Blog Post #2
- laurahperez
- Feb 3, 2020
- 3 min read
Updated: Feb 4, 2020
Selfe argues that print writing has been taught to be independent of other modes of communication. However, self believes audio and other forms of communication be implemented with the composition of print because of its infinite possibilities.
By teachers regarding print as the optimal composition mode, students understanding the significance of other communicative mediums and how they can operate together will be restricted. The privileging of print creates a narrative that is detrimental to a student’s learning.
Aurality was the primary mode of teaching in the beginning to mid of the 18th century. The main goal of educators was to enrich student’s public speaking skills rather than an excellent handle on writing. Educating their students in this manner was due to the greater importance of speeches and other oral communications. However, the world was advancing, information is updating at an accelerated pace, and change was to come. The educational system had to adapt and began to create courses to service the needs of “individuals involved in science, commerce, and manufacturing” (Selfe 620). This resulted in the formation of the first English departments. These English departments concentrated on grooming individuals headed into professions that relied heavily on writing. As these changes began to occur, the English departments sought out to modern modes of writing and began to separate from orality learning.
Aurality persisted in realms of public speaking, casual conversations, and other communicative forms that required it. Also, oral traditions in spaces such as churches, poetry, and a multitude of other oral messages, were significant and preserved.
People of color were prohibited from reaching the same level of education as their white counterparts. These marginalized communities, people of color, were refused education from white colleges, banned from reading and writing, virtually excluded from all realms of education. Though these communities eventually found their way to beat this systematic racist system. The constant persecution and repression of black voices in the United States sparked a resistance of violence and oppression, which resulted in preserving their culture and identity in aural modes. Aural modes were a means of resisting white education, which privileged print and silent reading. Similar to the black communities, the Hispanic/Latino communities’ aural practices were developed as a way to combat discrimination. Through “storytelling, Cuentos, corridos,” (Selfe 624), the Hispanic/Latino communities were able to retain their aural practices. Fighting racism, the Hispanic/Latino people would cultivate their own written narratives at a sophisticated level. For many American Indians, their written stories, whether oral, print, or other mediums of communication, were preserved to retain their and identities and heritage.
With technology advancing at the rate it has been for the past few years, computers and other electronics have become multifunctional. By having easier access to these highly developed devices, the universities’ systems have more tools at their disposal on how to teach/disseminate information to their students. These tools allow students to express their voices with a multitude of compositional modes.
Some audio assignments the article discusses are photographic essays, digital audio, and audio texts. The two options I propose to be beneficial in the educational system are video and podcasts.
Sonic literacy, as defined in the article, is “the ability to identify, define, situate, construct, manipulate, and communicate our personal and cultural soundscapes” (Hocks and Comstock 136). Essentially, to have the knowledge and ability to recognize how soundscapes can best integrate into an individual’s life. Sonic rhetoric is the analysis of multimodal composition.
Resonance has two descriptions in the reading, physically and metamorphically. Physically, resonance is the sound of vibrations resonating with another in a series of “frequencies or tones in usually (harmonious) ways" (Hocks and Comstock 138). In terms of metaphor, resonance can be used broadly and “indicates our harmony and connection with a text, place, and idea or an object” (Hocks and Comstock 138).
The three modes of listening are “causal, semantic, and reduced” (Hocks and Comstock 139). Causal listening is understanding the information that is given for face value. Semantic listening is interpreting the meaning and emotion of the sound. Reduced listening is just focusing on the sound and interpreting what the sound represents.
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