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Victoria Petron
Dr. Lance Cummings
ENG 314

Intention Essay: Gaining Real-Life Experience by Composing Multimodal Texts for Clients
After visiting the Bellamy Mansion, taking photographs, and experiencing Ashleys
guided tour, I was especially intrigued by the history of the slaves at the mansion. Ashleys
description of the slave quarters and the kitchen particularly resonated with me. She told us about
some of the names of the slaves who lived and worked there and named many of their tasks. For
example, Sarah was the head slave who worked primarily in the very hot kitchen. Ashley
described the way Sarah had to prepare several meals a day for the large Bellamy family and
their guests. I could only imagine how difficult it must have been to endure the heat and the
pressure.
From the outside of the mansion, I never would have thought about the slaves that lived
there. The mansion is a beautiful historic property with well-kept gardens. It is such a beautiful
place that they hold many weddings there. However, I think it is important for the Bellamy
Mansions advertising and marketing to reflect the historical context of slavery that took place
locally. Because of the way the history of the slavery at the Bellamy Mansion captured my
interest, I would like to focus on creating an educational, multimodal document that can be used
to teach children about slavery for the applied learning project.
As a part of a collaboration with classmates, I hope to draft a document that introduces
the topic of slavery to young audiences. This can include a list of vocabulary words for students
to familiarize themselves with, a brief timeline for historical background information, and

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discussion questions that teachers can use as a class activity or homework assignment.
Additionally, I think my group and I should compose a short video that features footage of the
Bellamy Mansion, particularly the slave quarters and working yard. Some educators may choose
to bring their class on a field trip to the Bellamy Mansion so the video could be supplemental to
the field trip, or the video could be used by itself in the classroom.
During the drafting and completion of the applied learning project, I intend to gain
experience in communicating with clients. I will be communicating with faculty at the Bellamy
Mansion about their needs and vision for marketing and educational materials and learning how
to incorporate those needs into my own creative and technical ideas. Working with Adobe
programs will be essential in completing the multimodal document, and I would like to use miniprojects that I have already completed whenever possible. Furthermore, I intend to use what I
have learned in class about rhetoric, film grammar and photography in addition to design
elements such as the CRAP model.
I think my knowledge of rhetoric will be particularly helpful once my group and I have
decided what messages we want to specifically communicate in the video and other sections of
the multimodal document. For example, we will have to think critically about our use of sound in
the video. When writing the script, we can begin to decide what sound effects and/or music we
would like to use to enhance the narration and footage of the slave quarters and mansion.
As McKee outlines in her article, Sound matters: Notes toward the analysis and design
of sound in multimodal webtexts, there are four important elements of sound that we should
consider when drafting, vocal delivery, music, special effects, and silence (335). I think the
narration ideally should be voiced by a female to convey a more intimate voice that children
would respond better to, the volume of the narration should be higher than that of any music and

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sound effects so that it is easy to understand what is being said, and there should only be slight
vibrato if/when the narrator is discussing some of the hardships the slaves endured as it conveys
more emotion (340).
McKee emphasizes the importance and effects that music has on the tone and
atmosphere of a soundtrack (343). She notes that music can shape the feelings of the audience
(343) and that a slow passage in a minor key can suggest gloom (344). Given that our project
will deal with the despair that slaves felt and the hardships that they endured, a slow passage in a
minor key would best fit with the narration and other sound elements. The music should be a
relatively soft melody with a lower tempo. A faster beat would undoubtedly contradict the
melancholic nature of the topic of slavery.
Furthermore, we will need to consider the grammar of film, especially in filming the
Bellamy Mansion. Tecucianu in The Language of Cinema: Film, Grammar and Visual Literacy
writes that, the director may also resort to a number of optical distortions in which case
objects and persons may seem smaller or bigger than they are or color filters may be
employed in order to show that a shot is flashback for a flashforward (253). This means that we
can manipulate shots to communicate the differences in detail between the fireplaces in the slave
quarters and the fireplaces in the Bellamy Mansion. We can also use color filters to imply how
hot it must have been in the kitchen when Sarah was preparing large quantities of food with the
stove and boiler running. Similar could be applied to any photography we choose to use in our
multimodal document. Certain color filters could imply similar sentiments. Additionally, we can
consider close-up shots of objects in which the detail is more noticeable. We can also crop photos
or use them as full page backgrounds in the written portion of our document.

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In the text portion of the document, it is also important to keep the CRAP model in mind.
Since one of our modes will be visual, I think it is necessary to determine how to use contrast.
For example, if we show a title on the video it should be a different color than the background
elements, and we should use another color or font for subtitles. For repetition all of the related
elements should look similar. For alignment, all of the text should be justified the same and
appear in the same place spatially. Additionally, to keep the multimodal texts elements
organized, I would like to keep all related shots, text, and narration grouped together. For
example, when highlighting Sarahs daily tasks, all of the footage of her duties in the kitchen
should be addressed together, while any time she spent doing laundry should occur next.
I have reviewed the course outcomes, and I believe that the first one is most important to
me and relevant to this project. Designing and delivering multimodal texts with rhetorical
principles and the client in mind will help prepare me to create an informative and persuasive
multimodal text as well as prepare me for a career in professional writing. In terms of our applied
learning project, in order to most effectively highlight the Bellamy Mansions history of slavery,
it is important to make informed decisions based on what weve learned in class about digital
composition. We need to consider rhetoric and elements of design and prepare to create a
multimodal document that will be delivered on specific platforms. We also need to periodically
reflect on our progress to make sure what we have drafted is consistent with the clients needs.
Writer/Designer notes that a multimodal text must induce change in some way in order to
be successful. I also will consider the audience, purposes, context, and genre in depth to make
sure messages are conveyed to the public accurately (Arola 21-24). The purpose of our
multimodal text is to inform and educate the audience, who will be primarily made up of
elementary school students. We also want to encourage educators to bring their class to the

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Bellamy Mansion for a tour. Our multimodal text should ultimately be an interactive document
that can be used in class on a projector or in a computer lab. Additionally, the Bellamy Mansion
could incorporate the document on their website in order to help persuade educators and students
to learn more about the history of slavery at the mansion.
The only challenges I foresee are in regards to the technology we may have to utilize in
order to complete the project. To help overcome any obstacles I may have, I plan to ask
classmates about their experience and strengths and weaknesses with technology we might use
such as Audacity and Creative Suite. We can either work together as a group in real time at the
library on campus on the tasks at hand, or divide the tasks according to strengths and
weaknesses.
Ultimately, this project will help me gain experience working within a group.
Additionally, I hope to learn how to more effectively plan a project, manage my time, and stay
on task. Working with a client is also a useful experience for my resume and future internships
and job opportunities. I also hope to sharpen my skills with Adobe programs and learn how to
make informed decisions on design elements in order to best communicate our intended
messages. Finally, this project allows us to both learn rhetorical theory and implement what we
have learned through experience.

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Works Cited
Arola, et al. Writer/Designer: A Guide to Making Multimodal Projects. Bedford/St. Martins,
2014.
McKee, Helen. Sound matters: Notes toward the analysis and design of sound in multimodal
webtexts. Computers and Composition, vol 23, 2006, pp. 335354.
Tecucianu, Daniela. The Language of Cinema: Film, Grammar, and Visual Literacy.
International Journal of Communication Research, vol. 4, no. 3, 2014, pp. 251-256.