On Multiliteracies and Working Too Much at Home

Hey folks...well, the Composing Group met today to discuss "A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures," by the New London Group, from the collection Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures. We had bagels, multimedia, and a jolly ole time. I thought I'd post a little summary of our discussion to which others who attended or who would have liked to attend can add, contest, or ignore.

Several of us raised questions and/or resistances to some of the issues raised by the New London Group. To what degree do we accept their concept of Design as a way of rethinking literacy pedagogy? Do we really want to embrace the new modes of work that are part of "fast capitalism"? Don't we want to resist the erosion of "private" space? What kind of responsibility do we have to change the way we teach literacy in the face of changes in "working lives," "public lives," and "personal lives"? Do we accept their reading of these changes?

We also discussed the fact that this text was a manifesto, but still had questions about what a pedagogy of multiliteracies would look like in practice. We also discussed the ways in which our personal lives are becoming more and more indistinguishable from our working lives and how technology and changes in public space contributed to expanding forms of reproductive and affective labor (a la Hardt and Negri). Yet, these changes do not seem entirely bad...that is, we are able carry on discussions with students about their papers over the weekend.

Just as our hour was about to expire turning us all into Halloween pumpkins, we got into a discussion of ethical discourse and the role of rhetoric in general education. As the lights were going out and the bagels were being cleaned up (and the next class was waiting to come in) we carried our conversation into the hall. We ended our hallway discussion talking about the implications of a pedagogy of multiliteracies for the classroom and the curriculum. All in all, a grand time.

We will be meeting again on Tuesday, November 15th at 11am in LY 207 to discuss Laura Micciche's "Making a Case for Rhetorical Grammar." The article is available in hardcopy in the Composing binder in the English Department mailroom or on eReserve under English Department, Composing Group.