Date of Award

2017

Document Type

Open Access Thesis

Department

English Language and Literatures

Sub-Department

College of Arts and Sciences

First Advisor

Hannah J. Rule

Abstract

Students today get much of their news and information about the world through their handheld devices. Their phones flash or vibrate with a new message or post, and they are sucked into a conversation or moment beyond the physical space they occupy. In this way, their phone feeds blur the lines between places as politics enters the bathroom, a walk in the forest, or their most private spaces. With opportunities for rhetors to act upon audiences in every imagined physical space, our practices within the classroom should reflect these changes in space, delivery, and ubiquity of multimodality in digital platforms. This study makes transparent the processes that FYW at The University of South Carolina, Columbia goes through in composing both their ENGL102 syllabus and the accompanying textbook The Carolina Rhetoric as they relate to multimodal practices within the classroom and link the classroom and the world-at-large. The findings of this study provide FYW programs a jumping off point for discussing modification and implementation of multimodal curriculum and in doing so allow programs to examine the relationship between their own programs’ philosophies and practices: where philosophy and practice might line up, where they might miss the mark, or where there is progress being made toward alignment. Through examination and reflection, Composition can then move closer toward creating the kinds of gateway classrooms Kathleen Blake Yancey advocated in her 2004 CCCCs address.

Rights

© 2017, Kelly L. Wheeler

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