New Media Matters: Tutoring in the Late Age of Print

Writing Center Journal Writing Center Journal

Volume 29 Issue 2 Article 4

1-1-2009

New Media Matters: Tutoring in the Late Age of Print New Media Matters: Tutoring in the Late Age of Print

Jackie Grutsch McKinney

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McKinney, Jackie Grutsch (2009) "New Media Matters: Tutoring in the Late Age of Print,"

Writing Center

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New Media Matters: Tutoring in

the Late Age of Print

by Jackie Grutsch McKinney

About the Author

Jackie Grutsch McKinney teaches and directs the Writing

Center at Ball State University. Her current research and

recent publications reflect her interest in how changes

in technology and other influences may necessitate

re-evaluation of writing center theories and pedagogies.

She lives in Muncie, Indiana with her husband, two little

boys, and feisty cat.

At the turn of the century, John Trimbur predicted that writing

centers would become "Multiliteracy Centers," drawing on the

terminology of the New London Group (30). These re -envisioned

centers, he suggested, would provide help for students working on

a variety of projects: essays, reports, PowerPoint presentations, web

pages, and posters. His prediction has proved true to some degree -

most notably in the state of Michigan. The University of Michigan's

Sweetland Writing Center opened a Multiliteracy Center in 2000

within its writing center, a place where students "could receive one-

to-one support as they worked on digital projects such as websites,

PowerPoint presentations, and other forms of communication that

depend on multiliteracies" (Sheridan, "Sweetland" 4). Additionally,

at Michigan State, digital writing- consultants worked with students

on digital texts as early as 1996 (see Sheridan, "Words" and DeVoss).

Institutions outside of Michigan have responded to new media writing

also. The Worcester Polytechnic Institute- where Trimbur works -

renamed its writing center the Center for Communication Across

International Writing Centers Association , Purdue University Press

are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to

The Writing Center Journal

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The Writing Center Journal Vol. 29, No. 2 (2009)

the Curriculum, with "workshops" in writing, oral presentation, and

visual design (Trimbur 29), and the Center for Collaborative Learning

and Communication was created at Furman University (Inman).

Many other centers have not changed names but have begun tutoring

students on a variety of texts.

However, in one of the few published articles on writing centers

and new media, entitled "Planning for Hypertexts in the Writing

Center... or Not," Michael Pemberton asks if writing centers should

open their doors to students working on hypertexts. Although he

answers "maybe" - he believes directors should decide based on

their local needs and constraints- the bulk of his argument seems to

say "no" more loudly than "yes," as seen here:

Ultimately, we have to ask ourselves whether it is really the writing center's

responsibility to be all things to all people. There will always be more to

learn. There will always be new groups making demands on our time and

our resources in ways we haven't yet planned for. And there will never be

enough time or enough money or enough tutors to meet all those demands

all of the time. If we diversify too widely and spread ourselves too thinly in

an attempt to encompass too many different literacies, we may not be able

to address any set of liferate practices particularly well. (2 1 )

Now- twenty years after Stephen Bernhardt urged us to see student

texts; after Craig Stroupe, more recently, argued for the visualization

of English studies; after Diana George showed us how visual literacy

has been a part of writing instruction since the 1940s; and after

Gunther Kress argued convincingly that the revolution in writing

dominated by the image is not coming, it is already here- the writing

center community seems divided on whether writing centers should

work with new media.

Though at first blush I thought that Pemberton's argument was

shortsighted, upon reflection, I think this sort of response actually

speaks to an understandable uncertainty. We are fairly sure that we

do good work with paper essays, pencils, and round tables. We are

just not sure that we can do good work when those things change

into new media texts, computer screens and speakers, mice and

keyboards, and computer desks. The argument follows that if we are

not certain we can do good work, then we should not do it at all.

Jackie Grutsch McKinney

I agree with Pemberton that we shouldn't take on work that we

are not prepared for. But our agreement only goes so far, because I

do think it is our job to work with all types of writing in the writing

center- including new media. In this article, then, I suggest that

writing centers need to offer tutoring in new media texts, but not

the same tutoring we've always done. I begin by briefly defining what

new media are (or, really, how I will use the term) and outlining why

I think writing center tutors should work with new media texts. The

bulk of this essay is devoted to how to tutor new media, since I see

that as the crux of the issue, so in the last part, I describe the ways

that writing center directors and staffs wanting to work with new

media can evolve their practices to do so.

What Is New Media?

Scholars use the term "new media" in a handful of ways that both

overlap and diverge, which can make matters complicated. Are

new media texts digital? Can they be print? Are they the same as

multimodal texts? Or are they employing a different rhetoric?

Cynthia Seife, Anne Wysocki, and Cheryl Ball each offer definitions

of new media that I find helpful, not because they agree with one

another, but rather because I can see from the sum of their individual

definitions the exciting range of new media texts.

For Cynthia Seife, new media texts are digital. She defines

new media texts as "texts created primarily in digital environments,

composed in multiple media, and designed for presentation and

exchange in digital venues" ("Students" 43). Although such texts

contain alphabetic features, she claims that "they also typically resist

containment by alphabetic systems, demanding multiple literacies

of seeing and listening and manipulating, as well as those of writing

and reading" ("Students" 43). She would use "new media" to describe

a web portfolio or another text viewed on screen that would contain

alphabetic texts and other modes, too.

Anne Wysocki, though, sees new media as any text that in its

production calls attention to its own materiality:

I think we should call "new media texts" those that have been made by

composers who are aware of the range of materialities of texts and who

The Writing Center Journal Vol. 29, No. 2 (2009)

then highlight the materiality: such composers Resign texts that help

readers/consumers/viewers stay alert to how any text-like its composers

and readers- doesn't function independently of how it is made and in what

contexts. ("Openings" 15)

This attention to materiality means the text might or might not be

digital. As Wysocki writes, "new media texts do not have to be digital;

instead, any text that has been designed so that its materiality is not

effaced can count as new media" (15). An example of a new media text

that isn't digital is Wysocki et al.'s Writing New Media itself. Design

choices in this text, such as the horizontal orientation of the page

numbers, make readers "stay alert" to how the writers are playing

with the usual conventions of a book. The key term for Wysocki's

conception of new media, then, is materiality.

A third definition of new media comes from Cheryl Ball in

"Show, Not Tell: The Value of New Media Scholarship." She writes

that new media are "texts that juxtapose semiotic modes in new and

aesthetically pleasing ways and, in doing so, break away from print

traditions so that written text is not the primary rhetorical means"

(405). For Ball, then, like Seife, new media is multimodal and digital.

Unique to Ball's definition, however, is that what's "new" in new

media is the way in which these texts make arguments- the primacy

of non-textual modes. New media texts make fundamentally different

types of arguments. She illustrates this difference in her article

through analysis of two web texts. One relies on print conventions

to make its linear argument; the other radically departs from print

conventions as it asks readers to compose the argument by dragging

and dropping audio, still images, and text to play together in an order

determined by the viewer/reader.

Combined, the three definitions show a range of texts that are

"new" in significant ways: 1) their digital-ness; 2) their conscious ma-

teriality or form; 3) their multimodality; and/or 4) their rhetorical

means. Of course, texts that fall under the category of new media by

one or more of these definitions have existed for some time, but it

is only recently that students, especially in writing classrooms, have

been regularly asked to read or compose new media texts. The norm

in colleges and universities for decades has been typed, double -

Jackie Grutsch McKinney

spaced, thesis-driven texts on SMł-by-ll-inch, stapled, white paper.

Thus, in this article, when I say that we should train tutors to work

with new media, I mean the sorts of texts that would fit any of the

three (Wysocki's, Selfe's, or Ball's) definitions outlined above. Practi-

cally speaking, this would mean that tutors would also be trained to

work with texts that are not traditional, paper, alphabetic, text- only,

academic print essays or assignments. Increasingly common, new

media assignments in first-year composition (FYC) include Power-

Point presentations or slidecasts; video essays and documentaries;

audio essays or podcast series; posters, collages, and other visual ar-

guments; websites or hypertexts; and comic books, animations, or

graphic novels. These are the sorts of texts we must be prepared to

work with in the writing center in the twenty- first century in addi-

tion to the more traditional texts that have been the norm.

Why Tutor New Media?

Pemberton suggests four ways of dealing with new texts in writing

centers: 1) ignore them since they will rarely appear; 2) use specialist

tutors; 3) treat new media texts like other texts; or 4) train all tutors

to work with them.1 The last of these is the approach I will argue

for; I believe the writing center is the place to tutor students with

their new media texts. I think all tutors should be trained to work

with these texts and that these texts have unique features, which

means some of our traditional tutoring practices will not work (more

on this later). Here, I will briefly defend my belief that we should

take on the task of tutoring new media. Many readers, I imagine, will

not need convincing, as writing centers around the country already

work with new media writing. For these readers, this section might

help them articulate this new work to colleagues or administrators

who question the evolution of their writing centers. Other readers

might find themselves more resistant to offering what they perceive

as yet another service when demands on their resources and time are

already too high. I can empathize with this position but do my best

to articulate how I do not think tutoring new media is something we

can or should opt out of. It is not another thing- it is the thing we

have always done, just in new forms, genres, and media.

The Writing Center Journal Vol. 29, No. 2 (2009)

Reason #/: New Media Is Writing

Writing has irrevocably changed from the early days of writing

centers. Early writing centers in the 1960s and 1970s developed peer

tutoring techniques when student texts were written by hand or with

typewriters. Adding another mode - even a simple image- to paper

texts was difficult and usually avoided. The 1980s and 1990s brought

us personal computers with word processing, but for the earlier

part of this period, the texts writing centers worked with did not

radically change. Word processors made texts that looked like they

came from typewriters; texts were composed on screen but printed

and distributed on paper.

Fast forward to the 2000s. Student texts now are nearly always

composed on screen. Most students have their own computers -

laptops are popular. Many texts that students compose, even for FYC,

never leave the screen. Students write reading responses in a course

management system, like BlackBoard. They post the response to the

course discussion board where the instructor and other students

respond. Likewise, longer writing assignments - essays and web

pages - can be "turned in" and "turned back" without ever being

printed out. In fact, when Microsoft Word 2007 was released, it

sported a new default typeface created for onscreen viewing, replacing

the long-reigning Times New Roman, because of the frequency with

which texts - even word-processed texts- were viewed on screen.

In these ways, we have witnessed a fundamental change in the

textual climate. Before, putting a text on paper- and writing for

that linear, left- to -right, top -to -bottom, page -to -page form- was

the way to write. That has changed. Now, there are many ways to

communicate through writing; consequently, putting a text to paper

is now a rhetorical choice that one should not make hastily. We ought

to really think through whether a paper essay, say, is the best way to

reach our audience or purpose. If we decide to compose paper essays

knowing we have the wide range of available textual choices, we are

deeming the paper essay the best way to meet our rhetorical ends.

Many of us, perhaps, have spent our lifetimes writing paper essays

because that was how arguments were made - academically if not

otherwise. The paper essay was the default. This is no longer the case

even in academic circles. Many academic conference presentations

Jackie Grutsch McKinney

are not paper essays read to the audience but arguments presented

with PowerPoint slideshows, videos, animations, and print or digital

posters, suggesting that many academic writers, upon weighing their

rhetorical choices, are no longer choosing paper essays.

I think it is unreasonable to grant that writers have a wide range

of options for meeting their rhetorical ends - even academically- yet

to insist that we will only help with those texts that writing centers

have historically worked with, namely, paper essays and assignments.

New media is "new," as the earlier definitions show, yet it is still

writing. More than that, it is a type of writing that academia and the

greater public value more and more.

Sending students with new media texts to another center or a

specific tutor, as some centers have done, could give the message

that new media is not writing, that it is not something the writing

center values. Some universities might be in the position, as the

University of Michigan was, to create a separate center for new media

texts. But many of us struggle, annually, to keep one center open.

Many of us also struggle to run one center, and most of us would not

find additional compensation for willingly increasing our workload, I

imagine. However, preparing all tutors to work with new media texts

requires no second space or additional staffing. It does not necessarily

require great investments in new technology or technology training.

Most writing centers are likely adequately outfitted with at least one,

if not several, computers on which to view digital texts. We might

very well want to acquire large monitors or projectors to enable

viewing of certain texts (e.g., slidecasts, video essays, or PowerPoint

presentations), but these texts can be viewed on small screens for the

purpose of tutor response.

Reason #2: The Line between New Media

and Old Media Is Blurry

Though I attempted a clear-cut definition of new media texts in the

previous section, it is often the case that a text straddles the old

media/new media line. A writing center that officially works with

only essays, reports, and other such alphabetic texts will increasingly,

if not already, find multimodality and digitality a part of such texts.

Pemberton's question about hypertexts is a good example. He meant,

The Writing Center Journal Vol. 29, No. 2 (2009)

I think, to question whether writing centers ought to work with digital

texts composed in HTML and viewed in web-browsers, otherwise

known as web pages. Yet many programs now, including Microsoft

Word and PowerPoint, allow for hypertext links (not to mention color,

images, charts, sound, animation, and video), so traditional essays are

quickly becoming less, well, traditional. If we say we do not work

with hypertexts, would we then not work with essays that contain

links? Or what of a webpage that contained an essay with no links?

When is it an essay and when is it hypertext?

I think a writing center that sets out to determine when a

traditional essay becomes a new media text- in order to say "yes" we

work with these or "no" we don't work with those- will find this an

increasingly difficult task. Likewise, a writing center that asserts that

it can only help with the "writing" part of a new media text is also on

shaky ground. The alphabetic text in a new media text is subsumed

into the whole and must be read in context of the whole composition.

Reason #3: If We Don't Claim It for Writing ,

Others Will Subsume It as Technology

If we surrender the composition of web texts or other new media texts

to computer science or another department on campus, we allow new

media composition to be lost to the technology. As Danielle DeVoss

writes, "Writing center theory and practice must . . . evolve so we

can situate ourselves as crucial stakeholders, working towards more

complex and critical use of computing technologies and computer-

related literacies" (167). If composing new media texts are just about

mastering the technology, then we can be convinced (or others will

tiy to convince us) that new media is better left to those on campus

who know the most about technology. For example, if creating a

website is only about learning HTML or CSS, then we could let the

computer science department teach it. Yet, if we consider new media

as texts composed consciously in multiple modes, we would have

to acknowledge that we are responsible for and good at teaching

composing.2 We ought to speak up about how creating digital texts

involves more than mastering a software program just as loudly as we

speak up about how writing in general is more than mastering MLA

format or rules for comma usage.

Jackie Grutsch McKinney

New media texts are texts- written for particular occasions,

purposes, and audiences. As such, writers of new media still need

human feedback. Related to this, the "CCCC Position Statement on

Teaching, Learning, and Assessing Writing in Digital Environments,"

a guide for classroom instruction of digital writing, advises, "Because

digital environments make sharing work especially convenient, we

would expect to find considerable human interaction around texts;

through such interaction, students learn that humans write to other

humans for specific purposes." The statement reminds us that digital

texts are rhetorical and therefore need rhetorical feedback- of the ilk a

writing center typically provides - not just technical troubleshooting.

The evolved writing center secures a spot for humans to meet other

humans over texts, digital or not. Working with students on their new

media texts asserts our stake as composing professionals in the new

media age.

How to Tutor New Media

In the previous two sections I argued, perhaps paradoxically, that

there is something new and different about new media writing, yet

that it is writing and therefore we should tutor writers working on

it. For me, there is enough that is "new" about new media that I had

to ask myself how well our traditional tutoring practices address it.

Trimbur is clear, too, that the change in types of projects we see in the

center will change our tutoring. He writes,

The new digital literacies will increasingly be incorporated into writing

centers not just as sources of information or delivery systems for tutoring

but as productive arts in their own right, and writing center work will, if

anything, become more rhetorical in paying attention to the practices and

effects of design in written and visual communication-more product-

oriented and perhaps less like the composing conferences of the process

movement. (30)

I have to agree with Trimbur that it would be foolish not to prepare

my tutors to work with these texts. What I have come to believe is

that accepting new media texts necessitates rethinking our dominant

writing center ideas and revising our common practices. Practices

vary from center to center, from tutor to tutor. Still, there are some

The Writing Center Journal Vol. 29, No. 2 (2009)

practices espoused repeatedly in the literature of the field and tutor

training manuals that seem to compose our general tenets. Many

of these practices will have to change. Although such radical re-

imaginings of writing center work may seem daunting, we could see

this as an occasion to reconsider how well we are responding to all

texts, to all writers - an occasion to improve the work we do.

Up to this point, I have been concerned with arguing that we

ought to work with new media; now I complicate that. I think it

would be irresponsible not to think through (and follow through

with) consequent changes to our practices. In what follows, I look

at the often -espoused practices for tutoring writing, particularly the

ways we read student texts and the ways we respond.

How We Read Student Texts

Ever since Stephen N orth published his writing center manifesto, "The

Idea of a Writing Center," writing center scholars and practitioners

have been guided by this statement: "in a writing center the object

is to make sure that writers, and not necessarily their texts, are what

get changed by instruction. In axiom form it goes like this: our job is

to produce better writers, not better writing" (37). What follows this

writing center mantra is important; he writes, "In the center, we look

beyond or through that particular project, that particular text, and see

it as an occasion for addressing our primary concern, the process

by which it is produced" (38, emphasis added). This idea has been

translated into practice in various ways. For one, Christina Murphy

and Steve Sherwood, in The St. Martin s Sourcebook for Writing Tutors, ,

describe tutoring in terms of "pre -textual," "textual," and "post-

textual," where the goal of tutoring is, indeed, to get beyond the text.

In these three stages, the tutor is to first talk about the paper with the

client, then read the paper with the client, and finish by moving from

the paper and dealing with the client's issues in writing iń general.

Another way to "look beyond" particular projects is to not

physically look at them. This comes in the form of a hands-off policy

in relation to student texts. We train our tutors to leave the text in

front of the client or between tutor and client. As Leigh Ryan and

Lisa Zimmerelli suggest in The Bedford Guide for Writing Tutors, "Give

the student control of the paper. Keep the paper in front of the

Jackie Grutsch McKinney

student as much as possible. If you are working at a computer, let the

writer sit in front of the screen as well as control the keyboard" (19).

When a student hands a tutor a paper, the tutor often quickly puts it

down on the table. Irene Clark and Dave Healy note that this practice,

which they call the pedagogy of noninterventionalism, exists because

of an ethical concern in some centers. If tutors hold the paper, write

on the paper, or otherwise "own" the paper, they may be unwittingly

helping the student too much, i.e., plagiarizing or editing. Linda

Shamoon and Deborah Burns, in turn, call this hands-off practice

"The Bible," an orthodoxy that has attained the force of an ethical or

moral code within writing center studies (175).

Likewise, tutors are encouraged to use a read -aloud method for

tutoring. Tutors read the student text aloud to the client or request

the client to do so. However, this common approach of reading texts

in writing centers might not be helpful for students with new media

texts. The intertwining of multiple modes may be lost if the tutor

looks through the text or does not look at the paper or at the screen.

Furthermore, there is no way to "read aloud" visual elements or

sounds. Consequently, the tutor may just skip over these elements

thereby privileging the verbal, perhaps to the detriment of the

student.

For example, several years ago one of my composition students,

"Amy," took her final project to the writing center for help. She was

working on her "book," a type of portfolio project that asked students

to rethink their semester's work in terms of a consistent theme and

design. She had decided to use divider pages featuring Winnie the

Pooh throughout her book. It was an odd choice as a design feature

that became downright inappropriate when one of her "chapters"

was an essay on Hitler. The baffling juxtaposition of Pooh and Piglet

and the horrific details in her essay surely did not escape her tutor;

however, the tutor did not say anything to Amy about this choice quite

possibly because the tutor was working under the typical assumption

that the alphabetic text was her domain, or because the tutor never

even saw this visual element since Amy held the book and read aloud

to the tutor. Amy might have received a similar silence had she used

certain types of online tutoring which ask writers to cut and paste

their text into email forms or whiteboards, allowing tutors to see only

The Writing Center Journal Vol. 29, No. 2 (2009)

the alphabetic text.

How we read texts in writing centers is especially problematic for

certain new media texts, such as digital texts, which offer the reader

a choice in navigation- where to start, when to go back, where to go

next. A tutor must look at a hypertext and interact with it to read it,

which begs the question: how would one - or why would one - read

aloud a website? The first step in evolving writing center practice,

then, is insisting that tutors look at texts to see student writing.

Stephen Bernhardťs suggestion to composition teachers that they

ought to look at student texts instead of through them seems just as

important for writing centers now. If we don't, Bernhardt warns that

we are ensuring our own irrelevance as the gap widens between the

literacies we have traditionally taught and the ones students need:

"Classroom practice which ignores the increasingly visual, localized

qualities of information exchange can only become increasingly

irrelevant" (77). Doing so, we ask tutors to consider the materiality

of texts from the resolution of images to the quality of paper for a

resume.

Secondly, instead of asking tutors to read aloud, we can ask tutors

to talk aloud as they negotiate a text- a subtle yet important change.

In reading aloud, the tutor may be tempted to skip over nonverbal

elements since the elements are, well, not verbal. In fact, in my own

tutoring experience, I have worked with students who quickly turn

the page past charts or graphs as if they are inconsequential to the

text at hand. However, if the tutor talked through the text, he or she

would instead render a reading of it, showing the student how it

could be read in its entirety. For instance, imagine Amy taking her

book to a talk-aloud session. The tutor right away would begin with

the materiality of the text. "Wow, this is quite a big document. I see

it has lots of pages. This, here, seems to be a title. Is this a collection

of writings of sorts?" And then, "I'm noticing as we go through this

that you've used Winnie the Pooh on each divider page. Why is that?"

This tactic would be immensely helpful for hypertexts, too. The

tutor could talk through the links and her expectations for how to

negotiate the pages. "OK, we've read through this page on Senator

Clinton. I'd like to go back to the page on Moveon.org, but I don't

see how I'd do that." Or, "The first thing I notice is these images

Jackie Grutsch McKinney

changing- fading into one another. They all seem connected by their

subject- all protesters of sorts? This makes me think this website is

about protesting even though the title says, 'Citizens of America.'"

This sort of talking aloud would let students see how a reader makes

meaning by reading the various modes in the text: images, text, layout,

color, movement, and so forth.

How We Talk About Student Writing

In a typical writing center session, tutors are trained to read through

the student's text and then to set an agenda on what issues to tackle

during the remainder of the session. Many tutors are trained to focus

the tutorial on higher order concerns (HOCs) first. These are defined

as "the features of the paper that exist beyond the sentence-level;

they include clarity of thesis or focus, adequate development and

information, effective structure or organization, and appropriate

voice and tone" (McAndrew and Reigstad 42). Only after working

through the "higher order" issues does the tutor turn to lower order

concerns (LOGs), which primarily manifest on the sentence level. All

in all, this practice makes sense. It is only logical to work students

through revisions that might necessitate substantial changes first

before tackling what is happening on a micro -level.

Nonetheless, there may be a problem with this practice for new

media texts since tutors are not trained to see other modes, such as

visual elements, as contributing to the overall meaning of the text.

That is, they are not trained to see that visual elements can be and

often are a higher order concern and should be attended to as such.

For instance, a tutor, Bryan, told me last year of a student he worked

with who was composing a scholarship essay. The student had

selected an apple clip art border for his text that he felt was fitting

for the type of scholarship - a scholarship for future teachers. These

apples, which Biyan felt inappropriate for the genre, were really the

only thing he remembered about the essay, yet were not something

he discussed with the student since he said he wanted to discuss "the

more important issues" first. Clearly, this is just one example, but I

believe it does speak to the way we set agendas- what we decide to

talk about with writers.

Tutors do not typically broach the subject of formatting without

The Writing Center Journal Vol. 29, No. 2 (2009)

direct questioning from the student because issues of formatting,

if they are seen at all, are seen as LOCs or because tutors usually

work with drafts and may assume the students will know how to

"fix" such elements by the final copy. The visual aspects of a text

may not even be on the tutor's radar, let alone other modes such

as sound, color, or motion. In numerous tutoring manuals, there is

little acknowledgement that visual elements or document design

are important for tutors to read and discuss with students. The

closest are Ryan and Zimmerelli's Bedford Guide , which states that

lab reports should have headings, includes a page on PowerPoint

presentations, and asks tutors to consider if resumes are "pleasing

to the eye" (87), and Bertie Fearing and W. Keats Sparrow's "Tutoring

Business and Technical Writing Students," which focuses mainly on

issues of voice, diction, economy, emphasis, and parallelism, but also

devotes one paragraph to typography, headings, and lists. Beyond

this, there is little about the multimodality of academic essays and

more often than not nothing about considering the multimodality

of any other type of assignment. Even when telling tutors how to

work with typically visually- heavy forms- manuals, instructions,

memos, proposals, progress and feasibility reports - McAndrew and

Reigstad do not show tutors how to give feedback on the non-verbal

elements. Obviously, if writing centers are going to work with new

media texts- those texts which purposely employ various modes to

make meaning- tutors will have to be trained to know when and

how the interaction of various modes are HOCs.

Furthermore, unless trained otherwise, tutors might not suggest

the use of non -textual modes in revision planning with the student.

There are moments as readers when the use of a diagram, illustration,

or image could help with our comprehension of ideas, and there are

times when the use of a bulleted list, graph, or chart allows a writer

to present ideas succinctly. Tutors, as readers of and responders to

texts, need to be able to describe to clients their expectations in

terms of verbal and other elements and plot out the tutoring sessions

to reflect that. Tutors need to be able to talk about new media texts,

which requires both a broader understanding of rhetoric (of how

new media texts are rhetorical) and a new set of terms about the

interactivity between modes and the effects of that interactivity.

Jackie Grutsch McKinney

Several composition scholars have theorized how we might

respond to or assess classroom-assigned new media writing. Several

of them emphasize the rhetorical nature of new media, thereby

arguing that we can respond to new media in ways similar to how

we respond to other texts, as they are all rhetorical. For example, in

"Looking for Sources of Coherence in a Fragmented World," Kathleen

Blake Yancey argues that we need new ways of talking about digital

writing: "Without a new language, we will be held hostage to the

values informing print, values worth preserving for that medium, to

be sure, but values incongruent with those informing the digital" (89-

90). To that end, she offers a heuristic for readers to ask of digital

texts: What arrangements are possible? Who arranges? What is the

intent? What is the fit between intent and effect? (96) Though she

sees digital composition as different, she sees rhetoric as "being at

the heart" of all the writing composition teachers assign and assess

(90).

Likewise, Madeleine Sorapure 's "Between Modes: Assessing

Student New Media Compositions" suggests teachers look for the

use of the rhetorical tropes of metaphor and metonymy when

assessing students' new media compositions, thereby focusing on

the relationship of modes. She writes,

Focusing assessment on the relations of modes might alleviate part of what

Yancey described as the "discomfort" of assessment: that part that comes

from our sense that we are not the most qualified people on campus to

judge the effectiveness of the individual modes of image, audio, or video

in a multimodal composition. But I think we are indeed qualified to look

at the relations between modes and to assess how effectively students have

combined different resources in their compositions. (4)

I think Sorapure 's idea is on the right track. We don't need to be, say,

filmmakers to respond to video in new media compositions. However,

we do need to be able, at a minimum, to respond to how the video

relates to the whole of the text. As Yancey, Sorapure, and others

suggest, new media texts are rhetorical. We can talk about how the

text is motivated, how it is purposeful, how it is written to a particular

audience. These conversations can be similar to the conversations we

have about old media texts.4 Yet if we do read rhetorically to determine

The Writing Center Journal Vol. 29, No. 2 (2009)

how well a text meets its ends, our tutors need to be able to explain

how a text has or has not done so. I do not think our language for

talking about texts is adequate in and of itself for this task.

Instead, I have increasingly drawn on other fields to give tutors

ways to talk about the interactivity of modes and their sense of the

gestalt in students' new media texts. Teaching tutors these terms

will give them a vocabulary to describe the relationships between

modes; without such an understanding, many times students and

tutors assume that images, graphics, animation, or other modes are

decoration or supplementation (although they probably won't use

that term) for the real mode of writing: the words. I've tutored more

than one student who assumed that visuals always make sense to

readers, that other modes don't need interpretation like words do.

As a start, I think it is appropriate to teach tutors Karen Schriver's

terms for the relationships between modes, Robin Williams's

principles of good design, and Cynthia Selfe's criteria for visual

assessment. Each of these, I believe, gives more concrete language

for tutors or teachers responding to new media. The space of this

article will not permit me to draw out extended examples of each

of the terms; I hope that readers interested in these ideas will look

to the primary texts. However, I will briefly look at a sample new

media text to see how this terminology as a whole might help a tutor

respond to such a text.

Relationships Between Modes : Karen Sch river

Schriver's terms were intended to describe how visuals work with

alphabetic text, though they easily translate to the relationships

between different modes, too, such as sound, video, and color.

Redundant : "substantially identical content appearing

visually and verbally in which each mode tells

the same story, providing a repetition of key

ideas" (412)

Complementary : "different content visually and verbally, in which

both modes are needed in order to understand

the key ideas" (412)

Jackie Grutsch McKinney

Supplementary : "different content in words and pictures,

in which one mode dominates the other,

providing the main ideas, while the other

reinforces, elaborates, or instantiates the points

made in the dominant mode (or explains how

to interpret the other)" (413)

Juxtapositional : "different content in words and pictures, in

which the key ideas are created by a clash or

semantic tension between the ideas in each

mode; the idea cannot be inferred without both

modes being present simultaneously" (414)

Stage -setting: "different content in words and pictures, in

which one mode (often the visual) forecasts the

content, underlying theme, or ideas presented

in the other mode" (414)

Principles of Design: Robin Williams

Williams's four basic design principles come from her work The Non-

Designers Design Book, where she tries to simplify design concepts

for those who must design on paper or screen but do not do so as

their primary occupation. Using this sort of text draws on the field of

graphic design, which has multimodal composition at its heart.

Contrast: Difference created between elements for

emphasis; elements must be made quite

different or else the elements simply conflict

with one another (63)

Repetition: How consistently elements (e.g., typeface, color,

pattern, transition) are used; repetition unifies

(49)

Alignment : How elements line up on a page, the visual

connection between elements; "every item

should have a visual connection with

something else on the page" (31)

Proximity: How closely elements are placed on page or

screen: related items should be close to one

another, unrelated items should not be (15-17)

The Writing Center Journal Vol. 29, No. 2 (2009)

Visual Assessment Criteria : Cynthia Seife

The last set of terms comes from a chapter of Writing New Media

in which Seife, drawing on the work of Gunther Kress and Theo

van Leeuwan, gives assignments and rubrics for helping writing

instructors incorporate new media into their classes. This set of

terms is helpful in looking, literally, at the gestalt of a new media text.

Visual impact : "the overall effect and appeal that a visual

composition has on an audience" ("Toward" 85)

Visual coherence: "the extent to which the various elements of a

visual composition are tied together, represent

a unified whole" ("Toward" 86)

Visual salience: "the relative prominence of an element

within a visual composition. Salient elements

catch viewers' eye 'sic}: they are conspicuous"

("Toward" 86)

Visual organization : "the pattern of arrangement that relates the

elements of the visual essay to one another

so that they are easier for readers/viewers to

comprehend" ("Toward" 87)

Using the New Terminology to Respond

to a New Media Text

Figure 1 is a grayscale reproduction of a poster created by the Writing

Center staff at Clarion University. They produce these posters collab-

oratively as a staff and sell customized versions via their website. This

one, the "Criminal Justice Poster," is one of my favorites. I selected

this text to model a new media response because it fits within the

very general definition of new media that I have used throughout

this article, because it consciously takes advantage of its materiality

as a poster, and because it relies on multiple modes to make its argu-

ment. It also is exchanged as a digital text first- composed digitally

and bought from digital previews before it is printed poster- size. In

addition, I wanted to select a text which a reader of this article could

see in its entirety (though my response is to the original full-color file

which can be viewed at http://www.clarion.edu/80053.jpg).

Jackie Grutsch McKinney

Fig. 1. Clarion "Criminal Justice Poster"

So, first off, what kind of relationship do we see between the

modes here? The composer has used text, photograph, color, and

typography to make this text. The image of the handcuffed person is

in a complementary relationship with the text, "Don't let your writing

get so out of hand it has to be put behind bars." The image helps give

the reader context. Though the text is a threatening command (do this

or else), the orange, bright blue, and green colors and typography are

more playful than foreboding. Perhaps this juxtaposition is purposeful

to play up the humor of the poster, or perhaps it takes away from the

effect. This could be something to discuss with the writer.

We can also look at the principles of design at work here.

The Writing Center Journal Vol. 29, No. 2 (2009)

Contrast is evident in the change in typeface. The composer wanted

to emphasize the word "Don't," so it appears larger than the other

words. The different colors, sizes, and weight of the other words and

background signal difference, perhaps of importance. "Don't let your

writing" is in one typeface; the rest of the text is in a very similar

sans serif typeface, which makes for a conflict. Repetition is evident in

the color choices; the background colors are also used for the type.

The words "Don't" and "writing" are actually repeated and faded into

the background. There are varied alignments here. Mostly, the text

is center- aligned and shares the same base line. However, "Don't"

and "let your" don't share a common baseline. The (mostly) center

alignment makes the words on the left margin and right margin

nearly line up. Further, there is no consistent alignment within

the colored blocks; the text sits near the bottom in blue and green

squares but floats to the top in orange. There are two sentences here,

and the proximity is very close between them, signaling to the reader

that these ideas are closely related. The image breaking through the

first sentence makes the reader understand the picture as part of the

message of that first sentence.

Finally, we could look at this as a visual argument. Using

Selfe's terms, we would probably acknowledge that the overall visual

impact is quite striking. This is a poster that stands out because of the

image and bright (though not garish) colors. The purpose of a poster

is to call attention to itself, and this poster has the potential to do that.

The visual coherence is also quite strong because of the repetition of

colors and type. The poster will be customized in the white box with

the purchaser's logo or information. There is a possibility that there

will be less coherence when that element is introduced if there are

different types or colors. The elements that are visually salient are

the word "Don't" and the photograph. Both hold key positions - one

in the top left corner and one across the center of the poster. The

quick in-a-glance message provided by these two elements is, "don't

end up in cuffs" - pretty powerful! The placement of the prominent

"Don't" at the top invites the reader to start there and move down;

thus the visual organization of elements tells the reader how to use

the text.

At this point, I should mention two things. First, I am not

Jackie Grutsch McKinney

implying that a tutor would or should go through reading/responding

to a text as extensively as this during a session. Like other sessions,

the tutor and student would discuss what seems most pressing. I, for

one, would probably talk to this composer about how color and type

relate to text and image and the overall alignment- another tutor

might focus on other elements. Which brings me to my second point:

not everyone using these terms is going to come to the same reading.

The reader's job with new media is still interpretation. Responding

to new media requires close interaction with the text and ways to talk

about what we read/view/interact with.

Summary and Closing Thoughts

This article has been about reconsidering how we train tutors to

read and respond to texts. The subject here has been new media

texts. I've asked us to reconsider how we tutor and how we talk to

students about their writing. The impetus for these evolved practices

is the arrival of increasing numbers of new media texts assigned in

university classes. As new media texts consciously and purposefully

employ multiple modes to make meaning, they require us to direct

our attention to texts differently. Current practices won't suffice, as

they limit us to the alphabetic text. Thus, I believe it is imperative to

train all tutors in these evolved practices because they will change the

ways we respond to all texts, considering more than we have before,

perhaps in significant ways. In short, here's the 28-word, visually-

arranged version of this article:

Twentieth -Centuiy Tutoring Twenty- First- Centuiy Tutoring

Read aloud Talk aloud

Getting beyond the text Interacting with the text

Zoomed in: talk about words Zoomed out: talk about whole

The Writing Center Journal Vol. 29, No. 2 (2009)

It strikes me that writing center studies is at a crossroads, a

moment in time where tough decisions regarding the scope of

our practices need to be made. Certainly, changes in composing

technologies have asked us to push beyond the writing center

practices that developed in the 1970s writing center boom. I, for

one, do not think this is a time for conservatism, for preserving the

tradition for the sake of tradition. Though I understand the impulse

as a writing center director to say, "Not one more thing! We do

enough!," to me, tutoring new media is not another thing. Writing

has evolved with new composing technologies and media, and we

must evolve, too, because we are in the writing business. A radical

shift in the way that writers communicate both academically and

publically necessitates a radical re -imagining and re -understanding

of our practices, purposes, and goals.

Finally, I want to address one of the concerns that I discussed

earlier: that we are not sure that we can do a good job of tutoring new

media, so perhaps we shouldn't try. I think we need to remember

that writing centers are largely based on the idea that talk among

peers will help. We've never been concerned about expert tutors

or perfection, and our feathers get ruffled when others (students

or professors) expect this. If we evolve the practices in the ways I

suggest, tutors will not be experts in new media composing, but they

will be able to offer a response. And that is what we do.

NOTES

1 . Pemberton focuses exclusively on hypertexts, not all new media.

2. For more on this, see Grutsch McKinney.

3. This could also hold true for tutoring via email or chat. The texts may be copied and

pasted into an email and the tutor will not see the text as it will materialize for its intended

audience, for example, how it prints out on the page.

4. For example, see JoAnn Griffin's schema in "Making Connections with Writing Centers"

for discussing audience, purpose, form, context, organization, unity/focus, detail/support,

style, and correctness of alphabetic essays, audio essays, and video essays (1 55-56).

Jackie Grutsch McKinney

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