the short story “Story of an Hour,” by Kate Chopin. The idea of this activi

       In our first unit in Writing for Nonprint Media, we learned about visual literacy. This is the skill of being able to gather information from a picture, rather than a body of text. I found this topic to be very interesting and applicable to everyday life, as we are constantly inundated with things that require visual literacy, yet we are not always taught the skills necessary to decode the information that they send to us. Some examples would be TV shows, movies, advertisements, pictures, charts/ graphs, and so on. A particular article we read that went into detail on this subject was, “A Suite of Strategies for Navigating Graphic Novels: A Dual Coding Approach,” by Barbara J. McClanahan and Maribeth Nottingham. In their article, they discuss graphic novels and the specific “dual coding approach” that one must use to read them. This combination of words and images results in better retention of information, being a perfect example of the benefits of multimodal learning. I also

      Hello! My name is Mia Stepanovich, and I am a sophomore secondary English education major at Slippery Rock University. I live with my three cats in Butler, Pennsylvania where I love to dance and crochet.  This is a blog that will detail my experience in my Writing for Nonprint Media class. We will be learning about the use of multimedia to convey ideas, or "more than words," as my professor says. Multimodality is a major focus. This is the use of multiple modes of expression in communication. My posts will be reflections on the units in the course where I will share my thoughts on what we learn. I have loved reading and writing from a young age, so I hope you enjoy learning along with me about one of my favorite subjects. Attached is a video that explains more about multimodality and its importance.