The Misconceptions of Aurality in School Writing
Why was audio/sound looked down upon and not wanted in our education? What could be the reasons on making audio/sound feel taboo? All the answers to these questions lead back to the ideology of writing being the dominant way of learning. In our earlier post we had discussed the same misconception on moving from traditional writing to digital writing. Our world is advancing and so are our writing techniques, so instead of just using what we have traditionally learned about writing we need to mesh these new techniques (audio and digital writing) to succeed.
Schools don’t want to mesh aurality into the traditional ways of writing because they feel it is the way to go, however, this might not be true to our needs in the real world. In the article The Movement of Air, the Breath of Meaning: Aurality and Multimodal Composing by Cynthia l. Selfe, she mentions, “Is there a place in College English classes for exercises in reading, or talking, or both? The question has been raised now and then in the past, almost always to receive a negative answer, particularly from English departments” (8). This question reveals the roaming thought on the issues that students will later face and how this issue could be prevented if aurality is embellished in their teaching curriculums. Of course educators have their reasons on being against aurality, which is that aurality is part of a popular culture, some student hear differently or that we don’t need aurality to voice our opinions because we voice with our thoughts on paper. These are valid points, but educators are sticking to traditional ways, which connects back to the 19th century of race/gender.
How does Race/ Gender in the 19th century Play a Role in having Aurality in Writing?
Back in the 17th century to the 19th century printing was the primary way of “recording, storing and retrieving information discovered” (8). Since the scientific world of scholars was using writing and printing as the main way looked at in our education, it became something only white males had access too. For example, women, Blacks, Hispanics/Latinos and American Indians were denied access to read and write in higher authorities of education (9). These minority groups learned through using aurality in their education by preserving cultural ways through storytelling, vocal performances, music, public speaking or through ceremonial contexts (10-11). Using aurality throughout history led to topics taught in our education today.
How has Aurality incorporated in Writing?
Besides following traditions going back to the 17th century, educators were having a hard time incorporating aurality into writing because it was part of popular culture such as mass media, however, studies have shown that aurality could enhance writing. In the 20th century aurality was finally accepted. For example, teachers were now practicing ways in using aurality in writing practices such as recording audios giving students feedback on their essays (18). As time goes by aurality and digital writing play a great role in traditional ways.
Today we have software and hardware applications that allow us to use audio in a more advanced way that could deliver the same message in writing. These advances have helped strengthen ways to voice our thoughts and scholars could agree with that as well.
