Task 7: Mode-bending
Transforming “What’s in My Bag?” from a written essay into a podcast (aural medium) helped me see literacy as a creative process of redesign rather than just a simple translation. The original version relied on visuals and words in paragraphs, descriptions, and structure, while the podcast depended on tone, rhythm, and sound texture to convey meaning. Following the New London Group’s (1996) multiliteracies framework, I shifted from linguistic design to audio design, using classroom noises, pen clicks, and ambient sounds as “available designs” to construct a new form of meaning.
In this version, sound itself became a language. The zip of my bag opened the story; the tapping of cards represented digital literacy; and the scratch of a red pen symbolized the persistence of print culture. These choices echo Kress’s (2003) idea that each mode offers different ways of knowing. While writing describes, sound performs. Through sound, I could express emotions and transitions that written text can only hint at. Listeners could feel the movement between the professional and personal sides of my identity: the balance between efficiency and empathy that defines my day-to-day teaching life.
The redesign also connects with Dobson and Willinsky’s (2009) view of digital literacy as an evolution of print rather than a total break from it. Producing this podcast involved scripting, recording, layering sound effects, and editing audio levels. Each of these steps became an act of authorship that extended traditional writing into multimodal creation. My identity as a teacher who embraces technology was conveyed not through words on a page but through the sonic experience I curated.
From Peña and James’s (2024) perspective on transmediation, changing modes always results in both “interpretive gains” and “translation losses.” The main gain here was intimacy: the listener could imagine the scene, filling in the visuals themselves. The loss, however, was precision. Sound can suggest a mood but not define it clearly. Technical challenges, such as finding high-quality recordings and balancing volume, also reminded me that digital composition requires both creative and technical literacies.
To wrap up, this redesign embodied what the New London Group (1996) calls Situated Practice and Transformed Practice: meaning was re-experienced and re-created in a new medium. In an era that Bolter (2001) describes as fragmented yet dynamic, learning to design across modes fosters adaptability and agency. My podcast didn’t just tell my story. It invited others to listen, imagine, and connect through sounds. This experience reinforced my belief that literacy today is not only about reading or writing words, but about weaving together sounds, images, and gestures to build shared understanding.
References:
Bolter, J. D. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print (2nd ed.). Lawrence Erlbaum.
Dobson, T., & Willinsky, J. (2009). Digital literacy. In D. R. Olson & N. Torrance (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of literacy (pp. 286–312). Cambridge University Press.
The New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 60–92.
Peña, E., & James, K. (2024). A framework of transmediation. Convergence, 30(5), 1610–1624. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565231220325
Kress, G. (2003). Literacy in the new media age. Routledge.