Multimodal Response 2: Sound Engineering

In her article, Jody Shipka makes an argument for the importance of attending to sound in addition to the written word in the writing classroom. She illustrates two examples of students who used sound in engaging ways in their course projects. At the end of the article, Shipka states that "given what Val hoped to achieve with the greed piece, the use of sound was sound—that is to say, it made sense as it provided her with a way of achieving an interactive museum-like effect when time, talent, desire, or access to resources may have prevented her from realizing the piece on paper (i.e., through a series of sketches or blueprints, or a series of published reviews) through a collection of still or moving images or in a three-dimensional form" (p. 371).

For this response, consider how you can make your use of sound sound. What might sound allow you to access or consider that words on a page alone might not? How did attending to sound allow the students in Shipka's article to solve problems or approach topics in new ways?

To help answer this question, take one of two responses to this prompt:

1. Think-aloud protocol. This is a technique used in research on reading and writing. For this option, consider the questions that I underlined above, and go back through the article to answer them. Except, instead of writing your answer, audio record yourself thinking through it out loud.* Record yourself for about 5-7 minutes. Then listen back to the recording (preferably after putting it away for a little bit so that you have some distance from your initial thoughts). Write a paragraph responding to what you noticed about how you "thought through" these questions. How does writing an answer differ from thinking it aloud? What do you notice about the "soundness" of your answer? Include your recording and your written response on your website.
   

2. Playlist. Keeping the underlined questions in mind, create a playlist that goes along with this article. (You could even time yourself as you read the article for the first time, to give you a sense of how long the playlist should be.) The songs in the playlist can correspond to your reaction to different points of the article, or might play with ideas that Shipka mentions. Or the lyrics of your chosen songs may intersect with the language that Shipka uses. Include a brief description of each song that explains how it links up to the article. At the end of your playlist, reflect on the choices that you made, as well as how you kept elements of sound in mind when creating it, like melody, tone, genre, etc. Finally, how do you think this playlist would affect a reader's reaction to this article? You can create this playlist through YouTube, Spotify, iTunes or another similar platform. Include a link to your playlist, the descriptions, and your written response on your website.

*You can use a phone or computer to record yourself. If you're missing a microphone through those devices, you can check out a digital voice recorder through the Loanable Technology desk in the library.

Response due September 10 at 9:30am. Upload to your individual website.