I finally finished my MultiModal project! And do you know what that means? I’m done with all my CTW assignments and it’s summer!!

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JK I WISH. I still have to write the companion essay for this class, and have a bunch of other assignments/tests in my other classes. BUT, that does mean that this is my final blog post, since I have hit the required 20 posts for the quarter. For this last one, I’ll reflect on my time in CTW.

As a person who doesn’t really like essays or English classes, I actually really enjoyed the class. I even got a little excited about writing some of my papers because they were about things that I cared about and was interested in (Title IX, athletics, etc.) TBT, this reminds me of Graff’s piece “Hidden Intellectualism” where he talks about using students’ non-academic passions in an academic way.

In addition to liking the class, I learned A LOT and believe that my writing significantly improved over the course of both quarters. The best part is that the stuff I learned is actually relevant!! The skills I learned can be applied to other classes/projects as well as nonacademic things.

Now that the sentimental rant is over, here is the thing you’ve actually been waiting for. So, without further ado, here is the link to my Title IX Instagram page that features my MultiModal project.

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For my Cultures and Ideas class about the global culture of capitalism, our final project was to research a topic/theme that we covered in class, make a movie about it for the class, and write a companion essay about it for our teacher. Sounds familiar right?

It’s super similar to the work I did in my CTW class, but the research was not NEARLY as extensive. Thank goodness cuz

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The overlap in the assignments let me apply some of the skills that I learned in CTW to my C&I. My project was focussed on the globalization of McDonald’s and specifically, its relevance in China, and whether it is an example of homogenization or hybridization of culture.

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To do this, I first mapped the territory by seeing what scholars were talking about in the broader conversation about McDonald’s in China. None of them were really talking about whether it was a case of either homogeny or hybridization, so this was my gap.

Ultimately, I argued that the case is is more homogenous. To do this, I used a good ol’ fashion NAYSAYER (among other things)!  I said something along the lines of

Some scholars argue that blah, blah, blah demonstrate hybridization, and they are right. However, I would argue that because these variations are minor, the case of McDonald’s in China is more indicative of a homogenous than heterogeneous society.

It’s kinda cool when classes double dip, BUT it’s not cool when food double dips.

YES WAY! School is relevant!!! (Source: Giphy)

During my CTW class last Friday, we had a re-cap of all the things that we learned this quarter and last quarter. We came up with a pretty comprehensive list, naming things like archival research, how to use sources, finding gaps, entering the conversation, rhetorical context, etc.

The next step of this was to look at how we could apply this in our lives after we finish this class. This was really interesting for me because a lot of the time I feel that I just cram a bunch of useless information into my brain for the quarter and then lose it once I move onto the next class. This class was different and I could think of SO MANY applications of the knowledge I learned! But, the one thing that I kept thinking about was media, news and just any published information.

For example, this class taught me to be skeptical about my sources and understand who they are before I believe their “facts” to be true. A while back, we did an activity where we evaluated source validity. Ultimately, this lead us to a publication about Martin Luther King by a group called Stormfront. Most of us didn’t realize that Stormfront is actually a white supremacist group who created one of the Internet’s first major racial hate sites (Wikipedia).

Yeah…it was pretty bad…
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Also, exploring rhetorical context and the rhetorical triangle further gave me a name for something I already practiced. For example, I knew that your message and delivery of the argument are going to differ depending on the audience; you wouldn’t say the same things to a group of college students and a group of elderly people because they value different things! This is pathos.

Similarly, I knew that all writing must have a purpose, otherwise, why do it? Some people are writing to persuade, while others inform or even entertain. I didn’t realize the importance of an author’s purpose though. For example, if someone is writing to persuade you, you should probably check their sources and their facts to see if their argument is valid.

The last assignment for my CTW class is to transform our 8-10 page research paper into some new form of media that applies to our intended audience. This can be a video, photo, podcast, anything really!

Before I started, I needed to ask myself a couple of questions.

1. What is my goal? To educate those most affected by Title IX about its policy, application and purpose when it comes to athletics. I hope to increase awareness so that the injustices that result from Title IX no longer go unaddressed.
2. Who needs to hear/see it for me to accomplish my goal? Anyone and everyone! But most importantly, university and college students and/or student-athletes.
3. What medium will best help me achieve my goal and reach my audience? The majority of college/university students have social media regularly. I believe that Instagram is the best way to reach my audience since it is one of the most popular platforms and incorporates both visual and textual elements. More specifically, I want to use a multi-photo Instagram post that, in a way, acts as a mini PowerPoint presentation that the viewer can easily flip through.

To make this multi-modal composition, I will use Piktochart to make multiple infographics that I can then post on Instagram.