Multimedia Argumentation

The Digital Writing and Research Lab at the University of Texas at Austin provided a look at an assignment from rhetoric instructor Noel Radley whose students used the online multimedia program Animoto and their own images taken around campus to communicate a compelling idea a day after a gunman killed himself on campus Sept. 27, 2010.

The students connected the TED video by Nic Marks, The Happy Planet Index, to the campus tragedy as a way to frame their own multimedia arguments. In his summary of the one-day project, Radley said the students “loved the assignment. They were giddy and very “animated” while taking the pictures and creating the videos. They expressed some frustration with Animoto, since they had little control over the design of the slideshow and music selections. However, they were able to complete the assignment in one day, which was incredibly satisfying.”