Heritage Literacy: Adoption, Adaptation, and Alienation of Multimodal Literacy Tools Author(s): Suzanne Kesler Rumsey Source: College Composition and Communication, Vol. 60, No. 3 (Feb., 2009), pp. 573-586 Published by: National Council of Teachers of English Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20457082 Accessed: 20-04-2015 22:13 UTC

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SuzanneKeslerRumsey

and HeritageLiteracy: Adoption, Adaptation, Tools Alienation ofMultimodal Literacy This articlepresents theconcept ofheritage literacy, a decision-makingprocessbywhich people adopt, adapt, or alienate themselvesfromtoolsand literaciespassed on between generationsofpeople. In an auto-ethnographicstudy,fourgenerationsof a single fam ilyand Amish participants fromthe surroundingcommunitywere interviewedto ex plore the concept.

y scheduled interviewwith Mary was on a hot afternoon in July.'Her family's property looked typical forNorthern Indiana Amish in that it con sisted of a white house without shutters or other exterior adornment, a white barn, and several outbuildings. A vegetable garden was visible, and an unhitched buggy was parked near the barn. When

I drove into her driveway, Iwas sur

prised to find thatMary was mowing her lawn with a bulky, clunky, powered mower of some kind. The Amish Ihad known before this eschewed all forms of

poweredmachinery. My familypurchases eggs fromMary, so Ihad asked foran interview some weeks previously.Mary invitedme inside her home, which was relatively cooler, and we sat at her dining room table. As we began

the interview,Mary's

thirteen-year-old daughter, Elaine, joined us. Both women were dressed inplain,

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darklycoloredcottondresseswithoutpatternor embellishment or evenbut tons, and theywore white coverings over their pinned up hair.

During thecourseofourconversation, Elaine interjected commentssev eral times. She was freckled and friendly,and obviously comfortable with me, though I am what theAmish call "English," simplymeaning "not Amish." Most Amish children with whom

I had had contact during my data collections were

shyofme as both an English person and a stranger. Iwondered why Elaine was so comfortable with me. As we talked I found out that Elaine and her siblings attend the local public school instead of an Amish parochial school. Mary told me that she sends Elaine and her siblings to public school because to learn to be out with the public too. Imean,

"you have

ifyou are just among yourselves

... you have to be able to communicate with other people too. How can they learn to communicate

. . ."Here she stopped with a look of considerable

tration and said, "I can't thinkwhat

Iwant

asked ifwhat shewants to say is inDutch theGerman-based

frus

to say." I gently teased her and

in her head (Pennsylvania Dutch

is

language that theAmish speak). She laughed in agreement.

At this point I asked Mary's permission

to talk with Elaine, and Mary

agreed. Elaine toldme she is in the sixth grade at the local middle school and has twomore years of schooling before she will graduate, as theAmish are only formally educated until the eighth grade. It is not hard to attend public school as an Amish youth, she said, and her friends know that shewill finish school in eighth grade. She spoke openly and as articulately as any average sixth grader; her speech was punctuated with the occasional

"like," a common fillerword of

her English peers, which was a marked contrast with her white covering and

dark-colored dress. Iwas particularly interested in how she adapts

to public school as an

Amish youth, so I asked her if there are things she does not participate cause she isAmish. She said she cannot participate because

in be

in after-school activities

"Iwouldn't have a way home since we don't drive." Elaine rides the bus

to and from school, so shemust abide by their scheduling. I asked ifshe avoids working on computers. Elaine replied, "No, Iwork on computers along with the other students. I'think they are fun.We

type papers sometimes and other

stuff. I just do what everyone else does." Elaine then toldme that she will not miss using a computer when because

she comes of age and joins the Amish church

"I don't know a lot about them."

Surprised at Elaine using computers, I asked Mary how she feels about computers, as a parent and someone who has joined theAmish church and

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has livedpurposely withoutsuch technological innovations. She said,"Well,I don't know. I thinkmaybe sometime theymight need to use one for a job or something if theywork out. That's why it's important." "Working out" here means

towork outside of the Amish farm or home. I asked her if there are

other technologies thatmake her nervous forher children. I note at this point that they have a gas-powered

refrigerator and stove, but no electricity in the

NorthernIndianaAmish. house,likeother stuffwe wouldn't Mary says,"There's want them to have like a TV or phone. We have a phone booth just down the road that anybody can go use whenever theyneed it. I think that is enough for us." I note that she does not seem tomind my tape recorder either and isquite

withme duringtheentireinterview. comfortable speaking Heritage Literacy The anecdote

I have described above is part of auto-ethnographic data col

lected in the summer of 2004 among four generations of my family and the

Amishcommunity. This anecdotedescribesseveral"types" surrounding of lit eracy. First, Elaine is engaged inmainstream

academic

literacy practices. She

writes papers and reads texts that her English peers read and write. She has learned how to exist in an English academic setting though her family abides by the traditions of theAmish within her district ofNorthern Indiana. Second, Elaine is learning computer literacy to some extent.While

she claims she does

not know very much, she talks about word processing and doing the same activities as other students. And third,Elaine exhibits what Andrea Fishman calls Amish literacy,or the reading and writing of texts particularly associated with theAmish way of life and beliefs within their "immediate community,"

"largercommunity:'"churchcommunity," and "schoolcommunity"(40). Fishman's work specifically details readingtheBible,nonfiction books,and some fiction, and writing functional texts such as personal correspondence, business communication, nities. The anecdote

labeling, and publication within these four commu

implicitly positions Mary and Elaine within those com

munities; certainly by Fishman's definition, thesewomen exhibitAmish literacy. However, Elaine also exhibits a type of literacy I have come to call "heri tage literacy."Heritage

literacy is an explanation of how people

transfer lit

eracy knowledge fromgeneration togeneration and how certain practices, tools, and concepts are adapted, adopted, or alienated from use, depending on the context. It is lifelong, cross-generational developmental

learning and meaning making;

it is

and recursive; and like all literacies, it builds over time or

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asDeborahBrandtphraseditinherarticle'Accumulating "accumulates," Lit eracy."Heritage

literacy, then, describes how literacies and technology uses

are accumulatedacrossgenerationsthrougha decision-making process.As orgroupaccumulates, literacy foran individual, community, contexts, objects, tools, and needs change; in turn, community members adapt to the changes,

adopt thechanges,or alienatethemselves fromthechanges.And thenwhen thesecommunity memberspass on theiruses of technologies and tools,the mustmake thesamedecisions. nextgeneration This decision-making process

is evident in the above anecdote. Mary

is

in the process of adapting to the idea of computer technologies, a technology and literacy tool traditionally avoided by theAmish, while her daughter Elaine is adopting computer use into her repertoire of literate activities. However, it is important to note that Elaine

is not adopting computer literacywithout

altering it.She is adapting conventional computer usage by engaging with the technology only in limited ways while at school, only until the eighth grade, and only forutilitarian purposes of a job outside of her home in the future.Her use of this literacy tool-one

that isbecoming imperative tomainstream Ameri

cans' day-to-day lives-is mitigated by her religious beliefs and home literacy

practices. Heritage

literacy is also multimodal.

It accounts

for the passage

of all

sorts of literate practices, not necessarily or exclusively print or alphabetic literacies. For example, Mary and Elaine are both dressed to signifytheirAmish beliefs and culture. They ascribe to a pattern, a set of signifying symbols, and are "read" as Amish by their choices of clothing, hairstyle, and head coverings. Heritage

literacy emphasizes

"codified sign systems," such as cuneiform,

hieroglyph, or even quilts and manner of dress, as much as itemphasizes more traditional literacies. By emphasizing

themultimodality of reading and writ

thedecision ing,heritageliteracy emphasizesembeddedusesof technologies, making process explained above, and offersdepth to our understanding of the

impactofcomputertechnologies. Others within writing studies have offered examples ofmultimodal eracy practices passed between generations. Ellen Cushman

lit

states that bead

working isknowledge making. It "codifies tradition, cultural practices, legends, ways of viewing selfwithin world, clan and tribal affiliations, representational stylesand so on, depending on its functional and rhetorical purpose" (Cushman, Loom module).

Shirley Brice Heath writes that "[p]atterns of using reading

and writing in [Roadville and Trackton] are interdependent with ways of using

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space (havingbookshelves, decorating walls,displayingtelephonenumbers), and using time(bedtime, meal hours,and homeworksessions)"(234).And Amishquilts,likeAmishclothing, exhibitheritageliteracy andmultimodality because

they are texts thatRobert Shaw, an expert on quilts and folk art, says

clearly represent "theAmish desire to remain apart from the distracting temp tations and complexities of the 'English'world"

(172). This desire for separa

tion is seen in the "powerful visual rhythms" in solid-colored rather than printed fabrics and strong geometric patterns (171). These examples of heritage lit eracy practices show thatmultimodality need not take place on a computer screen. Instead they show multimodal meaning making quietly being beaded and stitched by hands in places far removed from computer technologies. Let me unpack the concept of heritage literacy further.Heritage

literacy

stems frommy desire to understand new tools' and technologies' impact on literacy learning and how these literacy practices are passed between genera

tions.Indeed, Brandt'sthoughtful of"accumulating points explanation literacy" to theways thatAmericans

are "having to piece together reading and writing

experiences frommore and more spheres, creating new and hybrid forms of

literacy" (651).Sheexplainsthatliteracy accumulates"intwodirections-ver tically (a piling up) and horizontally (a spreading out)" (652) and that "somany generations of literacy, so to speak, now occupy the same social space" (652).

I also desiretounderstandhow cultures maintain traditional practices in themidst of such large-scale technological change. I can see theways that the four generations ofmy own familyhave accumulated

literacy,but our ac

cumulation has not been a direct superseding of one form of literacy to an other. Further, the concept of accumulation

did not seem to explain how and

why our Amish neighbors and relatives continue to eschew technological in

novation. Essentially, Brandt'stimely workoffers the"what:'and I suggestthat heritage literacy offers the "how" and the "why."This article is an effort to ex plore this how and why of accumulating

literacy over time and generations,

within a specific population of people. In general, heritage literacy emphasizes not just the "piling up and spreading out" of accumulation, but also theways that literacy practices pass back and forth between generations; the old in form the new, the new impact the old. Heritage

literacy pays careful attention

to the choices that individuals and communities make

about their literacy

as itincorporates Finally, heritageliteracy, multimodalliteracy development. practices, moves the emphasis of accumulation

toward a broad set of sign tech

nologiesand systems.

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processofadoption,adaptation,or Byemphasizingthedecision-making practices,heritageliteracyshowstheactive alienationfromvariousliteracy development, thoughshe involvement eachpersonhaswithherown literacy may not even be conscious

of that involvement. Choices

about literacy and

technology use, as noted above, are mitigated by one's community, faith, and family.As Juan Guerra puts it,"the change from an unreflective state ofmind to a state of self-awareness is neither linear nor progressive" (26). His concept of "nomadic consciousness" of consciousness

emphasizes

that no one ever achieves such a state

that she has no place else to go; inother words, Guerra points is always changing from critical to naive, or to nostal

out that our awareness

gic, or to contradictory (30). Generational nology use (or consciousness)

passage

of information and tech

is not linear or steadfast. If thiswere the case, I

would be suggesting a sort of autonomous

or neutral view of literacywhere

the values, beliefs, and social practices of a culture are passed along without any real construction on the part of the learner. Instead, heritage literacy em

and critiquing questioning, of literacy phasizes thatthereis reinterpretation, practices by each new generation, and that new generations impact older ones in a recursive way. Heritage literacybuilds on nomadic consciousness

as it traces the changes

and decisions people make about their literacy practices over time. In adopt ing, adapting, or alienating one's self from a literacy technology, changes also occur in consciousness.

The uneven, changing, and negotiated understand

ings of one's world roughly parallel theways that that person relates to literacy tools and technologies. For example, if a person moves

from a critical con

sciousness to a nostalgic one where she remembers "the way thingswere:' she may well re-adopt or adapt older forms of literacy technologies as a result. In thisway, heritage literacy and Guerra's nomadic consciousness conceptualizing

offer a way of

reading and writing within cultures as an evolving thing.

as betweengenerations Finally, heritageliteracy showsinterdependence the new generation depends on the old for their intellectual inheritances, and the old depends on the new for innovations and adaptations, as well as adop tions of literacy traditions. This interdependence

is aptly illustrated among

the generations of my family and theAmish community members

inmy re

search group, but heritage literacy is certainly not restricted to only thosewith Amish ancestry. Rather, thisparticular research group offers a unique perspec tive ofmultimodality

and literacy technology use where one would

least ex

pect it tomanifest. How much more so, then, are heritage literacy practices evident in different literacy technology uses outside of this community?

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Analysis As a means of exploring heritage literacy further,letme offer another anec dote. This one comes from the fourgenerations ofmy familywho participated in the study.Cora (92) ismy great-grandmother; Edna (71) ismy grandmother; Lucy (50) ismy mother; and Merry (24) ismy sister.My great-grandmother was raised Amish and raised her familyAmish until she left the church around age 40. My grandmother Edna was about 8 when

the family left the Amish

church community. The anecdote consists of a series of four images of quilts that exhibit the adoptions, adaptations, and alienations

from literacies and

technologies in the past generations ofmy family. I use quilts as literacy artifacts because

Ibelieve that they exemplifymul

andGuntherKress,include"im tiple modes,which,accordingtoCareyJewitt age, gaze, gesture, movement, music, speech and sound-effect" (1) as well as pattern, texture,and color.Each of thesemodes ing and communication"

is "equally significant formean

(2). If literacy, as I noted above, is a "codified sign

system," then quilts offera type of pattern or system of signs thatmake mean

ingmuch as an alphabet,alpha-numeric coding,hieroglyph, or cuneiform might. Perhaps the easiest way to understand tional African American

this argument is to look at tradi

narrative quilts. These

quilts used patterns and

appliqued pictures to convey stories,moral lessons, and political stances. Olga Idriss Davis, a researcher of black rhetoric and narrative,writes that the rheto ric inAfrican American quilts "points to the legacy of a people struggling for symbols of expression through pieces of cloth and amyriad of colors. The quilt uncovers the choice of symbols black women used within their community to create a shared, common meaning

of self and theworld"

(67). Davis's quote

makes plain that the choices of color, pattern, image, symbol, and even cloth signifyand make meaning, just as letters on a page signifyand make meaning. Figure 1 is a close-up ofmy grandmother Edna's quilt. Though I have dis tinctmemories of napping under this quilt as a child and wrestling with my siblings on its surface, currently the quilt hangs in a room ofmy parents' home thatwe call "Grammy's Room" because

ithas been decorated with her inmind.

The quilt was pieced by my great-grandmother (Cora) and then hand quilted by all ofmy grandmother's aunts, hermother, and her grandmothers. The pat tern is called "Drunkard's Path," which apparently my grandmother was not very happy about at the time the quilt was made.2 The pattern title is also ironic, given thatmost of thewomen quilting itwere Amish.

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Figure1:Edna'squilt. Figure 2 is ofmy mother's quilt. Itwas made around 1975 and pieced by my great-great-grandmother Katie. All the female familymembers on that side of the family helped to quilt it, including my great-grandmother (Cora) and her sisters, my grandmother (Edna) and her sisters, and many women from my mother's paternal relatives. My mom told me that she herself put a few stitches in it.The quilt currently hangs in another room ofmy parents' home; however, ithas never been used as anything but decoration. My mom toldme that she almost got rid of the quilt many years before my research began be cause she did not like the colors. She only kept itbecause somany of her family members had helped create it. These two quilts signify several things. First, the color schemes and pat terns connote Amish identity; theAmish use only solid-color fabrics in bold geometric designs for their own quilts, although they use patterned fabrics when the quilts are intended forEnglish patrons or friends. The plainness of the fabrics is a reflection of the Amish desire to remain apart fromworldly things and modern trappings,much asMary and Elaine's plain clothing signi fies theirAmish beliefs and culture. There is symmetry in each pattern as well, perhaps showing theAmish affinityfor order. Though no alphabetic symbols are represented here, the quilt has been "written" bymultiple hands and car ries a message.

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: 2 Lucy's Figure quilt.

Adoption of Amish identity and their literacy practice of quilt making has played out stronglybetween these two quilts. At the timemy grandmother's quilt was made, my great-grandmother had lefttheAmish church, somy grand mother was no longer Amish either. It is interesting that her relatives would make her a quilt signifyingAmish identitywhen she no longerwas a part of the community. Similarly,my mother was not Amish, nor had she ever been, but her family tieswere enough for the creation of a traditional quilt. Few ad aptations in tool use have been made fromone quilt to the next. Because both quilts were pieced byAmish women, theywere presumably sewn on a treadle sewing machine. Both are hand quilted using needle and thread.While many English quilters have turned tomachine quilting tomechanize this process, for theAmish inmy study and for the oldest members ofmy family, to adopt such technologies would violate the basic underpinnings of their identity. The next quilt inmy analysis has images of the 1980s cartoon character Strawberry Shortcake. No one inmy family has the blanket, so a description will have to suffice. When my sister and Iwere young,my mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother made us matching comforters with themed fabric of the Strawberry Shortcake character. A comforter isdistinguishable from a quilt

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it is "tied" or "knotted" with yarn at six-inch intervals over the surface

rather than quilted with tinyhand stitches. Also, a comforter is usually made with a single fabric on its top, instead of a pieced design. My sister and Iwere "children of the 1980s," and this is reflected in the appearance of these comforters; we, likemany girls, partook of the fad sur rounding the red-haired young girl character named Strawberry Shortcake. Instead of purchasing expensive themed bedding, my mother frugally pur chased only the themed flat sheets and batting tomake

into comforters. My

sister had theHolly Hobbie character on the back of her comforter, and I had a hand-me-down StarWars sheet frommy older brother on the back. The adaptations of theAmish literacy practice of quilting are evident in this comforter. First, we had comforters, rather than pieced quilts. Second, those comforters were knotted rather than quilted. Third, instead of solid-col ored fabric and geometric designs, we had pop culture cartoon-themed

de

signs. And fourth,any sewing thatwas needed to create these comforters was done on an electric-powered sewing machine. What

isnot as evident ishow much of theAmish literacypractice of quilt

ing thatwe did adopt. First, the tradition of creating blankets with layers of fabric and batting is present. Second, the act of gathering together and col laborating to finisha blanket ispresent as my great-grandmother, grandmother, mother, sister,and I all participated

inknotting. Third, the comforter signifies

identity,though that identity is no longerAmish per se.My immediate family had no real connection to theAmish culture when I grew up, even though our ancestors and heritage come from theAmish. Hence, themessages constructed within this blanket aligned us more with mainstream

culture and ideals.

The final image in Figure 3 is a screenshot of a digital movie

I created

several years ago.3 Iused Adobe Premier to create the piece using still images, transparency filters,and basic timed transitions to merge image,motion, and text.The piece is silent in an attempt at the "plainness" thatAmish strive for.It explores identity,specifically my Amish heri

iam

F1

_

~~~~~~tage.

This adaptation shows a quilt that is not at all

- -~ X

traditional as it isnot a blanket of any sort and lacks

the functionality of the previous three examples. In a way, it is an alienation from the traditions of quilt making, albeit with a respectful nod in that direc 3:Screenshotofdigitalvideo. Figure |

a patchJork

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it lacks a blanket's functionality. It shows a furtheradaptation of

tools-thecomputer. quilting-as-literacy practicebyusing"modern" Thereare, however, adoptions of traditional tools and practices present as well. The movie uses layers,much as a quilted blanket is layered. The movie makes meaning with color, pattern, and texture, like any of the blankets. And themovie signi fies identity,overtly because

of the text and implied inmy use of Amish-in

spiredsolidcolors. My point is simplythatthesefourillustrations exhibitheritageliteracy "in action"withinone family. By viewingthemin succession,thedecision making process about which literacies and tools to adopt, adapt, or alienate ourselves from is apparent. However, I chose these fourexamples knowing that theycould help illustrate two other defining features of heritage literacy:multi

modalityon and offthecomputerscreenand home-basedliteracylearning. Multimodality and Home-Based Literacy Even in its current monomodal multimodality. making:

state, the digital movie screenshot exhibits

It depicts several media

and modes

interacting formeaning

text,pattern, color (media) and visual, image, and spatial modes.

In

itsmovie form,sound effect (or the lack thereof),movement, and gesture add to the overall message. However, in a break fromcurrent trends inwriting stud

on computer-mediated iesthatfocusexclusively design(see,forexample, Jewitt and Kress), I argue that the quilts are equally multimodal. Quilts, like the digi talmovie, use multiple media and modes

such as texture,movement, pattern,

and color tomake meaning. Note also that both the quilts and themovie are digital; both were made with hands and fingers,or digits.While

no one would

argue that a quilt lacks the other defining features of digitalwriting-e.g.,

"writ

ingproducedon handheldanddesktopdigitaldevicesanddistributed prima rilyvia wireless and wired networks" (DigiRhet 238)-I

argue here that a quilt

is indeedmultimodal. Hence, themultimodality ofheritageliteracyispassed between generations and manifests within a variety of products, fromquilts to computer-mediated

texts, and each generation makes decisions about which

tools and literacies theywill use and towhat extent. Indirectly, the above illustration points to theways that heritage literacy takes place outside of school settings; traditions and literacypractices such as quilting are passed on within family units and often without

the direct in

struction of a school-like atmosphere. Such a concept is not new, as such re searchers as Ann Ruggles Gere andMarcia Farr have explored extracurriculum

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however, heritageliteracy shedsnew and compadrazgo and liricorespectively; light on those moments

of literacy learning and teaching that are embedded

in indigenous home-basedpractices. Gere's extracurriculum broadens

the scope ofwhat is included in a defi

nitionofwritinginstruction outsideacademe;herworkdepictstypesofwrit and schooling"(279).Her examplesof ingworkshopsthat"uncoupleliteracy Writers'Workshop and theTenderloin Women'sWriting theLansing,Iowa, Workshop

show thoughtful examples of people

learning towrite outside of

school walls. The structure, timing, and focus of theworkshops do resemble literacy learning within schools, but they are peer directed and without

the

of school. curriculum state-mandated Heritage literacy, likeextracurriculum, is literacylearningoutside of school walls. In a continuation ofGere's work, heritage literacyhighlights those practices that are unstructured and lacking even amodicum

of typical school

like learning. The quilting illustrated above is learned by trial and error, in large

recipesand cookingareheri groupsofmultigenerational women. Similarly, tage literacy practices learned not by explicit cooking instruction offered to young cooks but by unstructured observation and modeling. Such a means of

"instruction" demarcatestheseeventsandpracticesfroma schoolsettingand stand in contrast to current composition pedagogies. Farr offers a similar concept addressing learning outside of school walls called lirico. Farr writes that a number of her participants

"learned literacy

lirico; that is, they 'picked itup' informally fromothers who used only spoken language-not

printed materials-to

pass on knowledge of thewriting sys

tem" (470). Farr later states that although "formal schooling is the route to literacy formany people, schooling is clearly not essential" (474). Clearly the concept of heritage literacymirrors Farr's work; it then builds upon it by ex

ploring multimodalliteracieslearnedlirico. Further, heritage literacymirrors Farr's concept of compadrazgo

inwhich

literacy is learned outside of school through social networks and used in reli gious, commercial, civic, and educational "domains" or contexts. "Compadrazgo refers to theMexican

system of godparent-like relationships that function as a

reciprocal exchange network to facilitate economic survival and provide emo tional and social support" (468). Essentially, compadrazgo

is an intergenera

tional network of social and emotional support where surrogate relatives help pass on traditions and values. I believe that compadrazgo would be an inter esting concept and site of future research in heritage literacy research to ex

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plore thegenerationalliteracy practicesthatexistoutsideof immediatefam ily membersor inawidercommunity base thantheone I studied. Othersitesforfutureresearchinheritageliteracy existinstudying other or traditions. The Amish cultures' communities' generationalliteracy were a significant for me tobeginwithbecauseofmy familial connection community with themandbecause theyexhibit multimodality whereonewould leastex pect to findit;however, and cul heritageliteracy applies to all communities an alternate tures.Finally, heritageliteracy, because itoffers understanding of multimodalliteracy, suggeststhatthecurrenttrendstowardlaudingcomputer mediated literacy shouldbe put incheck.A broaderunderstanding of techno logicalliteracyisneeded inwhich thereisbalancebetweenthenew and the old,between andbetweendigitaland cultural. modernityand heritage, Notes 1. Community participants have been given pseudonyms. 2.The pattern "Drunkard's Path" has been applied to a varietyof quilt blocks,many ofwhich look very little like this one. 3. The movie isavailable forviewingatmywebsite: .

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Literacy: A Critical Sourcebook. Ed. Ellen Cushman, Eugene R. Kintgen, Barry M. Kroll, and Mike Rose. Boston: Bedford/

Literacy: "Accumulating in the Writing and Learning toWrite Twentieth Century." College English 57.6

(1995):649-68.

St.Martin's,

Cushman, Ellen. "Toward a Rhetoric of New Media: (Me)dia." Composing Online Computers and Composition Spring 2004. July 2007
Fishman, Andrea. Amish Literacy: What and How ItMeans. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, Gere, Anne Rented

identity/metis.htmb. Davis,

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Suzanne Kesler Rumsey Suzanne Kesler Rumsey is assistant professor in theDepartment of English and Linguistics at Indiana University-Purdue UniversityFortWayne, where she teaches technicalwriting and multimedia. Her research interests include the intersections of cultural and digital rhetorics, literacy studies, and writing in and formultiple

media.

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