The presentation illustrates how interdisciplinary compositions can articulate multisensory processes. By classifying agency as a dynamic system between a writer and their audience, the multimodal aspect is foregrounded. Examples establish the self-organizing, fluid, ideological, and intentional principles of agency, which can be extended as effective tools for teaching and learning.
The presentation explores the role of agency and its materialization in multimodal texts. It shows that interdisciplinary compositions can articulate multisensory processes. Audio-visual narratives from diverse genres are used to underline a growing body of modes and media used in our communication. This increasing variety of materials, interdisciplinary leanings, or simply one’s preference for what sounds right, directly correlates with a writer’s choice of a beginning, middle and end to a text. This also emphasizes the writer’s agency, their use of time and space when composing a text that is able to look outwards, free from individual taste and memory. In this way, agency is classifiedas a dynamic system that is influenced by an interactive process between the writer and their audience or, a teacher and a group of learners. As a result, the multimodal aspect is foregrounded. To exemplify an agent’s intentionality, Merleau-Ponty’s (1945) “intentional arc” is used to discuss features such as, goals, emotion, action, and learning in multimodal texts. The process of composition is viewed as a kairotic experience that attempts to identify significant moments in time that are crucial for the writer’s position. The examples used for this presentation establish the self-organizing, fluid, ideological, and intentional principles of agency to demonstrate a compositionist’s agentive process. Finally, audience members will be invited to participate in an activity to recognize their own agency and use this tool in their teaching/learning space.
