The availability of digital tools has made it easier than ever to record and edit sound, and teachers of composition have noticed. We record sonic texts for our students, and we give aural assignments in many genres: audio essays, podcasts, sonic remediations, interviews, radio shows, think-alouds, experimental pieces, and much more. We’re entering an age of soundwriting, where the affordances of sound intersect the pedagogies and practices of writing and rhetoric.

However, many of these pedagogies are scattered--mentioned quickly in an article or conference presentation, posted on a blog or course site, or distributed within the confines of a closed course management system. As an emergent method in composition curricula, soundwriting is still experimental. No single source exists for the instructor of multimodal composition who is searching for new ideas to expand her pedagogical methods and tools.

 

So let's make one.

 

Courtney Danforth and Kyle Stedman, eds.