When looking at the article in its whole, Yancey’s call to action is very similar to George’s. Both women are demanding that composition courses adapt and become more inclusive to the technological and cultural changes of today’s world. George specifically focuses on visual communication, while Yancey tackles the entirety of composition, in how it must be viewed from a new perspective altogether.
Yancey, like the writers on multiliteracies, begins her argument with addressing how composition has evolved. Much of this evolution has taken place outside the classroom. So as not to become obsolete (a legitimate fear, considering the shrinking number of English departments) curriculum must adapt to the evolution (302). Her first call to action demands that curriculum includes courses on screen, print, and oral literacies (305). She then goes into greater depth on the details of this curriculum, how it must revise how writing is taught, develop new majors in rhetoric, and promote more engagement with content and writing’s uses rather than focusing entirely on process.
Yancey presents her argument in a logical manner. Having previously read the articles on multiliteracies and multimodal means of communication, I had enough background to appreciate her message. With the rapid development of technology, writing has transformed dramatically, and in order to shape students that are equipped to write in this new culture, classrooms must reevaluate how they are teaching composition. For if their curriculum is applying skills that were sufficient just twenty years ago, a graduating student would find themselves suffering. For he or she had been taught marvelously on the process of writing, but not on how to “remediate” their texts to various mediums, topics, or audiences (314).
ENG 333 Blog 