| My project considers how secondary Language Arts instructors can integrate visual composing experiences into their classrooms while meeting traditional writing goals. Although immersed in a visually rich environment outside of school, adolescents face a much different print-based environment at school. I seek to investigate the factors that perpetuate this divide and the possibilities and difficulties of bridging it in the secondary Language Arts classroom. My project will consider how an allegiance to traditional writing clashes with communicative needs of the 21st century, investigate the historical and cultural sources of image anxiety, and explore the potential that images have for engaging and supporting adolescent student writers. Borrowing the concept of cross-training from athletics and applying it to writing, this project conceives of visual essays as one multimodal production experience that can strengthen writing skills applicable also to traditional written assignments. |
