By Tanya K. Rodrigue, PhD, Salem State University

ENL 225H is an advanced writing course for students in the Honors Program at Salem State University. The semester Victor took the course was my first time teaching it. I focused the course on multimodal writing and invited students to co-design the curriculum. We worked together to identify characteristics of meaningful writing and they named their personal writing goals. I then crafted writing assignments that were meaningful by our standards and provided students with an opportunity to achieve their personal goals as well as the course learning goals. 

This multimodal remix assignment came on the heels of an infographic and an audio project assignment. It is inspired by a 2011 “experimental” project published in Enculturation: A Journal of Rhetoric, Writing, and Culture. The project, “Master Hands, A Video Mashup Round Table,” invited four professor-scholars to create remixes that drew on footage from a shared asset: a 1936 film titled Master Hands. After watching the vastly different remixes, I was struck by how much creativity and rhetorical thinking such a project invited so I created a similar assignment for my students. The assignment asked them to create a remix with a shared asset in a chosen genre that responds to a rhetorical situation. The project sought to help students practice choosing genres and modes—based on their affordances and constraints—and employing multimodal rhetorical tools within a defined rhetorical context. It also encouraged students to craft imaginative, creative writing that matters to them and others. 

I first watched Victor’s multimodal video remix on the final day of class when students shared one project that was most meaningful to them. While watching, I remember feeling shivers through my body. Lots of strong emotions, too. Anger. Sadness. Nausea. Terror. I was also in complete awe of Victor’s talent. His video is perhaps the most sophisticated way I’ve ever seen a student take up and transform an existing material to make something new and powerful. He clearly made smart strategic decisions when choosing modes and assets and engaging those assets in conversation with each other in this beautifully produced video. His work demonstrates the power of juxtaposition as a rhetorical tool in crafting a compelling argument while still inviting viewers to construct their own meaning. Victor’s rhetorical savviness shines bright in this video as well as his ability to create a work of meaningful art that invites reflection and hopefully moves viewers to action.