The Performance of Designing: Improvisation in the Composing Context

• In Event: Public Writing: Performing Writing Identities Across Contexts

Abstract

In this paper I share the results of an investigation into the performative aspects of composing in a public space. This study was grounded in sociocultural perspectives on learning that theorize literacy as diverse, socially-constructed, meaning-making practices that emerge in particular cultural and social contexts (Heath, 2006; Street, 1984), and include multiple modes of communication (Finnegan, 2002). In this paper I took the stance that composing can be understood as acts of designing which encompass both product and process (Dormer, 1997; Mitcham, 2001). Further, while educational studies of writing commonly focus on individuals or the contributions of individuals to a collaboratively produced, shared product, this study problematized this focus by examining the collective designing practices of a group.

Part of a larger, design-based research project (see Smith & Hull, 2012), this study followed 25 adolescents as they participated in an alternative college preparation program. During a summer academy, participants examined themes of cosmopolitanism (Appiah, 2006) through text-based discussion, online exchanges with peers, and the designing of multimodal artifacts. This investigation focused on the one-hour portion of the academy called the Writing/Designing Lab that was devoted to designing multimodal artifacts. In this context participants examined cosmopolitanism through a series of design challenges, or invitations to create multimodal artifacts within given parameters, which utilized a variety of modes including image and print. Data included semi-structured interviews, participant-created artifacts, fieldnotes, and video recordings of academy activities. To analyze the data, a music-inspired analytic method was devised to examine the collaborative nature of composing among participants at the group level.

The study revealed that improvisation, similar to musical improvisation as taken up in jazz, was an important design strategy for shaping collective processes. In what could be termed informal jam sessions (Berliner, 1994), participants actively built upon ideas offered by other participants “in the moment” in order to interpret, select, and design the content of their multimodal artifacts. The improvisation in these jam sessions led to a calibration, or a nuanced adjusting of individual’s composing practices into collective alignment. The paper will first trace the calibration of participant talk and media interpretation and then trace the improvised, creative expansions of the parameters of assigned design challenges. These expansions included improvised possibilities for the overall structure of participant videos as well as creative interpretations of the constraints of design challenges that led to unexpected content.

Implications highlight the need to re-examine tacit expectations for composing in classroom spaces to account for the public and collective nature of designing. Possibilities include pedagogy and assessment practices that go beyond individual notions of composing and include the ways groups of designers with varying levels of expertise and experience network their individual knowledge through improvised co-construction. Additionally, the study points to an expansion of current conceptions of composing to include a focus on group composing practices and the need for further empirical research on the performative aspects of composing in public spaces.

Author

• Matthew Hall, The College of New Jersey