S/R 3

S/R 3 “Embodied Composition in Real Virtualities:  Adolescents’ Literacy Practices and Felt Experiences Moving with Digital, Mobile Devices in School”

Karina Juarez, 07/31/18

Ehret, Christian, and Ty Hollett. “Embodied Composition in Real Virtualities: Adolescents' Literacy    Practices and Felt Experiences Moving with Digital, Mobile Devices in School.” Research in  the Teaching of English, vol. 48, no. 4, 2014, pp. 428–452. JSTOR, JSTOR,  www.jstor.org/stable/24398691.

SUMMARY:

This article by Christian Ehret and Ty Hollett is about embodied composition and how students use mobile technology in order to compose in an ELA classroom. The authors, who are both teachers, believe that theories of multimodal composition do not fully account for how students compose, and they argue that digital technologies allow students to compose while on the move.  Their study attempts to answer the following questions:  How are adolescents representing identities in texts and how are they representing meaning on screen?  In order to answer these questions, they approach their study through the framework of physical embodiment and state that, “Castells (1996) eschews the binary of separate digital and physical spaces through his emphasis on real virtualities: the total imbrication, or layering, of the digital and physical upon one another.  Rather than traversing back and forth between “physical” space and an imagined “cyberspace”, bodily activities in digital and physical spaces are connected” (431). Therefore, the digital-self does not exist on the screen, but it emerges outward from the screen and merges with a student’s real-lived experiences.  For their study, they follow 2 students who use an app called Flat Stanely on their iPod Touch to compose a digital narrative.  Ehret and Hollett chose this app because it “exemplifies composition in real virtualities by bridging the digital with the physical as well as the surrounding material environment” (436).  They followed a student named Yvette as she composes with her iPod touch and she states that she holds the iPod with two hands, just like she would hold a book, and she brings it closer to her face, too.  Another student, named Adela, uses the camera on her iPod Touch to capture a photo of a “Hello Kitty” keychain, and she needs to make it “stand up right”, so she looks for a phone cord, across the room, from which to hang it. Ehret and Hollett conclude that when Internet enabled mobile devices enter the classroom, teachers need to consider how classroom space is constructed to allow mobility.  They also conclude that as Adela and Yvette composed their narratives, “they felt such real virtualities: Yvette felt time in her body as her story traveled through digital networks and Adela layered a digital avatar over material things, seeing meaning potential in her classroom space when sensed through her iPod screen, only available when composing in real virtualities” (449).  

RESPONSE:

            This is an interesting piece because, as far as digital identity is concerned, the authors have demonstrated that there is no disconnect between the digital world and the real world.   Students were assigned to use digital technology in order to compose, and their experiences were projecting onto the final product that they were producing. These students, Adela and Yvette were composing in a classroom, and had to have an iPod touch in their hands, and they had to move around their classroom in order to produce their compositions, and Adela experienced some frustration in having to manipulate the “hello kitty” keychain that she wanted to take a picture of for her composition.  These teachers chose to make composition a mobile process by asking their students to use an iPod touch to take pictures of an object.  I think that digital technologies like smartphones and digital cameras are an extension of a student’s physical bodies.  For example, if I were a teacher, and asked a student to compose an Instagram story about their day, I would require a composition that includes pictures and videos.  The video component part of the assignment would be a bit more physical, because the students would need to hold their phones or cameras at a certain angle and speak clearly and loudly enough.  I can see how this type of assignment would bridge the gap between the physical and digital world because a student would need to be carrying a smartphone or camera with them in order to complete this assignment, and have Internet access to upload it to Instagram.  I agree the authors that physical space and cyberspace are connected when asking students to produce this kind of assignment.  Another issue that I think about in potentially assigning this type of work is accessibility.  Students need access to smartphones, tripods, selfie-sticks, and digital cameras in order to produce digital compositions, and not every student may be able to afford this technology, outside of the classroom setting.