Thoughts on Selfe

Cynthia L. Selfe’s article The Movement of Air, the Breath of Meaning: Aurality and Multimodal Composing centers on the concept that eductors must teach their students a variety of methods of composition in order to participate in a world that is constantly changing. Her article’s introductory paragraph opens up describing what could be seen on a college campus. She refers to students communicating through various technological forms and even references the Ipod Nano as the gadget that no student could live without. But this article, which was published in June of 2009, is already outdated when you consider the changes that the Nano has undergone in the two and half years since this article was released. It is now half of its original size and has picture and video recording features. This in itself is proof that as time passes, our world is evolving and we must prepare our students for those changes. In this case those changes call for the teaching of multiple composing modalities.

By providing students with just one method of composing, we are limiting their ability to communicate with different communities, which in the long run will hinder their intellectual development. Teachers who place all their focus on writing, are asking their students to ignore the values of other cultures who don’t necessarily see text as the lone system of expression. Selfe particularly refers to Hispanic and Native American cultures that see aurality as an immensely significant system of expression. Storytelling, songs, poetry, and speeches are just some of the literary practices that are important in these cultural communities, and which have been largely undermined in the twentyieth century.

English Departments all over the country have chosen writing as their primary system of compositional rhetoric because silent reading and text analysis have become dominant practices in American universities. Selfe clearly states in her article that her argument is not to ask educators to prefer one method of composing rather than the other, but to promote the use and respect of multiple modalities so that students can engage in the discourse of different communities. What is interesting about Selfe's article is that while it is makes this case for expression, she uses several examples of aurality by asking its reader to detach itself from her written text and visit webpages that feature audio poems and audio essays. These features help facilitate her argument while at the same time, modeling the use of multiple modalities.