MySpace

High School tensions often run high. Posturing, profanity, put downs—racism…When my students wandered into my room distraught, angry, stressed or otherwise defeated I always offered an ear, but sometimes I needed to give a bit of heart and mind. When a student came to express a sense of injustice at administration I put them in front of the computer and allowed them to compose and send an email from my account to the principal, dean of students, athletic director etc. Writing their thoughts via email enabled them to calm down, clarify their concern and address an authentic and appropriate audience. The issue under consideration was not always taken up formally; often it was enough simply to express emotion. And it allowed for an impromptu mini-lesson on style and grammar.

Last night I read a public comment from my son on his MySpace page. Dan is in the army and currently deployed in Iraq. He was angry at supervisors who felt that although he was doing well at his particular job and completing work in record time, when finished he and his colleagues were too casual with their remaining clock-time. His superior officers felt that he and his colleagues were not setting a good visual example for other soldiers. His anger was real and he expressed it with precision. He simply wanted to be judged on the work, not what he did when the task was complete.

While I was attentive to his concern, I was actually interested in the use of the online complaint, a well-written rant about a personal—or personnel—situation. It reminded me a bit of the above scenario with my high school students. As with my students, the substance of the fuming could have been addressed inappropriately to one of those superior officers causing him more than extra push ups; soldiers are “smoked” more intensely during war-time in a war zone. Instead, he turned to members of his online community, known and unknown to assuage his feelings.

MySpace has particular features whereby the writer can post an icon that expresses his or her mood at the time of writing (creative, confused, angry etc.). The icons serve as a kind of advanced organizer. What a way to crystallize feelings prior to articulation. Further, like blogs readers can post comments immediately to the writer’s commentary offering the possibility of immediate and authentic feedback.

There are many features of MySpace that both enable multimodal literacy and at the same time raise concerns for parents, caretakers and teachers. I encourage educators to explore possible pedagogical uses of MySpace. Educational researchers can explore the rich self-motivated multimodal literacy engaged through this online tool.