“Concept in 60 Seconds” by Scott DeWitt (Ohio State University)
Assignment from the Digital Composition Cookbook
WPA Outcomes: (from the Council for Writing Program Administrators)
Rhetorical Knowledge
By the end of first year composition, students should
◦Focus on a purpose
◦Respond to the needs of different audiences
◦Respond appropriately to different kinds of rhetorical situations
◦Use conventions of format and structure appropriate to the rhetorical situation
◦Adopt appropriate voice, tone, and level of formality
◦Understand how genres shape reading and writing
Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing
By the end of first year composition, students should
◦Use writing and reading for inquiry, learning, thinking, and communicating
◦Understand a writing assignment as a series of tasks, including finding, evaluating, analyzing, and synthesizing appropriate primary and secondary sources
◦Understand the relationships among language, knowledge, and power
Processes
By the end of first year composition, students should
◦Be aware that it usually takes multiple drafts to create and complete a successful text
◦Develop flexible strategies for generating, revising, editing, and proof-reading
◦Understand writing as an open process that permits writers to use later invention and re-thinking to revise their work
◦Understand the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes
◦Learn to critique their own and others' works
◦Use a variety of technologies to address a range of audiences
Knowledge of Conventions
By the end of first year composition, students should
◦Learn common formats for different kinds of texts
◦Develop knowledge of genre conventions ranging from structure and paragraphing to tone and mechanics
◦Practice appropriate means of documenting their work
◦Control such surface features as syntax, grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
Composing in Electronic Environments
By the end of first-year composition, students should:
◦Use electronic environments for drafting, reviewing, revising, editing, and sharing texts
◦Locate, evaluate, organize, and use research material collected from electronic sources, including scholarly library databases; other official databases (e.g., federal government databases); and informal electronic networks and internet sources
◦Understand and exploit the differences in the rhetorical strategies and in the affordances available for both print and electronic composing processes and texts
“Concept in 60” Suggested Readings:*
-Multimodal Rhetoric:
- Lloyd Bitzer, “The Rhetorical Situation”
- Roland Barthes, “Rhetoric of the Image” pp 152-163
- Phillip Tagg, “Reading Sounds” pp. 1-4
- Cindy Selfe, “Aurality and Multimedia Composing” pp. 1-30
- NPR “Pulling Back the Curtain”
-Writing Strategies:
- Organization (the order in which you present ideas/images etc.)
- William Zinsser, On Writing Well“A Writer’s Decisions,” pp. 265-285
- Cohesion and Concision (so your video relies less on words and more on images and sounds & your director’s commentary is purposeful, rich) William Zinsser, On Writing Well “Unity,” pp. 49-54 and “Simplicity & Clutter,” pp. 8-24
- Revision (As with print composition, multimodal composition is a process of drafts and feedback)
- Barbara Tomlinson, “Tuning, Tying, and Training Texts”Written Communication pp. 58-81
-Films:
- Ask students to consider author’s organization, cohesion, concision, transitions, etc.
- Study the director’s commentary as a genre
- Recommended YouTube Links (search “60 seconds”)
- Compiled “60-Second Adventures in Thought”
- The Digital Story of the Nativity
- The Story of Evolution in 60 Seconds
- “Jaws” in 60 Seconds
*Due to copyright constraints, I cannot post readings for the site. However, most individual articles can be found using Google Scholar ( through the DMAC site at Ohio State ( or through your institution’s library.
…When in doubt, ask the Google.
Assignment: Concept in 60
Create a 60-second video that illustrates the concept of multimodality. Your video must meet the following requirements:
- Your video must run 60 seconds--no more, no less—including title screen and any credits.
- Your video must take a critical, reflective, and/or interpretive approach to its subject matter.
- You must strip your video of all actual audio. You may layer audio in your project as long as you avoid all literal video/audio matching.
- You must include a title screen somewhere in your video that includes your name as the author. You must also include credits for all materials used (audio clips, video clips, images).
- You must secure permissions for all materials used in your project. Also, you must give credit for all materials used in your project. (Use CreativeCommons.com to find CC-licensed works).
- You must be able to speak to each decision you have made during the composition process, including audio and visual elements. You will share these reflections in a “Director’s Commentary” audio track. Save your video in two forms: “Name60.m4v” and “Name60DC.m4v” for the video itself and the video with commentary laid over the audio track.
You will shoot footage. You may then create your video. We will screen your videos during class on the due date.
Brainstormyour Video/Director’s Commentary:
-Think of a topic about which you are very interested/engaged/passionate. Consider your personal, academic, intellectual, spiritual, and cultural interests and communities.
-How have other authors approached issues of organization, cohesion, concision, etc?
-Audience analysis: How do you decide which discourse community to enter? How do you reach them vs. another type of community?
-What is your purpose/intent? Exploration? Persuasion? Awareness?
-How will you use visual/aural/alphabetical modes to achieve this purpose/intent?
-Think about the genre conventions of the director’s commentary and how the author of the video speaks directly to the audience. How will you address you audience directly?
Timeline for Concept in 60 Assignment:
Day 1 (Thursday*)
-Understanding the assignment
-Intro to recording hardware and editing software
-Allow students at least 15-20 minutes to become familiar with hardware
-Assign pairs of students the following tasks in iMovie which they will demonstrate during the next class period:
- Creating iMovie Projects and Events/saving iMovie projects on external drive
- Using Events to add video footage
- Clip Trimmer
- Audio/Video Adjustments (fade, volume, normalize, etc.)
- Extracting/layering audio
- Incorporating Image (.jpg, etc.) and Audio (.mp3, etc.) files and using the crop/Ken Burns effect
- Transitions, Titles, and Credits
- Special Effects with layered video: Cutaway, Picture-in-Picture
*Ideally, the next class period falls after a longer space between classes (over the weekend, perhaps)
Day 2 (Tuesday)
-Student pairs will present their newly learned skills in the following order:
- Creating iMovie Projects and Events/saving iMovie projects on external drive
- Using Events to add video footage
- Clip Trimmer
- Audio/Video Adjustments (fade, volume, normalize, etc.)
- Extracting/layering audio
- Incorporating Image (.jpg, etc.) and Audio (.mp3, etc.) files and using the crop/Ken Burns effect
- Transitions, Titles, and Credits
- Special Effects with layered video: Cutaway, Picture-in-Picture
-Allow students to begin filming/importing audio, video, or visual assets into iMovie. Students should have a storyboard/outline for their video by the next class meeting.
Day 3 (Thursday*)
-Studio Time: Circulate to discuss each student’s plan for their video.
- Remind students about the Director’s Commentary and the assignment constraints (no more than 60 seconds, no literal audio/video material, etc.)
- Encourage students to narrow their focus if project ideas seem too large.
- Remind students that the assignment objectives include not only the final product but also the process of learning multimodal composing.
*Ideally, the next class period falls after a longer space between classes (over the weekend, perhaps)
Day 4 (Tuesday)
-Revision with whole class using at least 3 student videos (ideally by volunteers)
-Guide the class through feedback. Discuss how it’s different from print composing/feedback. Provide students with the following guidelines:
- Formal elements (This includes the more technical aspects. How does the video look? How do you think the author composed it? How are audio and video used together? What is being shown and what is being said? What tools were available to the author? What was the author’s previous experience in multimodal composing? What was the steepness of the author’s learning curve?))
- What is the author’s intent with this video? As an audience member, what are you feeling? How are you reacting to the ideas being presented? Consider the tone and the mood of the piece: dramatic, contemplative, dark, playful, sarcastic, ironic, light-hearted, informed, etc.)
- Think about the video rhetorically. Consider the rhetorical situation (Bitzer) and the rhetorical appeals (ethos, pathos, logos). This may not apply to all videos as some might not be explicitly argumentative/persuasive.
- In what way is the author presenting a narrative? What is making the narrative compelling? Is the narrative resolved by the end? Unresolved? (unresolved, resolved, what makes a narrative compelling?)
-Optional: Students break into writing groups or pair up with partners to watch one another’s videos and comment using the guidelines above.
Day 5
-Concept in 60 projects due: Hold class in a room that can project videos from a computer.
-Show all videos (the original videos and the director’s commentary versions)
-Allow students to ask questions/discuss their videos and the composing process as if they are the featured director in a film screening.
Assessment Guide*
I tend to use the same guidelines presented in class during peer review as I do for final evaluation of class assignments. Considering the objectives and constraints of the assignment, I would assign the following values to each criteria:
- 30% of total grade: Formal elements (This includes the more technical aspects. How does the video look? How do you think the author composed it? How are audio and video used together? What is being shown and what is being said? What tools were available to the author? What was the author’s previous experience in multimodal composing? What was the steepness of the author’s learning curve?)
- 30% of total grade: What is the author’s intent with this video? As an audience member, what are you feeling? How are you reacting to the ideas being presented? Consider the tone and the mood of the piece: dramatic, contemplative, dark, playful, sarcastic, ironic, light-hearted, informed, etc.)
- 30% of total grade: Rhetorical or Narrative Sophistication
- Think about the video rhetorically. Consider the rhetorical situation (Bitzer) and the rhetorical appeals (ethos, pathos, logos). This may not apply to all videos as some might not be explicitly argumentative/persuasive.
- In what way is the author presenting a narrative? What is making the narrative compelling? Is the narrative resolved by the end? Unresolved? (unresolved, resolved, what makes a narrative compelling?)
- 10% of total grade: Was the student present when the class considered these guidelines and practiced critically responding to one another’s videos?
*For a more theoretical discussion of assessment to guide you, see the “Thoughts on Assessment” article on the Resources page.
Notes, Tips, Variations:
-Contribute to the Digital Composition Cookbook! Let us know how it goes and share your notes, tips, and variations of this assignment. Email:
External Resources:
-Lynda.com software tutorials (for iMovie)
-Apple.com (for iMove software tutorials)
-YouTube.com (for third-party iMovie tutorials and examples of short videos)
-CreativeCommons.com, “Find CC-licensed work” (licensed assets for students to use in videos)