WORKING WITH MULTIMODALITY:

What is a mode?

A unit of expression and communication.

Modes Need to Have:

• Interpersonal functions that speak to an audience
• Immaterial qualities that express ideational functions 
• Physical features that materialize these qualities as textual functions

Mode Metafunctions

• Ideational function:  reflect human experience
• Interpersonal function:  enact personal & social experiences
• Textual Function:  form and shape meanings

How Modes Work

• Choosing
• Sorting
• Assembling
• Distributing
• Remixing

How Modes Work Together

• Transmodal:  reach across modes
• Intermodal:  links that can exist separately but that cross-reference
• Intramodal:  cohere to make meaning

Design Processes

• Available designs:  received modes of meaning
• Designing: transformation of modes of meaning 
• Redesigned:  to-be-received status of the modes of meaning 

Six Areas of Design

• linguistic
• visual
• audio
• gestrual
• spacial and multimodal

What the Author Learned about Multimodality

• producers had enduring childhood passions
• multimodality is an act of storytelling
• relies on collaboration, participatory structures & communities of practice
• no such thing as original material and an entirely human enterprise
• can be taught & fostered - equality across modes used in everyday life

What I Learned

• These design principles are similar to the principles of course design
• Communication is not limited to the written word
• Storytellers can present their story in their own unique way
• Communication is an art that can be individually expressed 
• Multimodality gives equality across modes used daily

Book by Jennifer Rowsell