analyze the multimodal composition in Ta-Nehisi Coates

Description

Multimodality is the application of multiple literacies within one medium. These literacies include multiple “modes” of communication in text, image, sound, space, and language. For example, you are writing an essay. The essay consists of paragraphs and sentences that are the traditional modes of “text” in an essay used to convey the essay’s message. But as your academic literacy becomes more professionalized, you learn to employ other modes of “text” to convey different aspects of the message in the essay proper: you’ve already had practice in this area with your annotated bibliography, which conveys the relationship between your individual sources and the essay as a whole. But there are other modes of textual literacy in a composition, too Compositions also engage in other modes of literacy, too: photographs, graphs, maps, charts, images of original documents, original art, etc. We can be moved by a photograph; we might better understand numbers when presented on a chart; we might better visualize place by consulting a map. Recordings (sound and sight), too, can achieve powerful results.  For this assignment you will analyze the multimodal composition in Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “The Case for Reparations” and two student samples. You will use this analysis as practice for your own final draft, which will engage in the multiple modes of literacy referenced above.