Composing the Past Through the Multiliteracies at The

COMPOSING THE PAST THROUGH THE MULTILITERACIES

AT THE MAY 4 VISITORS CENTER

A dissertation submitted

to Kent State University in partial

fulfillment of the requirements for the

degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Megan E. Brenneman

December 2018

Except for previously published materials

Dissertation written by

Megan E. Brenneman

B.A. University of Lynchburg, 2011

M.A. James Madison University, 2013

Ph.D. Kent State University, 2018

Approved by

______, Chair, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Dr. Pamela Takayoshi

______, Members, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Dr. Sara Newman

______, Dr. Stephanie Moody

______, Dr. Kenneth Bindas

______, Dr. David Odell-Scott

Accepted by

______, Chair, Department of English Dr. Robert Trogdon

______, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences Dr. James L. Blank

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... iii

LIST OF FIGURES ...... iv

LIST OF TABLES ...... v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... vi

CHAPTERS

I. Introduction ...... 1

II. Literature Review ...... 28

III. Audience Literate Practices at the Museum ...... 63

IV. Reading and Interpreting Multimodal Ensembles at the Museum ...... 92

V. The Role of Space in Multimodal Composition ...... 131

VI. Conclusion ...... 167

REFERENCES ...... 184

APPENDICES

A. Coding Key: M4VC Implementation Grant...... 197

B. ENG 21011 Class Discussion Questions ...... 199

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. The rhetorical triangle of museum visitor experience ...... 35

Figure 2. Text as centripetal force in multimodal ensembles ...... 98

Figure 3. Rail panel layout ...... 106

Figure 4. Suspended captioned photo panel ...... 108

Figure 5. Large captioned photo panel ...... 109

Figure 6. Album cover panel display ...... 111

Figure 7. Allison’s and Sandy’s hats on display ...... 113

Figure 8. Jeff’s letter/poem to his mother ...... 114

Figure 9. December 1, 1969 draft board ...... 117

Figure 10. Nixon’s inflammatory speech panel ...... 118

Figure 11. Solar Totem #1 with chalk markings...... 125

Figure 12. Kent State shooting memorial ...... 139

Figure 13. Map of the May 4 site ...... 140

Figure 14. Kent State shooting site with gym annex on the right ...... 142

Figure 15. Trail marker #1 ...... 150

Figure 16. Trail marker #2 ...... 155

Figure 17. Trail marker #3 ...... 154

Figure 18. Two main landmarks of trial marker #5 (pagoda and Taylor Hall) ...... 156

Figure 19. Vantage point from trail marker #6 (Prentice Hall parking lot) ...... 157

Figure 20. Sandy Scheuer’s personal items from childhood ...... 182

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Modes and corresponding audience experience from exhibition walkthrough ...68

Table 2. Museum multimodalities in Grant ...... 71

Table 3. Museum acts as they appear in Grant ...... 75

Table 4. Museum act codes and examples in Grant...... 76

Table 5. Museum act initiator codes ...... 79

Table 6. Frequency of museum act codes in Grant ...... 80

Table 7. Institution as initiator of meaning making ...... 84

Table 8. Visitor as initiator of meaning making ...... 86

Table 9. Text that informs and contextualizes ...... 97

Table 10. Museum multimodalities and affordances ...... 175

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The dissertation process is not a solitary one, although it may feel like it at times.

Many people have contributed to this project in large and small, direct and indirect ways.

There is so much that I owe to my director, Pam Takayoshi, who helped me navigate all the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of this process. She has seen me through tough times, both personal and professional, with emotional support, humor, and tacos.

Pam’s belief in me and in this project encouraged me to push through the rough patches and take pride in how far I have come. She has modeled for me what it means to love the work you do; research is more than a professional necessity. She has a contagious passion and enthusiasm for learning and discovery. Because of her, I made myself open to new discoveries and twists throughout the entire research process. Because of her, I made sure

I took time to enjoy the process.

My committee members, Sara Newman, Stephanie Moody, Ken Bindas, and Pat

Coy, have all generously given their time and expertise to ensure my project is as strong as it can be and provided me with invaluable and thoughtful feedback. They have offered numerous useful resources; some of which changed the trajectory of this research. From this project’s conception to the defense, Sara has gone above and beyond with feedback and support. We have had many fruitful discussions over coffee in both Kent and

Rockville, and she has always been a strong advocate of my interest in museums.

Derek Van Ittersum, Laura Davis, Mindy Farmer, Lori Boes, and Lae’l Hughes-

Watkins have also helped this dissertation take shape by offering time, resources, and conversation.

There are many others who have played an important role in my time at Kent. My cohort (Katie, Shannon, Melody, Jamie, Halle, and Arthur) were with me since Day One when we were all overwhelmed, slightly terrified, and had no clue what was ahead.

Barbara has offered a compassionate ear and a strong shoulder to lean on. Yvonne has been there to listen and to provide me with sound advice and laughs. Christine has been hilarious and supportive as we tackled coursework and our dissertations together, and has encouraged much-needed distraction in the form of fantastic films like Austin Powers and

The Room (“Oh, hi Mark!”). Jess has helped me see that the light at the end of the tunnel is much brighter than I’d previously thought. Jeanne Smith has helped me grow professionally and demonstrated what it truly means to be selfless.

My master’s thesis committee at James Madison University were the original proponents of my academic interest in museums. Traci Zimmerman, Scott Lunsford, and

Susan Ghiaciuc guided me across a huge stepping stone to this dissertation. I always think back on our Jimmy John’s-fueled meetings during the summer of 2013—the first time I ever saw how my own research could fit into a larger academic sphere.

When I think back further to my years at the University of Lynchburg, two important mentors come to mind: Cynthia Ramsey (Music) and Cheryl Jorgensen-Earp

(Communication Studies). Dr. Ramsey set high standards for writing and research, and determinedly and patiently helped us to meet these standards. Her History of Music,

Form and Analysis, and (especially!) MUSC 402 courses prepared me for graduate-level research. Dr. J-E’s humor and enthusiasm in class inspired me to strive for the same in my own teaching, and her research on memorial spaces enriches the discussion in this dissertation.

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Lastly, I would not be where I am or who I am without my parents, who have always been everything. Who knew that I’d be able to make something from our hundreds of trips to the “Dinosaur Museum” at the Smithsonian? They gave me a childhood filled with curiosity, literacy, and learning, which has never left me. They encouraged my educational success and supported my role as perpetual student since I started my two-year-olds’ program. Twenty-seven years later, I’ve reached the finish line and they’ve been there every step of the way. Linguini (Lanky) and Bella have also given their support, although this might be because I have access to the Pup-Peroni.

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CHAPTER I

REMEMBERING, REPRESENTING, AND REINTERPRETING MAY 4, 1970:

AN INTRODUCTION

My first encounter with the Vietnam War was when a high school classmate’s father, a Vietnam veteran, spoke to our American history class one afternoon. As a door gunner, this man had a small rate of survival every time he took off into the air. He told us one gruesome narrative after another, and later confessed that there were still many stories he kept to himself. I wondered what more he had done that he did not even want to discuss with his family. He said that there were some things he experienced in Vietnam that only others who had been there would be able to understand. He painted an entirely different picture of the war than did our history textbook, which gave an abridged list of political reasons and briefly touched on the antiwar movement. He talked about suffering in the humid Vietnamese summers, about losing friends, and about missing home and the opportunity to attend college after high school. There were hundreds of thousands just like him. They were what made the war. Other stories left out of my education were those of the antiwar movement. I saw often critical portrayals of the antiwar movement in popular culture as “dirty hippies.” The symbolism they used in their resistance (e.g. white flowers, peace signs) were frequently reappropriated and stripped of their meaning, and they were distanced from the antiwar causes they supported.

Out of intrigue for war histories, I went to Vietnam when I was nineteen, over thirty years after the last American military aircraft departed the country. This trip was part of a study abroad course on Vietnam War-era film and literature. Although the professor, who was able to speak about this era of American history firsthand, made an effort to include the antiwar perspective in our coursework, we quickly realized that on

Vietnamese soil the conflict’s history became “us vs. them” with no other sides or stances. In the U.S. as well, we often hear an “us vs. them” narrative. In the latter instance, “us” would comprise of the Americans engaged in or supportive of the war, and

“them” includes the state of Vietnam as a whole. The antiwar protesters, who were very much a part of these times, are again marginalized, kept at bay, or only briefly mentioned.

Before travelling to Vietnam, I had not been to any sites on American soil that commemorate the war, so I made a point of visiting these sites once I had returned to the

United States. I had seen what the Vietnamese, the “enemy,” remembered as a collective: dead civilians, destroyed villages, shattered traditions. One of the most memorable and informative sites, which collected weapons, artillery, vehicles, and whatever else

American troops left behind, was the Museum of War Remnants in Ho Chi Minh City

(formerly Saigon). The site itself also had rhetorical significance not only because of its wartime history in the capital of South Vietnam but also because the museum building and grounds were formerly the location of U.S. Information Services. The Vietnamese had reclaimed the space to tell their side of the war.

Back in the United States, as I had expected, the museums I visited that discuss the Vietnam War (National Museum of American History and National Museum of the

Marine Corps) had their own ideological agendas and composed different narratives about the war. The same men whom the Vietnamese termed “American killers” were war heroes. There was minimal discussion of the antiwar movement; at best, the museums acknowledged the existence of a dissenting subgroup of Americans. This was the group that held the most intrigue for me. Although they had not made their way into my history textbooks, they were loud enough to command the cultural history of the sixties and seventies.

In August 2013, I began Ph.D. coursework at Kent State University, the unassuming and coincidental hub of the antiwar movement from the Vietnam War era.

On May 4, 1970, Ohio National Guardsmen fired into a crowd of student protesters and student bystanders, killing four and wounding nine. The protests erupted in the aftermath of President Richard Nixon’s announcement to expand the Vietnam War into Cambodia.

Students and other college-age U.S. citizens, who were particular stakeholders after the draft took effect, protested this decision across the nation; yet, a series of circumstances at Kent State led to the Guardsmen being called and ultimately the deaths of four students.

Before the cold weather hit, I made sure to conduct a self-guided tour around the grounds where the shootings took place. I had only a basic understanding of the shootings that took place on May 4, 1970 and was unaware of the event’s significance in American history. Down on the Commons, I recognized the victory bell from documentaries and photographs. I was surprised to see the parking lot sites where the four students were killed were marked off. Later, I learned about another resistance movement that fought to keep the rhetorically significant grounds of the May 4 shootings intact. After all, the

3 university had not always had such reverence towards the tragedy. Simpson and Wilson

(2016) cite historian Thomas Grace, one of the nine wounded, who provides a perspective on the controversial nature of May 4:

The battle over the memory of Kent State, [Grace] argues, has pitted “those who

labored to highlight the political significance of May 4 against those who

preferred to first enshrine it as a day for mourning and reflection and later

neutralize its meaning.” He goes on to note how those “who insisted on blaming

the students also had a large stake in the memory war and sought to either

deactivate the importance of the shootings or deny them political worth.” (p. 17)

Indeed, students in my classes have been generally surprised to learn that the American public largely approved of the students’ deaths, which is a stark contrast to the widespread reverence today. To demonstrate the general public opinion, the 2015 PBS documentary The Day the Sixties Died includes a black and white interview clip of a

Kent resident saying she was “sorry [the National Guardsmen] didn’t shoot more.”

The May 4 Visitors Center (M4VC) seeks to rectify many of the controversies and misconceptions that stem from innumerable reports during the aftermath of the shootings. Ambiguity surrounds logistics for some of the events from those days, namely the burning of the ROTC building and the intent or identities of the protest leaders. One of the most disputed pieces of the narrative is the debate on whether the Guardsmen’s lives were truly in danger when they opened fire (Lewis and Hensley, 1998). One of the certainties of these events is that four students were killed and nine were wounded, and the University dedicated an official space, the M4VC, 42 years later to commemorate the entirety of the event and the surrounding influences of the times.

The first time I visited the M4VC, I was with my sophomore-level college writing classes on a frigid Friday morning in February. We had spent the week discussing the shootings that took place on May 4, 1970 just up the hill from our classroom. Only a small number of them were hearing this information for the first time. In their reflective writing assignments, my students responded to the class visit to the M4VC on a dichotomous spectrum from “feeling” to “unfeeling,” from “I was shocked and saddened” to “I’m sick of our teachers shoving this down our throats.” Admittedly, the apathy of a number of my students was unexpected, but it is important to note how times and collective generational attitudes have shifted since the student protesters served their term at the university. However, almost all of my students did note that they emerged from our class tour of the Center with new takeaways or information about May 4, whether profound and mind-changing about their preconceptions, or not.

We usually devoted the next class meeting to reflection and discussion, which began with my broad request: “Tell me what you saw.” This prompted the students to consider what had stood out to them the most as they performed their role as museumgoers, without asking them to focus on any specific image, object, or spoken/written word. However, asking students to consider what they “saw” begs them to review the visual modes at the museum. If we are to think of the museum as a larger, multimodal composition, more modes contribute to the pedagogical message of museums than visual alone. From a multimodal pedagogical perspective, Jody Shipka (2011) writes,

A composition made whole1 recognizes that whether or not a particular classroom

or group of students are wired, students may still be afforded opportunities to

consider how they are continually positioned in ways that require them to read,

respond to, align with—in short to negotiate—a streaming interplay of words,

images, sounds, scents, and movement. (p. 21)

One of program goals for the English Department at Kent State is the incorporation of multimodal composition, which prompts students to see how meaning making takes place through modes other than the written word. What better place, I thought, to introduce multimodal meaning making to students than the museum?

When asked about their museum experience, the students in my class began to relate their personal gaze of the museum, formed by their own prior thoughts and experiences (Garoian, 2000; Hooper-Greenhill, 2000), to their classmates. Some immediately thought to discuss the interactive December 1969 draft board, which allowed them to use their birth date (or that of their brother, father, boyfriend) to discover their draft number. Others discussed the wall of international newspaper headlines on the shootings. The first thought to come to their mind was not necessarily the most profound interaction they had at the museum, and some students may argue that the visit itself was not at all profound. As a whole class, we recomposed fragments of our visit to the museum; personal stories from the visit became part of the larger collective memory.

From the moment our discussion began, students discussed their museum experience not only in terms of what they saw, but also what they touched, heard, and thought, as I

1 Jody Shipka’s seminal work Toward a Composition Made Whole introduces us to this eponymous term, which calls for writing instructors and rhetoric and composition scholars to consider the “multimodal aspects of all communicative practice” (p. 13). 6 hoped they would but was not able to articulate to them. When we had exhausted our discussion of the visual imagery, objects, and texts, a few students commented on the hot, dry climate of the museum, and how at times they felt claustrophobic. All of these experiences, as Shipka (2011) notes, are part of the composition process and thus contributive to the May 4 histories that museumgoers compose for themselves.

It was then that I began to consider the larger purpose of the museum—how, and through what means, is a small, finite area able to communicate a message about such a large event situated in controversy within a larger sphere of a turbulent era? Any museum or memorial can only convey a small dimension of a larger entity, and so rhetorical decision making must take place during the design and construction stages of the museum. The artifacts in the museum work together to form a larger whole—the narrative and message of the museum. The M4VC poses a unique opportunity for Kent

State students (and the general public) to learn about a local-turned-international tragedy that happened right outside their classroom buildings. Audiences are invited to compose their own May 4 histories through the modes (visual imagery, alphabetic texts, objects, video, sound) presented to them at the Visitors Center; their understanding of May 4 is shaped by these available means in addition to the surrounding, rhetorically significant space. When two or more of the aforementioned modes is presented together to compose messages for audiences, I term this a multimodal ensemble.

My research at the M4VC focuses on the available, site-specific multimodalities and emphasizes the synchronous interplay of these objects, texts, and visual imagery with the surrounding physical and rhetorical space to make meaning. The term “rhetorical space” addresses the histories that this site embodies. Labeling the May 4 site as a

7 rhetorical space calls upon the persuasive properties that the space itself holds for audiences. I distinguish rhetorical space from “physical space”; or space that does not come with prescribed rhetorical properties. Although both physical and rhetorical space may be used in multimodal ensembles to mediate messages for audiences, physical space is ordinary. It does not have history attached to its grounds, a phenomenon French historian Pierre Nora (1989) calls lieux de mémoire, or places of memory.

Audiences read and interpret multimodal ensembles to create meaning, engaging in what scholars in New Literacy Studies (NLS) term multiliteracies, or multiple literacies. Essentially, reading extends beyond the print linguistic and encompasses other forms of semiotics and signage. In this dissertation, I use the term multiliteracies interchangeably with literate practices; both of which acknowledge that audiences read and interpret many different signs and symbols through many different modes (e.g. visual imagery, objects) to make meaning. The term “meaning making” is one that appears frequently throughout this dissertation. I look to NLS scholar, James Paul Gee’s (2012) definition: “meaning is primarily the result of social interactions, negotiations, contestations, and agreements among people. It is inherently variable and social” (p. 21).

Scholars of NLS (Gee, 2012; Lankshear & Knobel, 2007) hold that meaning is unfixed and negotiable among reader and writer, or, in the case of this dissertation, museum composer and museum visitor. Museum visitors bring prescribed ideas, histories, attitudes, and beliefs to the museum, which shapes the way they read and interpret material at hand.

In this dissertation, I argue and evidence the following: 1) Alphabetic text serves as the underlying mediator that contextualizes all other modes in multimodal ensembles;

2) Audiences make meaning from multimodal ensembles as they enact literacy practices prompted by the institution and foregrounded in alphabetic texts throughout the museum;

3) Alphabetic texts mediate for audiences the articulations of the museum composers; 4)

Multimodality can serve as an effective means to negotiate the tension that comes with memorializing uncertain histories; and, 5) The curation of the May 4 rhetorical space offers an effective means to mediate tensions that arise from composing uncertain histories.

Initially, I set out to reinforce multimodal scholarship’s frequent assertion that we as instructors (or composers) must look beyond the written word and focus on nontraditional means of composing. Nontraditional means of composing would include multimodal composition: composing narratives or arguments through visual imagery, audio/video, and/or objects in addition to (or excluding) the written word. For example, a photo slideshow with voiceover narration constitutes as a multimodal composition.

Oftentimes, multimodal scholars de-center the role of the written word in composition and instead focus on visual imagery, audio/video, or objects. In my research, I have found that alphabetic texts often carry the weight of a multimodal ensemble; therefore, I doubled back on the notion that I would further assert the written word’s justified de- centralization. At the M4VC, the written word is a centerpiece and composers and audiences must rely on its communicative properties to contextualize other modes for audiences. At the museum, context-setting is a crucial part of the agenda; writing bears this load, although the other modes (visual imagery, objects, audio/video) may be more interesting or memorable.

With this research, I encourage multimodal scholars to use museum sites as a means to understand how multimodal ensembles work to mediate the composer’s message to audiences. Museums have developed a formulaic way of juxtaposing the written word, image, and object, which is more thoroughly researched in museum studies.

Multimodal scholars who are interested in pedagogy may consider how they might break down for their students the affordances and constraints of the different modes of composition, and what this can do for their audiences. For instance, the juxtaposition of alphabetic text and object or image can carry larger meaning for audiences than a traditional essay because of the meaning making affordances non-textual modes. Not only can audiences read to gain information, they can also see an image or connect to an object.

The term “meaning making” is central to and used widely throughout my dissertation. Multimodal and NLS scholarship (Gee, 2012; Insulander & Lindstrand,

2013; Lankshear & Knobel, 2007; Kress, 2000, 2003, 2009) often incorporate this seemingly broad term to define the communicative messages and practices that take place between reader and writer, listener and speaker, or (in the case of my research) visitor and institution. According to Insulander and Lindstrand (2013), “participants in communication make meaning by making signs, using socially shaped resources” (p.

417). Communicators use socially-constructed semiotics to convey meaning to their audiences. At the museum, meaning making practices take place; the multimodalities at the museum communicate to audiences.

Meaning making does not occur either when the audience is unable to understand the context of the messages or the utterances by the rhetor (Bitzer, 1992). Therefore,

museums must appeal to a rather broad audience, and set the context for how the

information at hand should be processed. The May 4 Visitors Center has gone through

great lengths to “set the scene” of the 1960s, because the museum planners understood

that those who had lived and embodied the 1960s ways of being make up only a small

component of their audience. In order to fully immerse visitors in the 1960s as the

museum intends, visitors must understand what the Kent State students were faced with

(the draft, other protest movements, etc.), where the disconnect happened between parent

and child, and why instances like the Kent State massacre must never happen again.

I break my research questions into two originating questions and one specifying

question2 . The originating questions that guide my research are as follows: How are

multimodal ensembles (alphabetic texts, objects, visual imagery) and literacy practices

used in composing the past? How do multimodal ensembles compose a history of a

particular space? Specifically: In the context of this site, what are the affordances and

constraints of meaning making through multimodal ensembles? I break down the first

originating question: How are multimodal ensembles and literacy practices used in

composing the past? The field of NLS studies writing and composing processes and

everyday literate practices, and some scholars focus on the multiple modes of

writing/composing. These multiple modes extend beyond the written word and include

other modes of communication that people can learn how to read and interpret to create

meaning, such as objects, imagery, and rhetorical space. Likewise, people can use these

multiple modes to compose for audiences. The exploration of literacy practices in

2 Originating and specifying questions from Bazerman (2008). Originating questions include Bazerman says are “the fundamental questions that form basic curiosities and motivations for inquiry” (p. 302). Specifying questions are site-specific, focused questions.

11 composing the past extend far beyond the multimodal ensembles that composers use to mediate messages to audiences. To explore this question, I examine the multimodal ensembles at the M4VC and surrounding rhetorical space. I also examine the “Exhibition

Walkthrough” section of the Implementation Grant for America’s Historical and Cultural

Organizations in which the composers of the museum site detail literacy practices they anticipate audiences will engage in while navigating the museum space.

NLS scholar Mary Hamilton (2000) asserts that “literacy practices can only be inferred from observable evidence because they include invisible resources, such as knowledge and feelings; they embody social purposes and values; and they are part of a constantly changing context, both spatial and temporal” (p. 18). Unless we ask museum planners and curators what they hope for audiences to gain from their museum visits, scholars have to infer (to borrow Hamilton’s term) potential takeaways from the materials presented at the museum. My study offers a unique contribution to the field of NLS; archived texts from the planning stages of the M4VC have afforded me insight into intended literacy practices that museum planners intend to take part between audience and institution. With this insight, inferences may become grounded in text. I did not set out to complete this research with the knowledge that I would become so entrenched in

May 4—the multiple perspectives and representations. Scholars who study museums must go beyond the front-matter that the audience sees and look at the institution’s purpose as a whole. It is for this reason that I include in this dissertation a thorough discussion of the political and social history of May 4, which have indefinitely shaped the composition of the M4VC and historic site.

I look to the second originating question: How do multimodal ensembles compose a history of a particular space? In examining how multimodal ensembles work to compose a history of a particular space, it is important to investigate thoroughly the history of that particular space. Space, both physical and rhetorical, can become part of the meaning making process, depending how composers choose to employ its properties.

Physical spaces consist of the material grounds. Physical space can allow for an arrangement of the messages audiences receive. For instance, at the M4VC, there are three clearly sectioned galleries, and audiences are intended to navigate the space in a particular order. Composers can harness the persuasive properties of rhetorical space as part of the meaning making process; therefore, space is a material that can be used by composers. Rhetorical spaces are grounds that have persuasive power because of specific historic events that have taken place; they have memory and history attached. At the May

4 site, audiences can embody history as they walk through the parking lot where the four students were killed. However, audiences may not know that the space is rhetorical unless multimodal signage (such as a trail marker with text and imagery) exists to set context for them. The evocative properties of rhetorical space is an ancient concept and is often explored in rhetoric and composition; however, the role of space in multimodal composition is not. In this dissertation, I demonstrate the meaning making properties of both physical and rhetorical space in multimodal composition.

Lastly, I explore the final, specifying question: In the context of this site, what are the affordances and constraints of meaning making? The site of May 4 is not a usual site of death and tragedy. Many sites of tragedy have a clear, representable good vs. evil narrative. May 4 has no universally decreed perpetrator, and true histories are often

13 contested. Additionally, not enough time has passed for the controversy to have dissipated. One of my major contributions for the NLS and multimodal scholarship is the notion that composers at this site use multimodality as a means to navigate tension in the histories they mediate for audiences. The tension in this case comes from varied sources: memorialization of uncertain histories, controversy surrounding the facts of who was at fault, and the University’s past dealings with the tragedy. The voice of the museum composers comes through in the alphabetic text at the museum site, but the other modes of communication are not their own. Because of the varied sources of the museum content, the museum becomes a site where history is recomposed through heteroglossia, or multiple voices. Some modes offer evidence or proof of the tragedy (such as videos and photographs), some offer emotional appeals (such as objects from the victims and spoken accounts of survivors). The modes converge to compose a history of May 4 for audiences through multiple sources, voices, and perspectives.

It is important to note that, with this dissertation, I do not attempt to critique or analyze May 4 histories, nor do I wish to criticize the design or artifacts at the M4VC; rather, I argue the affordances and constraints of multimodal communication at this site.

One of the unique affordances of the M4VC, which serves as a significant contributor to its overall pedagogical method and message, is the surrounding rhetorical space. The grounds outside Taylor Hall at Kent State where the shootings took place appear somewhat similarly to the visual record of the shootings (photos, videos) that we see today; the museum invites audiences to engage and interact with this space as they compose their own understandings of May 4.

This dissertation emphasizes the use of visual imagery, objects, alphabetic texts, and rhetorical and physical space within the M4VC and asserts the value of multimodal composition in mediating for audiences uncertain histories such as the events on May 4,

1970. The modern museum in general relies upon multiple modes of meaning making, primarily objects, alphabetic texts, and visual imagery, although audio and video are becoming increasingly commonplace. In this dissertation, I discuss one museum’s specific reliance on objects, texts, and visual imagery, in addition to the surrounding physical and rhetorical space. Although the distinct modes fulfill similar roles within the museum’s history composing process, audiences interpret them quite differently. Each mode has its own set of affordances and constraints within the audience’s meaning making process. My site of focus, the M4VC, provides historical, cultural, and political contexts for the Kent State shootings; summarizes the events of May 4 and the preceding days; and explicates consequences for the outcome. I demonstrate that the multimodalities at the museum fulfill unique, respective roles in framing information for the audiences, although they are all interdependent. Scholars of multimodality often emphasize the composition as a whole, without thoroughly examining each constituent of that whole. In this dissertation, based on my exploration of the multimodalities at this site, I offer a list of the affordances and constraints for each mode of meaning making.

Alphabetic text, visual imagery, and objects are brought to their full potential as meaning making tools through interaction with the other modes on display. The use of alphabetic texts with visual imagery and objects in pedagogical situations such as museums can provide an understanding of history and memory and can generate an audience interest

15 that words alone cannot; however, a consideration of the context for these artifacts should be part of the meaning making process as well.

I use the term researcher-as-museumgoer to denote that, although I view the modes afforded to museum audiences, I am not a “typical” viewer because I have a research agenda. Within my role of researcher-as-museumgoer, I examined the museum with the belief that the curators have constructed particular histories through the modes presented, and I discuss how museumgoers might read and interpret these modes to compose their own May 4 narratives.

As highlighted above, the M4VC has a unique affordance when composing histories for their audiences: the surrounding rhetorical space mediates history for audiences because there are prescribed histories embedded in the site. I distinguish rhetorical space from physical space here because the rhetorical space was the only mode of meaning making “built into” the site. Although the part of Taylor Hall where the

M4VC is housed existed long before the museum’s construction, the design committee essentially had a blank slate with which to work from as they planned the physical space and the texts, objects, visuals, and multimedia. The museum composers built around preexisting rhetorical space around Taylor Hall as they planned the walking tour outside and set signs to aid in audience mediation of the grounds. Especially at a historic site where histories are contested and uncertain, this distinction is important to this research because the rhetorical space affords the composers another means of mediation. The composers can guide audience interaction with and interpretation of the rhetorical space, but audiences can embody history as they navigate the grounds. The museum’s engagement with the rhetorical space provides a means to explore the role of space as an

16 under-discussed variable in NLS, and further affirms space as crucial to our understanding of multimodality as it can serve to help compose histories for audiences.

This research seeks to build upon Schwartz’s (2008) call for museum-based approaches to literacy education, as well as further explore multiliteracies’ role in audience experience at the museum with a specific focus on the affordances and constraints for alphabetic texts, objects, and visual imagery. Schwartz argues that “the museum—with its plural forms of communication, more or less hidden ideological stances, and reciprocal interpretive activity—is an excellent location for teaching students to understand modes of meaning making in their social, technological, and institutional contexts” (p. 29). Although the emphasis of this dissertation is not on pedagogy, the notion of pedagogy, learning, and meaning making is interwoven throughout because of the nature of the museum. Greer and Grobman (2016) also emphasize museums as sites of pedagogy; not simply for students to learn from their content, but for students to work behind-the-scenes as composers who negotiate meaning in ideologically, socially, and politically complex rhetorical situations. They argue that

a focus on the generation of public memory foregrounds how processes of public

remembering (and forgetting) unfold within networks of material, cultural, social,

and affective constraints while also opening up new lines of inquiry about the

fluidity of our shared memories. (pp. 2-3)

This research also considers Shipka’s (2011) call for further study of multimodal approaches to composition and Lewis’s (2007) call for more attention to the process of multimodal composition.

The War in Kent

On May 4, l970 members of the Ohio National Guard fired into a crowd of student protesters and bystanders on the Kent State University campus, killing four and wounding nine. The contentions of these times stemmed from much anger and fear: an unwinnable and costly war, the inevitability of conscription, and the continually rising number of American lives lost. On this day, the protesters spoke out against President

Nixon’s recent expansion of the Vietnam War onto Cambodian soil, which signified the

War would not soon be over as promised3. Kent State’s May 4 Massacre4 immediately became an international symbol of the war back home, of the generation gap, and of multiple protests that were erupting on university campuses nationwide. These events are perhaps most notably memorialized in American popular culture through John Filo’s

Pulitzer prize winning photograph; as well as Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young’s 1970 song “Ohio”. Likewise, the media continues to produce and air documentaries on May 4, especially near the anniversary.

Protests occurred on college campuses nationwide in response to Nixon’s announcement at the end of April 1970 for expansion of the Vietnam War into

Cambodia. During the days leading up to May 4, a number of protests occurred around the town of Kent and on campus, which prompted Kent Mayor Satrom to ask for reinforcement from the Ohio National Guard. The evening of May 3, the ROTC building on campus burned down; the identity of the arsonists remains disputed and a controversial subject. On the morning of May 4, an estimated 2,000 students gathered on

3 The Vietnam War would officially last until the Fall of Saigon in April 1975. 4 Many words, of varying degrees of severity, are attached to May 4. Some of the most commonly used are: shootings, events, and massacre. 18 the Commons for a rally, although that morning University officials had tried to notify them that they were banned from doing so. The Guardsmen received orders to disperse the rally, which prompted the protesters to begin yelling and throwing rocks.

Subsequently, the Guardsmen assumed formation and fired “between 61 and 67 shots…in a 13 second period”—some into the ground, some into the air, and some into the crowd

(Lewis & Hensley, 2010, p. 50). Four students died from gunshot wounds, and nine sustained injuries, paralysis, or other complications.

In the immediate aftermath of the shootings, university students staged protests across the nation, which led to student strikes and temporary university closings. An overlooked event, the shootings at the predominantly black Jackson State College in

Mississippi, took place on May 15, 1970, only days after Kent State. Like many colleges and universities across the country after May 4, students at Jackson protested the Kent shootings. As at Kent, there was rock throwing and property destruction, and the National

Guard was called. Just after midnight, police officers opened fire on a women’s dormitory. Two were killed and twelve were wounded (Grace, 2016). The M4VC seeks to bring this event, which is scarcely remembered, to the public as well.

Today, Kent State University commemorates the events and preserves the history in a number of ways: special topics courses, ceremonies, archives, monuments, a museum, student organizations, and even a reserved meeting room in the library.

Immediately following the shootings, however, the University assumed a different treatment of the tragedy. Much discourse examining the meaning of May 4 took place before the University gradually instilled the commemorative traditions exercised today.

University officials were reluctant to provide perspective on the shootings because of

19 their position as “caught between the state government that funded it and that ordered the

National Guard to campus and the ‘political and emotional needs of various constituencies among whom disagreements about the shootings flourished’” (O’Hara, ctd. in Simpson & Wilson, 2016, p. 181). Only five years after the shootings took place, the University announced plans to build a gym annex, which would extend over part of the shooting site. This proposed alteration of a site of tragedy, which many viewed as an injustice and erasure of the victims’ memory, prompted the creation of the May 4 Task

Force, a student organization that continues to commemorate and educate (Grace, 2016;

Simpson & Wilson, 2016).

The University continued to bring the events of May 4 to the forefront in more recent years. In 1999, the University installed lampposts where the four students died in the Prentice Hall parking lot. Before this time, these spots had been parking spaces or part of the connecting roads. Passersby sometimes leave small stones on top of the lampposts; this is a Jewish traditional practice for commemoration or remembrance that signifies a visitor has been to the gravesite. In 2007, the Ohio Historical Society unveiled a historical marker beside the parking lot. The Visitors Center, which ultimately united the previous, scattered commemorative acts, opened in May 2013 (Grace, 2016).

The annual commemoration ceremony for May 4, as well as preceding events that may include lectures, the candlelight vigil, or other special services, continue the discussion of May 4. At the commemoration ceremony in 2016, the conversation opened to encompass recent events and discourse among the Black Lives Matter movement. To put a face to another, more recent local tragedy, the May 4 Task Force invited Samaria

Rice to speak. Police killed her 12-year-old son Tamir in Cleveland, roughly 40 miles

20 north of Kent, in November 2014. Although social media surrounding the event became a firestorm, with arguments that this decision strayed away from the events of May 4, the

May 4 Task Force justified the parallels between the deaths of the Kent and Jackson State students and the death of Tamir. Some of the students killed were protesting and others were caught in the crossfire much like Tamir, argued the Task Force faculty advisor Idris

Kabir Syed in an article for cleveland.com (Farkas, 2016).

The May 4 Visitors Center

On April 10, 2008, a curatorial and design committee drafted a document titled the “Conceptual outline: Permanent exhibit.” To my knowledge, this document is among the first records of plans for the M4VC project. This committee detailed the initial goals for the Visitors Center, which justified and argued for the importance of a space to commemorate this national historic tragedy. This document is available to the public at the May 4 Archives at Kent State’s main library. The first page of this document lists the initial concept of the M4VC, which the production committee has maintained. The committee seeks:

 To provide accurate information based on documented sources about the

events surrounding May 4, while promoting respect for and understanding of

different perspectives and interpretations.

 To place the events of May 4, 1970, within the broader context of the sixties

and the American Vietnam War experience, and to show that the student

demonstrations at Kent State were not an isolated incident.

 To demonstrate how the events surrounding May 4 had a profound impact on

the University, the community, the nation, and the world.

 To provoke dialogue and raise questions about the relationship between what

happened May 4 and contemporary issues to the use of force, human rights,

and social justice. (Davis, 2008, p. 1)

The remainder of the meetings that followed between the project’s conception and the unveiling of the new Visitors Center discussed the means to achieve these goals. What is necessary and appropriate to include? What documents, photos, songs, videos should shape audience experience? How can multiple perspectives be implemented?

The May 4 Archives has on record what is commonly referred to as the “museum script,” which records every image, object artifact, and alphabetic text on display to visitors. The Archives also contains M4VC documents that trace the conception and implementation to the final, currently used documents. A quote borrowed from a history paper by Allison Krause, one of the four students who was killed, came up early on in these documents and seemed a guiding mission statement during the process. The words are on display in the entry foyer at the M4VC:

Dates and facts are not enough to show what happened in the past when dealing

with people. It is necessary to analyze and delve into the human side of history to

come up with the truth. History must be made relevant to the present to make it

useful. (Krause, qtd. in Davis, 2011, p. 14a)

Krause’s words are eerily prophetic; they are immortalized in a space that seeks to make history relevant to contemporary audiences.

The M4VC opened to the public in 2012, which “signaled greater acceptance of the events as part of the institution’s history” (Simpson & Wilson, 2016). Visitors have the option to explore the museum and are also invited to attend a walking tour of the

22 grounds, either M4VC student worker- or staff-led, or through a pre-recorded narration by civil rights leader Julian Bond. Throughout the year, many of the visitors include local school- or university-age students, and they see a number of local, national, and international tourists.

Kent State University currently requires that traditional-age students take a First

Year Experience (FYE) course, which acclimates them to college life and expectations.

The FYE courses are grouped by field of study (e.g. Fashion, English Literature, or

Exploratory), although they follow a similar curriculum. One of the requirements for this course is a visit to the M4VC on campus near the site of the shootings. Faculty who teach the events of May 4 often justify their reason for doing so by articulating that their students have a responsibility to understand the events of May 4, 1970 enough to give an elevator pitch should somebody ask them what they know as Kent State students or alumni. What lies underneath this perpetuated request is the reality that the events of May

4 are permanently associated with the university—Kent State conjures up images of young protesters, National Guardsmen, and the ensuing trauma. Although roughly 45 years ago, May 4, 1970 and Kent State continue to crop up in the news, thus prompting the University to take an often defensive stand.5 These times of remembrance are separate from those that the university sets aside specifically to commemorate May 4 and the students who were wounded or killed.

5 For example, two recent controversies involving Kent State: In 2014, the young adult clothing retailer Urban Outfitters sold one custom sweatshirt, a pink, vintage-style Kent State University sweater that had been torn and spattered with red paint, which many interpreted as blood spatter (Ohlheiser, 2014). In 2013, a fraternity at Louisiana State University displayed a banner after their football team had beaten Kent State, which read: “Getting massacred is nothing new to Kent State” (“Kent State, LSU responds…”, 2013). Both cases prompted a response from Kent State expressing their distress at the disrespect for this tragedy (“Kent State statement…”, 2013). Most news outlets that reported on this issue included a statement reminding the public of May 4, 1970. 23

Part of the FYE curriculum involves a guided tour of the M4VC, so it is safe to assume that at least the majority of traditional-age Kent State students have visited the

Center at least once. The M4VC is divided into three galleries. If visitors walk through the museum in the intended order, they first walk through a gallery that contains media and other artifacts from the 1960s and early 70s so as to situate visitors within the era the museum depicts. The images we see in this component situate us within the local context of Kent as a town predominated by the surrounding university, as well as a larger, public sphere of 1960s issues: “struggle for social justice, generation gap, Vietnam War” (Davis,

2011, p. 13a). This exhibit contains a myriad of images, audio recordings, videos, and material artifacts within a small area. Although assumedly visitors to this museum bring their own previous conceptions about the 1960s (whether or not this matches up with the

May 4 Center’s purpose), we must also acknowledge that a team of designers has carefully selected these representations to shape the messages audiences receive.

Essentially, a small group of developers has made rhetorical decisions that determine what the larger public will glean about this era through these chosen representations.

Visitors then enter the second gallery, where they view a brief film regarding the events of May 4. The intent here is that “visitors begin to wonder how things could have happened as they did” (Davis, p. 19). The video makes clear to the viewers that “the 20 minutes between the dispersal of students and the moment of the shooting was not a period of chaos and confusion and that the shootings were not expected by students or inevitable” (p. 20). Although we sometimes may think to demonize the Guardsmen as a whole, the designer’s goal here is to portray everyone’s initial shock of what had

24 happened; this shock was felt by “students, onlookers, and some Guardsmen themselves”

(p. 20).

The third gallery exposes visitors to “impact and relevance” of May 4 in a larger, public sphere (Davis, 2011, p. 20). Here they witness both national and international records of the shootings. Within this section, visitors “are invited to form their own opinions as they witness a broad range of responses from people from all walks of life”

(p. 21). Visitors build a deeper understanding of May 4 through primary sources, such as audio recordings of witness and survivor stories, or impressions of culturally significant figures from the era (e.g. Neil Young, Julian Bond).

Structure of Dissertation

The following chapter, Chapter II, is a review of the literature. As a researcher in the field of rhetoric and composition, I situate my research within two subfields: New

Literacy Studies (NLS) and multimodality. I offer evidence for the benefits of an intersection with Memory Studies and Museum Studies; not only in terms of my own research, but for the field as a whole. Overall, I evidence that scholars in NLS and multimodality do not often emphasize multimodal composing processes, focusing instead on pedagogy and the finished products, and Museum Studies in particular could fill this gap.

Chapter 3 offers an examination (developed through grounded theory) of the

Implementation Grant for America’s Historical and Cultural Organizations (which I refer to hereafter as the Implementation Grant or Grant). The Grant describes the intended acts performed by visitor and institution to create meaning. In the majority of these acts, text often instigates, guides, and contextualizes as a single actor or co-actor with visual

25 imagery, objects, and/or physical or rhetorical space. I argue that multimodal ensembles function as mediators for the museum composers.

Chapter 4 evidences the synchronous interplay of the multimodalities (text, visual imagery, objects) with surrounding space to create meaning and demonstrates text as the central mode of discourse. I examine the modes of meaning making available to audiences, with an emphasis on Gallery I of the M4VC, which contextualizes the political, social, and cultural importance of the American 1960s for audiences. I focus on this gallery in particular because of the agenda and narrative it contains for audiences:

The social, political, and cultural events of the 1960s are important for audiences to learn so that they may better understand the shootings and multiple perspectives on the shootings. This gallery, even more so than Galleries II and III, takes on the challenge of mediating relevant histories from an entire decade through a series of multimodal ensembles contained within a small corridor. This chapter further illuminates the central role of alphabetic text in multimodal ensembles at this site.

Chapter 5 documents the guided, audio-based walking tour of the May 5 grounds and emphasizes the affordances of rhetorical space as a mode. I further discuss the tension that inevitably surrounds the memorialization process of uncertain histories, such as the May 4 shootings. In my discussion, I also include an overview of the historic struggles between activists and institution to preserve the space so that the May 4 memory is not erased. I assert that the use of the May 4 rhetorical space provides an effective means to mediate the tensions of uncertain histories.

Lastly, Chapter 6 concludes the dissertation and emphasizes the following: 1)

Alphabetic text serves as the underlying mediator that contextualizes all other modes in

26 multimodal ensembles; 2) Audiences make meaning from multimodal ensembles as they enact literacy practices prompted by the institution and foregrounded in alphabetic texts throughout the museum; 3) Alphabetic texts mediate for audiences the articulations of the museum composers; 4) Multimodality can serve as an effective means to negotiate the tension that comes with memorializing uncertain histories; and, 5) The curation of the

May 4 rhetorical space offers an effective means to mediate tensions that arise from composing uncertain histories.

CHAPTER II

INTERSECTING NEW LITERACY STUDIES, MULTIMODALITY,

MEMORY STUDIES, AND MUSEUM STUDIES:

A LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter serves as a review of the literature that shapes my stance as a researcher of public memory and museums from an NLS and multimodal perspective. I first explore literature in NLS and multimodality, which emphasizes that audiences can make meaning from multiple modes beyond the written word. Both fall under the larger umbrella of rhetoric and composition, whose scholars examine the multiple ways that people use writing and composing to communicate to different audiences for different purposes. I supplement literature in rhetoric and composition with museum studies and memory studies. Ultimately, I argue that an intersection of these four fields of study

(NLS, multimodality, museum studies, and memory studies) addresses gaps in rhetoric and composition because museum studies in particular addresses questions that our field does not. For instance, scholars in museum studies are interested in, and have been for decades, the multimodal composing processes behind the multimodal ensembles at museums and how each mode of meaning making in particular has different affordances.

Introduction

The multimodal ensembles, grouped multimodalities arranged for a specific purpose/message, that I examine in this dissertation are largely artifacts chosen to preserve and represent memory. A transdisciplinary approach may provide a sense of memory constructs; bringing these notions into the field of rhetoric and composition requires me to situate my work within a New Literacy Studies (NLS) perspective, which examines how people make meaning beyond semiotics including the written word.

Scholars in rhetoric and composition (Dickinson, Blair, & Ott, 2009; Endres and Senda-

Cook, 2011; Wright, 2005) tend to focus on the underlying socially constructed meaning of rhetorical spaces themselves, without much attention to the site’s composition processes. The process of composing a site of memory includes the decision making processes behind the curation of the space, such as creating the signage that guides visitor experience and navigation.

Rhetorical readings of place and space by the aforementioned rhetoric and composition scholars have indefinitely shaped the way I consider the museum and surrounding physical space. In order to understand the deeper sociality within the May 4 site or any other rhetorical site presented to the public through curation, it is important to note the ideologies presented to their larger audiences. Although a museum or visitors center may claim to present an unbiased perspective on the content, the site is still assembled a team who may be guided by personal ideologies. Examining the surface- level features of the museum that communicate messages to audiences (i.e. signs, texts, visual media, video, sound) is useful to gauge how audiences experience and understand the museum’s subject matter (Ravelli, 2006). These artifacts and other visuals at the

29 museum function as synecdoche; they serve as representations of their larger wholes and therefore cannot give a complete account of the subject matter (Bernard-Donals, 2012;

Burton, 2018; Seto, 1999). The multimodalities in the M4VC (objects, visual imagery, alphabetic texts) are only able to serve as part-to-whole representations of the events of

May 4 for their audiences, and audiences typically anticipate that these representations create an objective picture. When they engage with museum message and content, audiences undergo a complex series of meaning making processes that are rooted in previous experiences, relationships with institutions such as museums, and relationships with literacies (Hooper-Greenhill, 2001; Ravelli, 2006; Tzortzi, 2015).

Any visitors center, museum, or memorial can only convey a small dimension of a larger historical narrative, and so the designers and planners make rhetorical decisions during the initial design and construction stages; therefore, I enter my site of study with the understanding that “everything is never said” (Foucault, qtd. in Dickinson et al.,

2009). Although museums may attempt to provide an objective view of history, I still note that the ideological perspectives of the few are presented to the larger public

(Hooper-Greenhill, 2001), who tend to accept the museum’s discourse as truths.

New Literacy Studies

New Literacy Studies (NLS) (Barton & Hamilton, 2000; Barton, Ivanič, Appleby,

Hodge, & Tusting, 2007; Brandt & Clinton, 2002, 2006; Gee 1986, 2012; Graff, 2011;

Huot & Stroble, 2004; Kress, 2000, 2003, 2009; New London Group, 1996; Street, 1984) informs my understanding of how audiences might engage and interpret the museum’s multiple modes of meaning making. The museum acts, any action that audiences might perform during a museum visit through engagement with museum multimodalities,

30 discussed more fully in Chapter IV are initiated by, guided by, and fulfilled through museum literacies and audience literate practices. NLS addresses that there are multiple modes of communication beyond the written word, with which audiences engage in literate practices to create meaning making at the museum. Literate practices, as I discuss further, extend beyond the audience’s (or reader’s) interaction with alphabetic text to create meaning. Literate practices include the interactions with meaning making materials

(words, images, objects, spaces, video, sound, or other humans) that someone encounters daily.

Learning can happen when people engage in any social practice, not merely in formal settings; people often acquire skills and new approaches, which they must reenact or redevelop as they encounter everyday life (Barton et al., 2007). Brandt and Clinton

(2002) assert that literacy6 is not an outcome, just a means to measure learning and understanding, but rather a “participant in local practices” (p. 338). A number of scholars

(Huot & Stroble, 2004; Kress, 2000, 2003, 2009; New London Group, 1996) introduce the concept of multiliteracies that extend beyond traditional notions of literacy, which were mainly language- and alphabetic text-based. NLS scholarship emphasizes the social and historical situatedness of literate practices. This thought includes literacy as a “plural set of social practices”, rather than literacy as a skill either learned or not (Gee, 2012, p.

63). This view of literacy emphasizes my work in the museum; audiences engage in and learn from literacy practices that extend beyond reading the written word. A holistic examination of a recent museum visit would not only include what we gleaned from the written text, but also what we found from the pictures, objects, or multimedia. We may

6 Brandt and Clinton’s (2002) use of the term “literacy” refers to reading and writing, and is separate from the multiliteracies as discussed by the aforementioned list of scholars. 31 even include other components of the experience, and how these have contributed to our overall understanding (e.g. other visitors, guided tours, or noise level).

Contemporary works in NLS emphasize literacy as the way in which we navigate our own worlds in addition to the communication and documentation through alphabetic and numeric systems. Traditional notions of education and learning emphasize the importance of alphabetic and numeric systems; however learning takes place in a variety of settings with or without the engagement of these systems (Barton et al., 2007). Huot and Stroble (2004) summarize that,

If the scholarship about literacy has taught us anything at all in the last several

years, it is that literate behavior like all behavior associated with language is

diverse and human, containing the potential to not only create meaning and

identities for individuals and groups but to become meaningful in and of itself (p.

1).

With this notion, they further address that NLS scholarship does not separate people’s ways of reading and writing from their ways of interacting and identifying with the world. NLS calls for an acknowledgement of meaning making beyond reading alphabetic texts. Readers engage in multiple literacies as they read and interpret other modes of meaning making; this primary concept in NLS is often paralleled in museum studies scholarship, although in different terms. For instance, museum studies scholarship

(Hooper-Greenhill, 2000; Ravelli, 2006) emphasizes the multiple modes of meaning making that audiences engage when viewing museum artifacts. When visiting a museum, audiences must use multiple literate practices (multiliteracies) to piece together cohesive meaning from photographs, written texts, and object artifacts.

Within this dissertation, I incorporate a social practice perspective of literacy, as outlined by Barton et al. (2007), and Gee (2012). A social practice perspective clarifies

“the relationship between people’s lives and their learning of literacy, language, and numeracy” (p. 14). Barton et al. further the concept of literacy as a social practice through the examination of an individual’s learning and literacy as shaped by culture, history, and social setting. They emphasize: “Literacy practices are the general cultural ways of utilising written language which people draw upon in their lives” (Barton, 2005, qtd. in

Barton et al., p. 15). The importance of literacy, particularly when we expand the definition to include multiple modes of meaning making, can provide a means for

“understanding the social world” (Barton et al., p. 15). The sociality, in this sense, involves not only interpersonal interactions among people, but also person-object, -text, or -visual interactions.

Much of the discourse in NLS revolves around pedagogically situated literate practices, inside or outside the classroom. In their seminal work “A Pedagogy of

Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures”, the New London Group (1996) acknowledges the shift away from the written word in the writing classroom, which may be transferable to pedagogical instances outside of the classroom as well (e.g. visiting a museum). Not only are there different modes of meaning making (which I explore further in my discussion of multimodal scholarship), but there are (culturally-, socially-) situated ways of meaning making, as we realize through the increased, relatively recent globalization of our society. Students (or citizens), the New London Group discusses, engage in learning or meaning making through multiple literate practices (multiliteracies) that are dependent on varying circumstances, situations, or affordances and constraints.

I look to NLS scholar James Paul Gee’s (2012) notion of capital “D” Discourse, which emphasizes that while the social process of meaning making takes place, there is more taking place than language-based communication. Gee states,

A Discourse is a socially accepted association among ways of using language and

other symbolic expressions, of thinking, feeling, believing, valuing, and acting, as

well as using various tools, technologies, or props that can be used to identify

oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group or “social network”, to signal

(that one is playing) a socially meaningful “role”, or to signal that one is filling a

social niche in a distinctively recognizable fashion. (Gee, p. 158)

Museum audiences are engaging within a Discourse as they learn how to exist in museum spaces; they learn how to make meaning from the multiliteracies available to them in these types of spaces. Likewise, they further engage in the previously constructed relationship between visitor and institution, which has existed as long people have been visiting museums. Gee likens engagement with a Discourse to taking part in a dance— people recognize the dance (the “words, deeds, values, feelings, other people, objects, tools, technologies, places, and times” [p. 152]) and proceed to enact the Discourse. At the museum, visitors often enact the role of the student and the institution enacts the role of the instructor. One quality of museums and commemorative spaces that audiences tend to overlook is the silence that envelops them (Doss, 2008; Ehrenhaus, 1988). One of the ways of being in the museum is the expectation of silence, and not just as a way of polite or reverent behavior. Although some visitors may approach the M4VC or the grounds with silence, learning and meaning making still take place.

Much like NLS seeks to understand the relationships among student, instructor, and institution, museum studies scholarship acknowledges relationships among visitor and institution as well. Tzortzi (2015) cites the “Interactive Experience Model” in museum studies that theorizes the factors that shape museum visitor experience. This model categorizes three components that impact visitor experience: “the physical context of the museum [that includes layout, design, and space]…together with the personal

(visitors’ experiences, knowledge, and interests) and the social (accompanying group, other visitors, and staff)” (p. 68). A graphic illustration of this concept might yield something similar to the rhetorical triangle, in which the three points must achieve proper

Figure 1: The rhetorical triangle of museum visitor experience balance for communication or persuasion to take place (see Figure 1). Scholarship with

NLS, which often focuses on the experience of the learner or participant, may speak to the personal point on this triangle. Likewise, NLS scholars emphasize sociality and reciprocity in meaning making, thus speaking to the social point on this triangle. I do not use this model in my own data analysis; rather, I include it in my discussion to emphasize the importance of sociality (a person’s interaction with other people, objects, spaces, images) in NLS and museum studies in the learning and meaning making processes at the museum.

Museums can be studied as sites for pedagogy; audiences function as students who engage in literate practices to create meaning and museums/curators function as instructors who profess knowledge and control the flow of information. Pedagogical practices within the museum are typically free from constraints that might impact learning, such as fear of assessment or in-class hindrances. The relationships and sociality among visitor and institution is crucial to understanding how and why specific literate practices take place, and placing these concepts in terms of metaphors frequently used in

NLS (e.g. student/teacher; reader/writer) is useful because it allows us to see how knowledge is professed and received.

Literacy, the reading and interpreting of multiple modes of meaning making, has limitations when used in composing the past. There are embodiments and physicalities that literacy cannot represent (Kress, 2000). My research exposes the site-specific limitations of literacy in learning about May 4. The affordances of literacy offer an effective means to compose a history and understanding of May 4; however, the constraints of literacy, I argue, emerge from the tendency to overlook space in New

Literacy Studies (NLS). Another point I hope to evidence during this research: Although anyone may get a sense of the events of May 4, 1970—or rather any historical event— through multimodalities (alphabetic text, image, object), the act of visiting and embodying the rhetorical spaces of these events arguably allows for an experience-based

(Reynolds, 2004) understanding. Through literate practices at the Visitors Center and the multimodal compositions of a May 4 history, there is only so much that can be said.

What do composers do when they construct multimodal ensembles, such as museum spaces in which many modes of communication converge to make meaning for

36 audiences? Lewis (2007) states that “we [scholars of multimodality and NLS] need to know what writers of new literacies do when they write—what they think about and how they negotiate the demands of new forms and processes of writing” (p. 229). This drive to understand the process of multimodal composing, she notes, hearkens back to earlier days of composition studies, when Murray (1972; 1978) introduced the notion of teaching writing as a process rather than a product.

One of the first mantras most budding scholars in rhetoric and composition learn in their coursework is that writing instruction should focus on the writing process rather than the written product. In practice, this emphasizes the recursive processes of composing rather than the features of final, polished texts (Murray, 1972, 1978;

Nystrand, Green, & Wiemelt, 1993; Perl, 1979). Products of writing are finished pieces of writing; analyzing and breaking apart literary works in the classroom does not mean we can easily produce them when it comes time to write something ourselves. The writing process, according to Murray (1972) is “the process of discovery through language” (p. 4). Murray breaks down the three stages of the writing process: Prewriting, the act of preparing and designing the first written draft; writing, the act of composing the first written draft; and, rewriting, the act of revising as many drafts as necessary.

Attention to the writing process allows students to develop as writers communicating a specific message for a specific purpose to a specific audience.

I call upon Murray’s (1972; 1978) discussion of the writing process because I find these concepts helpful and transferable to examine the act of composing a museum.

Scholars in rhetoric and composition have effectively explored the different ways people engage in traditional text-based writing processes, both pen-to-paper and digital word

37 processing. The process of multimodal composition is an area that scholars are just beginning to explore. In their anthology Pedagogies of Public Memory: Teaching Writing and Rhetoric at Museums, Archives, and Memorials, Greer and Grobman (2016) have addressed the potential of the museum in allowing students to practice composing in rhetorically complex situations. In this edited collection, scholars elaborate on ways that their students have become composers of history and memory. For instance, some instructors guide their students through the curation of archived materials or through the collection of primary source materials (such as oral histories). This way of teaching demonstrates attention to the process over the product because students explore and enact the implications of contributing to public memory; they see their coursework as contributive to a larger, public sphere.

Multimodality

Multimodal discourse7 emphasizes meaning making through modes other than, or in addition to, the written word. In this dissertation, I emphasize three main modes of meaning making at the museum: alphabetic texts, visual imagery, and objects. Lauer

(2014) contends that discourse on multimodality has emerged in rhetoric and composition with the now widely-accepted belief that “communication is not limited to one mode

(such as text) realized through one medium (such as the page of a book)” (p.24). Lauer argues that this attention to the multimodal has arisen from recent digitization of writing and composing processes. Although the field’s shift of attention to multimodal discourse is relatively recent, as Shipka (2009) reminds, multimodal composition has existed as

7 What I refer to as multimodal discourse, some scholars refer to as “new composition” (Yancey, 2014), “new media” (Ball, 2014) or else continue to reference its “newness.” I hesitate to further discuss the newness here; as Shipka (2016) notes, emphasizing the newness of multimodality tends to lead to a focus on the digital. Ball defines “new media” as “texts that juxtapose semiotic modes in new and aesthetically pleasing ways and, in doing so, break away from print traditions so that written text is not the primary rhetorical means” (p. 165). 38 long as humans have been composing. Recent attention to multimodal composing has perhaps emerged from paradigm shifts—from product- to process-based assessment in the composition classroom. Today’s composition instructors often incorporate Murray’s

(1972, 1978) emphasis on prewriting, writing, and revision of multiple drafts, rather than the old-fashioned “one-and-done” writing assignment. The notion of newness in multimodal research, Shipka (citing Yancey, 2004) notes, arises in classrooms or other pedagogical situations, where multimodal composing has been under-explored. Museum studies scholarship often acknowledges the distinct meaning making features that the different modes at the museum explore. I discuss these distinctions further in Chapter III.

In this dissertation, I refer to the product of deliberate arrangement and placement of text, object, and visual imagery as a multimodal ensemble. I define the interaction among the different modes during the meaning making process as multimodal interplay.

The term multimodal interplay is loosely borrowed from Jody Shipka (2009), who, from a multimodal pedagogical standpoint, asserts that:

A composition made whole recognizes that whether or not a particular classroom

or group of students are wired, students may still be afforded opportunities to

consider how they are continually positioned in ways that require them to read,

respond to, align with—in short to negotiate—a streaming interplay of words,

images, sounds, scents, and movement. (p. 21)

These “composition[s] made whole” that Shipka discusses are pieced together from modes that that “come together, intersect, or overlap in innovative and compelling ways”

(p. 8). The modes for meaning making that Shipka fits within a composition made whole

39 include not only alphabetic text, visual imagery, and objects, but also smell, texture, and live performance, to name a few.

Recognizing that “literacy and learning practices have always been multimodal,”

Shipka (2009) challenges scholars to consider “the multimodal, technologically mediated aspects of all communicative practice” (p. 13). Multimodal composition is not a modern phenomenon, but sometimes scholars or instructors of composition only associate its possibilities with digital technologies. In addition to multimodal composition, we as consumers and citizens have become accustomed to create meaning inherently through multiple means other than the spoken or written word. As discussed in the previous section, traditional views of literacy have emphasized language-based modes and the semiotics surrounding these (alphabetic and numeric systems), while overlooking the other semiotic systems and “modes of engagement” (Kress, 2000 p. 181)8. Namely, there exist other modes to navigate the world than through the interpretation of text, which is only one medium for communication. Kress determines that multimodal forms of expression rely upon human biology and physiology, our “engagement with the world”

(p. 181). There are many instances when “words fail us;” typically, “tastes, smells, tactile sensations, and the like cannot be the subject of articulated semiosis” (Kress, p. 182). The aforementioned experiences transcend written modes, or have affordances that alphabetic texts do not.

Multimodal scholarship rarely, if ever, acknowledges the role of the material human body in reading and interpreting multimodal ensembles to create meaning, a gap identified by Rifenburg (2015). Rifenburg’s research examines college football as a

8 Kress (2000) goes on to discuss modes as “(full) semiotically articulated means of representation and communication” (p. 182). Museums, as discussed above, are heavily dependent on visual modes of communication and representation. 40 literate activity in which the players demonstrate “embodied multimodality” as they navigate the field, plays, and other players. Rifenburg views college football as players enacting literacy, tuning symbols and squiggles on a page into physical movement through a designated space. Rifenburg’s research calls multimodal scholars out of the classroom to focus on embodied, multimodal means of composition elsewhere. Attention to embodiment of learning, and writing or composing as an embodied practice, furthers concepts in NLS that examine the holistic experience of the learner, writer, or composer.

The material body is ever-present during the writing/composing process, as well as in the reading and interpretive processes (Rifenburg; Walker, 2015). Rifenburg quotes

Knoblauch’s definition of embodied rhetoric: “a purposeful decision to include embodied knowledge and social positionalities as forms of meaning making in a text itself” (n.p.).

This acknowledgement gives rhetorical agency to those who have created the texts, their experiences and their personhood.

As I demonstrate in this dissertation, the material human body and its ability to interpret and navigate space is a vital, unifying component for meaning making processes. The material human body is the point of convergence for all of the modes, and

I argue that the discussion of space and other multimodalities is incomplete without this distinction. The material human body is especially important in the discussion of the museum, a spacious multimodal ensemble that relies on the symbiosis of audience mobility and site navigability for appropriate meaning making. Garoian (2001), who examines the didactic potentiality of art museums, argues that museums are performative sites, in which visitors perform dialogic processes with the available materials; through these processes, cultural histories are being performed by narratives the museum

41 suggests. Garoian states: “By performing the museum, viewers bring their personal identities into play with the institution’s dominant ideologies. In doing so, they are able to imagine and create new possibilities for museums and their artifacts within their contemporary cultural lives” (p. 236). At the museum, visitors “give ear” as they “listen” to the narrative performance that the museum presents through its artifacts, and they

“give voice” to these artifacts as they read and interpret them (p. 242).

The concept of embodiment within my dissertation invokes the “felt experience” of the Visitors Center and surrounding space, in which the visitor interacts with the multimodalities to conjure “feeling, emotion, and a felt connection with modes” (Burnett,

Merchant, Pahl, & Rowsell, 2014, p. 97). I will address the notion of embodied discourse at the M4VC, which, for the purposes of my dissertation, I define as the affective response generated by visitors when interacting with the multimodalities, multiliteracies, and spaces that compose a history of May 4, 1970.

The modes chosen to represent May 4 histories are reductions of larger concepts.

From a rhetoric and composition perspective, Bernard-Donals (2012) discusses the concepts of synecdoche and metonymy, two necessary terms in my discussion of multiliteracies and audience meaning making. Artifacts in museums are intended to function as metonymy, or representations of a larger whole (Bernard-Donals; Burton,

2018). However, although this is the curators’ intention, Bernard-Donals argues that the object artifacts actually function as synecdoche, a reduction of the larger whole. Bernard-

Donals exemplifies this notion in his discussion of a room in the United States Holocaust

Memorial Museum (USHMM) that contains dozens of mismatched, decaying shoes that were taken from camp prisoners upon arrival. The objects evoke affective (sometimes

42 physical) responses from visitors as they encounter the sights and smells of the decaying leather. The curators, he argues intended these objects to serve as metonymy to represent the Holocaust and foster a connection between the audience and this historic tragedy.

However, Bernard-Donals argues that, although the shoes may generate a powerful response from the viewers, they inhibit their ability to connect to the events of the

Holocaust. Instead, they connect to the shoes themselves. The different sizes, styles, and colors could indicate the wearer’s age, taste in fashion, or socio-economic status; however, in this instance they are ordinary objects that have been stripped of their initial purpose and piled in a museum exhibit and this is what audiences see at first.

The M4VC, like other museums, calls upon the properties of synecdoche to create meaning from object artifacts. For instance, at the M4VC, Alison Krause’s orange

“hippie” hat functions not only as a material attachment to one of the shooting victims, but also as a representation of the stylistic choices of the counterculture as a whole.

Museum visitors are intended to use the hat to connect to the events and concepts the museum intends to convey—the struggle between parent and child generations. Bernard-

Donals (2012) may argue in this instance that audiences connect more to the hat itself than to the larger, abstract concepts that curators intend for it to represent. Even if audiences do not immediately look past the hat and into its symbolic significance, they are still engaging with the object.

Ultimately, the multimodalities at the museum work together synchronously to create meaning for their audiences. An affordance of this process, Hull and Nelson

(2014) discuss, is the creation of “a different system of signification, one that transcends the collective contribution of its constituent parts” (p. 457). A display case at a museum,

43 for instance, is a multimodal composition in which all of its parts reflect on one another to enhance each other’s affordances and pick up the “slack” where their constraints lie.

Text, for instance, cannot easily show an audience what the streets of downtown Kent,

Ohio looked like during an anti-war protest, nor can a photograph provide audience with the context necessary to understand its historical significance in the larger narrative of the museum.

Visual Imagery

Museums are dependent on multiple modes and I first highlight museums’ reliance on visual imagery because modes at the museum are visual (e.g. texts, objects). I use the term “visual imagery” to denote specifically artifacts such as photography, paintings, cartoons, or etchings. In classical rhetorical tradition, visual and spatial modes of representation were the bases of artificial memory9, and although technologies have developed to facilitate memory, we continuously refer back to visual imagery when using memory. Kress (2000) argues that we have become increasingly dependent on visual modes of communication—another form of semiotics to which we have become accustomed. One of the considerations regarding visual literacy understanding and instruction involves the fact that we as consumers (or museumgoers) have become accustomed to interpreting news, narratives, messages solely through image (with or without text) (Allen, 1996; McComiskey, 2004; Rice, 1988). We then supply our own interpretations to fill the silence and the white space that these images leave—this is how we interpret events through imagery.

9 Artificial memory is a form of memory cultivated through instruction, as opposed to natural memory, which is an inherent cognitive ability. Simonides, the “Father of Artificial Memory” first demonstrated memory as a learned ability, according to the ancient Greek parable. 44

Many museums and other places of pedagogy rely heavily on visual imagery, especially photographs and graphic diagrams. Rice (2014) borrows from McLuhan to assert that “visuality…opens up new types of senses and awareness that cannot be accounted for in alphabetic literacy”10 (p. 93). In remembering events and individuals through photography, one is often at the mercy of those who provide the context.

Photography affords possibilities to recompose histories with realism and accuracy; museums that are able to use photography often use this to its full advantage. jagodzinski

(2013) contends that visuals are “always framed” (p. 146). For instance, a photograph is bounded to a specific time and place; we cannot see what takes place beyond the frame, nor can we see what happened before or after the snapshot was taken. At the museum, there is meaning and context enfolded within each photograph on display; these are. In many photograph displays, it is primarily the text’s role to ensure the audience receives the proper takeaways as intended by the curators.

Museums themselves may be viewed and read as texts and “interpreted in context” (Ravelli, 2006). At the museum, visual imagery is not the superior mode of meaning making; rather, all of the multimodalities at the museum work synchronously to compose their respective histories. As they become literate in the conventionalities of the museum, audiences have become accustomed to interpreting these multimodal juxtapositions.

Objects

Objects, and subsequently object literacies, are often central contributors to the rhetorical message of museums. The materiality of objects allows for memory to attach

10 It should be noted that Marshall McLuhan, a twentieth century media theorist pioneer, asserted these claims to discuss in particular electronic visual communication. 45 itself; if people are not storing a memory in their brain’s database, they often rely on materiality for its recollection (this includes objects and spaces) (Guggenheim, 2009;

Nora, 1989). Objects are embodied—they can be experienced through all senses and are sometimes overlooked parts of our everyday discourse (Brandt and Clinton, 2002; Pahl and Rowsell, 2010). We can view everyday objects in a museum and relate them to ourselves and our own use of them, as I discuss above with Bernard-Donals example of the synecdochic function of the camp prisoners’ stolen shoes at the USHMM. One of the issues with the display of objects as rhetorical artifacts is that the objects are removed from their original context and purpose, and reappropriated in another, unnatural setting

(Ochsner, 1995), which audiences may recognize.

Although audiences may not immediately infer the symbolic properties of a displayed object, they might still forge connections to the objects themselves (Bernard-

Donals, 2012). Objects in this case can serve another purpose—as evidentiary tools that histories have taken place. The shoes at the USHMM serve an evidentiary purpose, as does Allison Krause’s orange hat at the M4VC. These objects were there with the subjects they represent during the historic times they convey.

Many of the artifacts at the M4VC include personal belongings, objects that were not initially intended to tell a history but have been thrust into the composition of a May

4 history. The objects we use in our everyday lives (e.g. diaries and family photographs) are not typically intended to contribute to a larger, collective understanding, although they sometimes become this way. Rohan (2004) examines the private literate practices that one Victorian woman used to memorialize her late mother.11 The woman

11 All of this data was collected through archival research; the research subject and her mother lived during the early twentieth century. 46 remembered her mother through means we would typically consider private (diaries, letters, sketches of dresses), and also multimodal means of composition, such as quilts that used fabrics from her mother’s dresses (also accompanied by notes detailing when her mother wore these). Even through these private spheres of remembrance, we can get a sense of how these private spheres are shaped by public, global spheres. Rohan’s research subject even acknowledged her own understanding of this concept, and wrote in her diary thoughts like “Why am I writing this? Who’s going to see this one day?”

Evidently, the writer had a purpose for keeping a diary, but these words seem to signify that she did not write with the intention for a readership one day. On the other hand, had she been writing for the public sphere, she would have adapted to writing for public discourses as the exigence shifts—journalistic or narrative, story-telling approaches to writing.

Once the object is taken out of the private sphere into the public sphere, the object’s usefulness and contexts change. For instance, Rohan’s research subject likely used her diary as a means for holding on to her own personal memories during a time when there was a “memory crisis”12 in the United States (Rohan, 2004; Bodnar, 1992).

She also likely used these literate practices for the sole purposes of catharsis and memorializing her mother. However, when we take it out of its private context, it serves a different sort of purpose. Suddenly, it becomes a window into the lives of American women at the turn of the century; we get a sense of mother-daughter relationships, of

Victorian-era fashion, of Victorian homemaking practices. We place these artifacts within

12 During the turn of the century and into the twentieth century, there was an obsession with memory as technologies grew and changed the landscape of the world. There was a desire to remember times “as they were” (Bodnar, 1992). 47 our own contexts as they are useful to us and our own questions. One of the issues within object-based literacies is this tendency to reappropriate objects13 (Pahl & Rowsell, 2010).

Once a private memory construct, such as a letter, is made public through display at a museum, it then becomes public as it contributes to a larger collective memory. In other words, an artifact that was once available to the few becomes public. Thus, museums are often filled with such private constructs that are no longer “private.”

However, of course in this instance, we must still acknowledge the object within its context (Brandt & Clinton, 2002). The issue at hand within personal/private and collective/public memorialization practices is how they contribute to collective memory.

This contribution of private constructs of memory to a global understanding of “history,” is also contingent on the gatekeepers who determine its importance.

Alphabetic Texts

What ties together these protean, decontextualized modes? Ravelli (2006) asserts that “museum texts, especially exhibition texts, are important because they form a central component of a museum’s communication agenda” (p. 3). Museum texts include any instances of the written word, such as signs, captions, descriptions, even short narratives.

The modes discussed above, I argue, are vital to the museum’s message but only enhance the written word, which provides context and direction for visitor interpretation of the other modes. It is my assertion that the written (or spoken) word is still the superior mode for communication at the museum because of the weight it carries, even in a culture that becomes increasingly visual. Other modes enhance the messages of the written word and

13 The reappropriation of objects, for example, is something that museums do with the incorporation of everyday objects as synecdoche. The argument is that objects lose their “functionality” when placed into unnatural contexts (e.g. a shoe on display in an exhibit, rather than on someone’s foot). 48 contribute to overall audience experience at the museum; however, all other modes are dependent on the written (or spoken) word for meaning making to take place effectively at this site.

The alphabetic texts at the museum that set communicative frameworks for audiences, Ravelli (2006) notes, serve as the tip of the iceberg; many communicative practices take place among audiences who interpret these texts, and many more still take place among the curators or planners who decide on the message and placement of these texts. The alphabetic text is the central communicative mode at the museum; it ensures audiences take away proper information, it tells audiences where they should go and how they should get there, and it allows the voices and perspectives of the museum curators

(writers) to emerge through time and space. Although multimodal scholarship challenges us to look for meaning beyond the written word after centuries of privileging it, I find myself consistently referring back to this mode as I examine how meaning making within multimodal ensembles is made possible, and the affordances it provides.

Space: An Under-discussed Variable

Rhetorical space, the rhetorical (re)purposing of space, and its contribution to audience meaning making at the museum is not a novel concept. However, space and its potential for meaning making is rarely, if ever, discussed within NLS or multimodal scholarship, which largely focuses on multimodalities such as visual imagery, objects, and texts. Mountford (2001) discusses rhetorical space as the “geography of a communicative event”, emphasizing that space as material can be arranged for rhetorical purposes. She exemplifies this through the nature of a preacher’s pulpit as a symbol of clerical authority. Scholars, educators, and students in composition studies often use

49 space and spatial metaphors to solidify abstract concepts, such as field, frontiers, boundaries, and borders (Reynolds, 2004). In this dissertation, I examine space a material, physical factor involved in the communicative properties within a site such as the M4VC; space, both physical and rhetorical, should be considered among the multimodalities as contributive to the “whole composition,” to borrow Shipka’s (2011) term. Within this dissertation, I explore audience perceptions of space, and suggest means to move forward the discussion of space within NLS, when and where applicable.

The concept of space, its usage and manipulation in multimodal communication, is widely discussed in museum studies scholarship. On a smaller scale, the use of space is contributive to the overall message of the multimodal ensembles within the museum (e.g. museum displays). In the larger sense, the manipulation of space can guide audiences to perform certain acts (e.g. audiences must walk through a certain room where they are exposed to a specific message), and the design of the space can evoke feeling, emotion, or thought. Scholars in the two main fields that inform my dissertation, NLS and multimodality, often tends to overlook the significance of space, instead focusing on the other modes of meaning making I discuss previously. In this section of my literature review, I first provide a discussion of space in terms of museum studies, and elaborate how transferable these concepts are for NLS and multimodality.

Multimodal ensembles take advantage of the physical spaces afforded to them; how they occupy space can enhance or change the messages they project. Space and arrangement helps to frame messages in individual, multimodal ensembles much as space affects the “bigger picture” of the museum’s narrative. Researchers (Hooper-Greenhill,

2001; Tzortzi, 2015) in museum studies often discuss the importance of the physical

50 space in the larger museum. At the museum, space can be manipulated to give audiences a specific narrative; for instance, depending on the layout, the audience could be expected to navigate the museum displays in a specific order. Space can also be manipulated to evoke an affective response in museum audiences.

A museum site that poignantly exemplifies the affordance of space manipulation for rhetorical purposes is the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Arguably one of the most significant displays for the audience at this site, notes Ochsner (1995), is the small room that contains a pile of shoes collected from prisoners at the Auschwitz-

Birkenau and Majdanek concentration camps. Aside from the impact that the shoes themselves have on the visitors (as discussed previously with Bernard-Donals), the museum is oriented in such a way that visitors must pass through this room as they continue with the exhibit. Ochsner remarks on the low lighting of the room, which contributes to the ambiance and overall feeling. Other artifacts at this site that are contributive to the museum’s overall message, such as everyday utensils collected in the same manner from prisoners, are displayed to audiences through more subtle means, such as small glass display cases along the walls. Although present for audiences to see, the space is not quite arranged so that they must indefinitely walk by these objects. Ochsner also points out the larger architectural structure of the museum and its role in evoking an affective response in the audience: “Its combination of massiveness, austerity, and industrial detailing does convey a sense of ominous foreboding, at least according to many visitors” (p. 247). The structuring of the surrounding space allows audiences to get a feel for the very sites the museum discusses, despite temporal and spatial constraints of visiting these actual sites.

Los Angeles Times reporter Joseph Giovanni interviewed USHMM architect

James Ingo Freed for a 1993 piece before the museum’s dedication ceremony. Freed had to navigate conflicting desires of the Holocaust Council, which commissioned his design.

Some of the council members wanted a heroic, marbled space of remembrance, while others wanted visitors to understand the grisly realities of the tragedies the space mediates and memorializes. Ultimately, Freed chose to compose the space as a series of seeming contradictions—both comfortable and unsettling, beautiful and horrific—as architects of the Holocaust had done. The rhetorical arrangement of physical space allows for visitors to admire both the beauty of the neoclassical design choices, as well as feel tension as they navigate spaces that alternate between efficiency and discomfort. For instance, the tall glass-ceilinged courtyard seems spacious and open, until visitors realize the brick constructions along the wall resemble watchtowers. Physical spaces can be arranged to suit a rhetorical purpose; in this case, the architecture of the USHMM causes audiences to embody a certain degree of the multitude of emotions felt by victims of the

Holocaust. Unlike at the M4VC, whose layout prompts audiences to visit Galleries I, II, and III in succession, the layout of galleries at the USHMM is sometimes convoluted, unclear, and tense because this is part of the overall rhetorical mission.

Intersecting Memory, Visualization, and Space

Ancient and contemporary scholarship often intersects memory, rhetorical space, and visualization. A brief exploration of ancient, foundational concepts is contributive to my discussion because it sets perspective on the inherently human need to remember and process memory through attachment to the material. Interest in understanding memory, specifically how we remember past events, has been documented since ancient times, as

52 has the drive to understand sites and spaces of memory and memorialization. Ancient scholarship places memory at the basis of thought, speech, and rhetoric (Rhetorica ad

Herennium). Ancient concepts of memory are rarely introduced or discussed in modern literature without the retelling of the story of the poet Simonides, the “inventor” of artificial memory, or memory that relies on external resources rather than one’s own recollection (West, 2014; Yates, 1966). While attending a banquet, Simonides briefly stepped outside after thinking that someone had called for him. Upon leaving the building, the roof collapsed, killing the remainder of the guests and the host. He was later able to identify the bodies of the deceased by recalling their positions in the room. This connection between the visual and the spatial serves as a foundational teaching of memory in ancient rhetorical pedagogy and frames this study of how memory and spatial awareness is interrelated.

The earliest discourse on memory are preserved texts from Ancient Greece

(Aristotle; Socrates [Plato]), and Ancient Rome (Quintilian; Rhetorica ad Herennium), in which memory serves as one of the five rhetorical canons, in addition to invention, style, arrangement, and delivery. The rhetorical canons were first documented by Cicero to aid rhetoricians in spoken communication. Although memory grounds all the rhetorical canons, scholarship points out the common tendency to overlook memory (Pruchnic &

Lacey, 2011; Reynolds, 1993). Memory as a rhetorical canon is not as relevant to current times because of all of the memory technologies that exist to aid us (e.g. writing, photography). For instance, today’s speakers can read off of notecards or teleprompts, thereby erasing a need to memorize speaking points.

Ancient discourse on memory provides insight to how memory was perceived as a cognitive function and served as a useful tactic for rhetors; however, the term “cognitive” is a modern concept to explain the phenomenon of thought processes, and ancient scholars would not have used such terminology. Reynolds (1993) cites Ong’s conceptions of “pre-literate” societies that relied on orality, where memory was a necessary tool; however, memory and mnemonics survived the transfer to widespread literacy. Pruchnic

& Lacey (2011) determine relevant ties between classical rhetoric and the contemporary, interdisciplinary field of memory studies. Classical rhetorical teachings on memory discuss the notion of internalized and externalized memory storages. Pruchic & Lacey cite Donald, who denotes that Greeks were among the first to build collective memory through publically shared ideas that they altered over time. These collective memory stores allow for interpretation and response from the present to the past. Van House &

Churchill (2008) state that “both personal and collective memory rely in part on the records of the past and on our technologies and practices of remembering” (p. 295). The use of materiality is one of the fundamental components of memory (Wright, 2005).

Aristotle first explored the fickle nature of memory, which is highly dependent on the person doing the remembering; for instance, the very young and the very old, he argued, were unreliable when recalling events. Nora (1989) notes a dichotomy in a discussion of history and memory; although both concepts connect the past to the present, they stand in opposition. Nora associates memory as a phenomenon that constantly occurs; it is necessary and therefore useful and truthful. History depends on societal construction and is there to critique and be critiqued. La Capra (1998) argues that,

54 although history and memory are obviously not identical, they are not in opposition; rather, memory serves as a “crucial source to history” (p. 19). He goes on to state:

Even in its falsifications, repressions, displacements, and denials, memory may

nonetheless be informative—not in terms of an accurate empirical representation

of its object but in terms of that object’s often anxiety-ridden reception and

assimilation by both participants in events and those born later. (p. 19)

La Capra’s example for this statement is the empirically false claim that Nazis made soap out of Jews in the Holocaust. Although not a historically accurate occurrence, La Capra argues that the validity of this claim emerges in a figurative sense; it is reflective of Nazi objectification and dehumanization of the Jews, as well as the Nazi fear of contamination.

History, in turn, serves to question memory.

A number of scholars (Atwater & Herndon, 2003; Bodnar, 1992; Casey, 2004;

Kells, 2009; Phillips, 2010) identify undertones of hegemonic ideologies in public memory. Public memory shapes the culture, is political, and is the widely accepted history. For instance, in remembering history in the United States, Bodnar denotes two distinct cultures that intersect to build public memory: the official culture, which incorporates selective interpretations of past events; and the vernacular culture, which

“conveys what society really feels like, rather than what it should be like” (p. 14). Public memory from the official culture, for instance, tells us what we should perceive as honorable; these ideals are embedded in our national holidays, selected to commemorate and celebrate veterans, upstanding Americans, and whoever else represents the ideal citizen within this mold (Blair, Jeppeson, & Pucci, 1991; Bodnar).

A localized example of building public memory and setting perspective through events can be seen through the May 4 commemorative events at Kent State, when groups on campus including the May 4 Visitors Center staff facilitate a memorial event that honors the victims of the shootings. This event takes place each year on the anniversary of May 4 at the site where the shootings began: the Commons. Classes are cancelled between the hours of 12 and 2, and students are encouraged to attend. The time set aside for reverence on this day communicates the University’s attitudes and beliefs towards the shootings. However, there was not a mainstream rush to commemorate May 4 as there was with other tragedies, such as the attacks on 9/11 (Blair & Michel, 2007; Edkins,

2003). Blair and Michel note that “with the ever-increasing interval between event and public commemoration, it becomes increasingly difficult to perceive a distance between past and present” (p. 596). With this thought, it would seem that the distance between the shootings and the opening of the M4VC (2012) and the unveiling of the Prentice Hall parking lot markers (1999) figuratively situates May 4, 1970 further back in time than if the mainstream University had rushed to memorialize.

If public memory is political, then the places that house and profess public memory are political as well. Museum studies scholarship (Atwater & Herndon, 2003;

David, 1999; Weiser, 2009) addresses the political nature of museums and hegemonic undertones in the stories and values they show to audiences. David’s (1999) research points out elitism in art museums; she determines that there exists a “master narrative” as a result of the social, political nature of museums embedded in our western culture. For instance, at an art museum, “the members [of the board of trustees] do not democratically represent the groups they serve nor are they always selected from experts in the

56 organizations’ subject areas” (p. 323). Museum spaces traditionally do not foster space for criticism. Atwater and Herndon discuss museums’ sometimes tailored representation of marginalized groups and cite the question: “How do museum professionals determine what lessons from history the museum visitor should learn?” (Fleming, qtd. in Atwater &

Herndon). The two museums in South Africa and the U.S. that they examine in their book chapter address parts of the Black experience other museums tend to overlook, such as the apartheid and segregation, respectively; especially from a blunt, honest perspective that garners raw emotion from their audiences. Weiser’s research on the American

Indian’s underrepresentation in the histories presented at the Smithsonian’s National

Museum of American History affirms Atwater’s and Herndon’s claims on historic revisions at the museum.

Modern rhetoric and composition scholarship revisits classical notions of memory’s intersection with space. (Blair, Dickinson, & Ott, 2009; Endres & Senda-

Cook, 2011; Poole, 2008; Price, 2012; Wright, 2005; Yates, 1969). Endres and Senda-

Cook distinguish place and space: place refers to bounded, finite areas; space refers to more abstract constructions of sociality and thought (pp. 259-260). For example, the

Commons on Kent State’s campus as a place is located as a central area with surrounding buildings with the purpose for student recreation. As a space, the Commons may represent the events of May 4 and the surrounding implications (the counterculture, the war back home, freedom to protest). Both place and space, not to be used interchangeably, are “socially constructed and imbued with meaning” (p. 260). Nora

(1989) conceives of the lieux de mémoire, or sites of memory, which embody memory.

We as a collective need these spaces in order to continue to process memory. Likewise, we need a means of preserving these spaces in order to embody these histories.

Not all places and spaces have rhetorical significance, but places of memory are rhetorical (Blair, Dickinson, & Ott, 2009). The room that holds the M4VC has rhetorical significance. It is situated within Taylor Hall in the old Kent Stater office, where many of the May 4 photographers were housed. The space outside Taylor Hall also happens to be the site of the protests and subsequent shootings. To evoke Nora’s (1989) discussion of lieux de mémoire, the memory is already present within these spaces—students were killed and a history emerged that has been distorted and rewritten. Space incorporates the invisible essence, the abstract nature of this physical place.

Ackerman (2003) calls for rhetoricians to dedicate a greater focus to what he refers to as “social space,” or public spaces/sites. He argues: “Sites are both technically and conceptually constructed; they operate as both contexts for discourse, and signs within discourse; and they are the material product of representational practices that may be redirected and reformed” (p. 86). A rhetorician has been trained to identify these discursive signs, he notes. Scollon and Scollon (2003) address the discourses that are prescriptively embedded in space; for instance, people know exactly what they are intended to do and how they must behave in a café or coffee shop. Semiotic systems, they argue, are in place. Tables at a café invite social interaction, reading, and work.

The decision to rebuild or alter a site of tragedy is rarely taken lightly. At Kent

State, the choice not to destroy and rebuild the site of the shootings was politicized and steeped in controversy. Jorgensen-Earp and Lanzilotti (1998) reinforce the need to preserve and revere spaces of tragedy in their discussion of the Oklahoma City bombing

58 site; we can never leave a site as is following a tragedy. The spaces themselves also change when they become sites for tourism, such as Ground Zero in the wake of 9/11.

What was once a horrific scene soon became a popular destination for visitors with varying reasons and motives, and the somber, reflective atmosphere was offset by camera-holding tourists, as well as hotdog and t-shirt vendors (Walker, 2007). Spaces, like objects, are protean and sites of tragedy can be repurposed; attitudes towards these sites change and are reflective of the times. The Commons at Kent State, as briefly discussed above, has continued to serve as a recreational, multipurpose field, although it has not lost its rhetorical significance as the site where the May 4 student protest began.

The memorials constructed on-site inform us that this is no ordinary space.

Museum studies scholarship frequently discusses the role of space in audience meaning making. I should note that much of museum studies scholarship employs concepts and theories contingent with the ones I discuss from multimodality scholarship.

According to Tzortzi (2015), who writes from a museum studies perspective: “…space can acquire what we might call a reflective function: it is used to realize a particular ideology and support a specific narrative” (p. 52). To exemplify this notion, Tzortzi cites the 1930s restructuring of the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), which was internally reconfigured to highlight mainstream works contributive to modern art history in the main, highly trafficked halls, and to place the less mainstream works in subdivided rooms. Designers even made rhetorical choices to point audiences to specific works of art by framing them in doorways or in highly visible places.

Museum studies scholarship also forges the connection between audience meaning making and space in arrangement of multimodalities in a museum display. In

59 order to manipulate audience interpretation or attention to a museum display, sometimes designers will create spaces to enhance messages. These design choices included arrangement of the display, as well as attention to wall color, layout, and other means of controlling the surrounding space (Tzortzi, 2015). Tzortzi exemplifies, through a discussion of art museums, that traditional arrangement of works in museums takes audiences through a chronologically situated narrative; however, newer curatorial approaches may give audiences a comparative/contrasting look between old and new works in the same space.

Within the context of a museumgoer visiting the M4VC, space as a visual mode of meaning making is part of the whole composing process. From a museum studies perspective, Hooper-Greenhill (2000) argues that all modes at the museum are visual

(texts, objects, imagery), although the M4VC does contain sufficient audio to create an experience through that mode alone. Shipka (2011) warns that we must not focus so narrowly on the composition “product” (e.g. a typed essay, or in this case the whole museum experience) that we forget what else has contributed to this composition.

Conclusion

In this chapter, I have argued that literacy and multimodal frameworks are invaluable concepts to theorize the meaning making practices and communication between museums and their audiences. The museum emphasizes its teachings through mainly visual modes of meaning making (texts, objects, visuals), which provide many affordances for their audiences, especially the synchronous interplay of the modes (Hull

& Nelson, 2014; Shipka, 2009). Concepts in rhetoric and composition can be contributive to understandings in museum studies; namely, the shift of Murray’s (1972, 1978) three-

60 stage writing process to a museum-based metaphor: the pre-construction phase

(prewriting), in which the composing and arrangement plans take part; the construction phase (writing), in which these plans are put into action; the open-to-audiences phase

(revision), in which audiences continue to shape exhibits and materials on display.

Museum studies scholarship rarely touches on the decision making processes that curators, designers, and planners make for museums; the focus is often on data already fixed and on exhibit. Examination of a museum’s composition process could provide a means for museum studies scholars to examine reflexively the rhetorical decisions that museum planners make and the political, social, and cultural questions they navigate during the planning period. I acknowledge, from a researcher’s perspective, that access to materials such as design and implementation documents are not always attainable or public. Additionally, attention to the process allows scholars to explore Fleming’s question: “How do museum professionals determine what lessons from history the museum visitor should learn?” (Fleming, qtd. in Atwater & Herndon).

Many of the concepts I introduce to NLS can be found through different perspectives in museum studies and/or memory studies. For instance, the rhetorical importance of space as I demonstrate has been explored since ancient scholarship on rhetoric before a resurgence in the twentieth century. My study of the literacy practices at the M4VC has prompted me to consider the role of physical and rhetorical space, an ever- present contributor to our lives and learning. Although the notion of space as a mode of meaning making is underexplored, my research at the May 4 site demonstrates that its omnipresence has affordances that, through curation, can mediate histories for audiences.

Space preserves memory through its durability (Foote, 2003). Space cannot be

61 obliterated, although it may be shaped and molded. When curated, space can become part of the multimodal storytelling process for audiences. The M4VC provides visitors with unique opportunities to explore the very spaces they learn about within the museum exhibits; the walking tour of the rhetorical space allows for an embodiment of history.

CHAPTER III

GOALS AND ANTICIPATED OUTCOMES FOR AUDIENCE

LITERATE PRACTICES AT THE MUSEUM

In the previous chapter, I introduced the importance of attention to the “prewriting” (or planning) stages of museums, which can enlighten the decision making processes that museum composers make during this crucial time. This chapter examines one of the contributing documents to the prewriting phase of the M4VC: the

Implementation Grant. I begin this chapter with a discussion of this documents and its contribution to multimodal composition studies. I then provide a discussion of my methods and coding framework used to analyze the document. Lastly I situate my analytic findings within the museum’s overall narrative. Throughout this chapter, I support and provide evidence for the argument that the museum’s context is created through multiple discursive acts that take part among museum planners, museum visitors, and multimodal ensembles. Ultimately, in exploring my question on how literate practices and multimodal ensembles are used in composing the past, I found that the multimodal ensembles at the museum serve as mediators for the messages that the composers convey to audiences. Some of the messages the audiences receive at this site are controversial, historical claims; multimodality, as I demonstrate, allows museum composers to address tension in these histories.

Introduction

Almost 40 years after the May 4, 1970 shootings, Kent State University moved forward with the initial planning phases for the permanent exhibit, the May 4 Visitors

Center (M4VC). In order for successful completion of the museum space (and to afford the renowned exhibit and multimedia design teams), the M4VC project director Laura

Davis and team requested funding. Evidence of their request is accessible at the

University Archives in a document titled “Making Meaning of May 4th: The Kent State

Shootings in American History”, which serves as the implementation grant for America’s

Historical and Cultural Organizations (AHCO). According to their website, the AHCO grants “provide support for museums, libraries, historic places, and other organizations that produce public programs in the humanities.” Holistically, the Grant asserts the importance and relevance of the M4VC and its messages of local, national, and world histories. Most exciting for research in multimodality, the document affords a glimpse into the multimodal composition processes of museum planners and designers: the multimodal ensembles (museum display content) available to audiences, and intended acts that audiences will perform through interaction with these multimodal ensembles.

The following research questions (initially listed in Chapter I) guided my research for this chapter: How are multimodal ensembles and literacy practices used in composing the past? What are the affordances and constraints of meaning making through multimodal ensembles? The Exhibition Walkthrough details audience literacy practices at the museum, although not in those terms. The authors detail the specific acts that audiences perform (e.g. seeing, hearing, reflecting) when they engage with museum

64 multimodalities; I call the acts that the authors list “museum acts.” I use the term

“museum act” synonymously with “literacy practice”, because audiences read and interpret museum multimodalities in order to perform them. Museum acts are any literacy practice that audiences perform by engaging in museum multimodalities. Multimodal ensembles are individual multimodal compositions that contain at least two different modes of meaning making that work together synchronously to convey meaning to audiences (e.g. a museum display case that contains an object artifact and alphabetic text). I argue that the Grant is a document that articulates the way that the authors intend for the multimodal ensembles at this site to carry meaning to audiences, and it provides a unique view of a composer’s ideas about the affordances of multimodal composition.

The Implementation Grant

Professor Emerita of English and the M4VC’s founding director, Laura Davis served as the Project Director in addition to 33 members of the Project Team, who included scholars, professors, and exhibit designers. The Implementation Grant’s authorship is ambiguous, so I cite Davis as the author in this chapter although others were likely involved. The entire document serves an argumentative purpose, ultimately to attain funding, and is broken into eleven sections: (1) Table of Contents; (2) Narrative;

(3) Exhibition Walkthrough; (4) Design Document; (5) Bibliography; (6) [section missing from Archives]; (7) Sample Text and Illustrations [Draft Exhibit Script]; (8)

Résumés and Letters of Commitment; (9) Budget; (10) May 4 Walking Tour Brochure;

(11) Description of Samples of Previous Digital Work. For the purposes of the research in this chapter, I focus on sections two and three, the Narrative and Exhibition

Walkthrough sections. The Narrative contextualizes the rest of the document, argues the

65 exigence of devising such a space to remember May 4, asserts the relevance of May 4 into historical and current events, and includes technical features for the request such as budgetary figures, a work plan timeline, and biographical information for the project team. In the Exhibition Walkthrough section, the authors create an argument that correlates specific examples of museum multimodalities to intended or anticipated visitor experience. Therefore, the Exhibition Walkthrough provides the most fitting evidence and data for exploring the relationship between composing processes, goals, and final multimodal product. Throughout the rest of this chapter, I will refer any of the data I reference from this document (from either the Narrative or Exhibition Walkthrough sections) as the “Grant.”

The Grant has served my research in unexpected ways. Over the course of my five years at Kent State, I received it piecemeal and from different sources. When I was in coursework, I met with Laura Davis, M4VC Project Director, for an interview about rhetorical decision-making processes when designing and planning the museum. She showed up to our interview with the first two components of the Grant: Narrative and

Exhibition Walkthrough. I shelved the Grant, planning to revisit later but unsure how, because at that early stage in my interest, I had not considered its potential to contribute to our field. Essentially, the authors of the Grant describe multimodal ensembles that they have had a part in composing, and detail their intention for how audiences will receive takeaway messages from engaging with these multimodal ensembles. A year later,

M4VC Assistant Director Lori Boes gave me access to a digital copy of the Exhibit

Script, the seventh part of the Grant. To ensure I had access to the latest revised version of the draft for this dissertation research, I retrieved the Grant from the May 4 Archives

66 in the Kent State University Archives, where it is available for public viewing. In total, the eleven sections make up 236 pages.

In the Exhibition Walkthrough, the Grant authors explicitly recognize the museum as a multimodal space, although they do not use that term. Table 1 below is an excerpt from the Grant that describes specifically the multimedia (video and audio) present in Gallery I, the part of the museum that contextualizes for modern audiences the social, political, and cultural turbulence of the 1960s. The Grant’s Exhibition

Walkthrough is set up in the format depicted in Table 1, which details the three period television sets that display video clips and play sound bites on loop. The second column describes what audiences should gain from these multimedia displays. This example is representative of the content and straightforward layout of the Exhibition Walkthrough section of the Grant. The column on the left includes a detailed description of the multimodalities in a given sector; in this instance, we see the duration and content of an audio and video segment. The “Header” mentioned in the first column lets the reader know what section of the museum the modes under “Media” appear. The media detailed in this example appears in the first area of the museum that contextualizes the 1960s,

Gallery I. The second column, titled “Visitors’ Experience” describes intended outcomes for the multimodalities offered in the first column (e.g. specific takeaways that the audience should receive). This column details specific museum acts that the visitors will perform or that the museum will perform in the place of the designers/planners14. In the example of Table 1 below, the “Visitors’ Experience” is shaped by the media listed in the

14 All of the museum acts performed are initiated either by audiences or the museum (its multimodal ensembles acting in lieu of a human presence). For example, in some instances the language in the Grant communicates that audiences, of their own volition, will read and understand museum content. In other instances, the language in the Grant explicitly states that the museum “tells” or “does not tell”, or guides audiences towards understanding. Later in this chapter, I provide a full breakdown of museum acts and the modes most frequently engaged during each act classification. 67 prior column (audio/video); we read what the visitors should understand from the media mentioned.

Table 1: Modes and corresponding audience experience from Exhibition Walkthrough Texts, Visuals, Media, Objects Visitors’ Experience Header: The 1960s: Time of Conveys to visitors that the 1960s were a time Sweeping Change of dramatic social, cultural, and political Media: Ambient audio and video change. Ambient audio and video evoke a displays (3 segments totaling 6-9 sense of idealism and activism—young minutes, looping). Multiple audio people striving to make change—as well as speakers in the Context area play a 3- the dissonance of clashing values. part montage of sounds and voices of the time period—music, march chants, and speech sound bites that reflect the issues, fervor, and clashing cultures of the 1960s. The 3 parts of the audio loop are soundtracks for the mini montage documentaries playing on screens in 3 period TV cabinets in the 3 topic areas. (Davis, p. 3a15)

At the conclusion of the Exhibition Walkthrough, the authors summarize the discursive museum acts that they intend to take place between visitor and institution.

They state:

The exhibit components will:

 allow visitors to see, hear and feel the dramatic changes of the decade of the

1960s

 provide vivid, thought-provoking experience of the historic May 4th event

 introduce major players in the event and the different perspectives they

represent

 enable visitors to weigh and analyze interpretations from different sources

15 The page numbers ending in “a” correspond to the Grant Part I: Narrative. The page numbers ending in “b” correspond to Part II: Exhibition Walkthrough. 68

 provide activities that appeal to different audiences, and

 promote reflection and expression on the meaning of May 4th for today

through relation to universal and social elements of human experience and

understanding the role that young people can play in the course of human

events. (Davis, 2011, p. 13b)

Audience experience at the M4VC is shaped by the museum acts that audiences perform with the museum multimodalities, and it is what drives this site. With the wording above, the “exhibit components” function as agents that guide audience learning.

Methods and Analytical Framework

In my analysis of the Grant, I worked inductively with the text guided by the principles of grounded theory (Charmaz, 2014). Grounded theory approaches allow researchers to develop theories from the data itself rather than analyze the gathered data with pre-fixed theoretical frameworks. Grounded theories for text-based data, Charmaz notes, can be shaped to address “form as well as content, audience as well as authors, and production of the text as well as presentation of it” (p. 40). I began with a focus on the

Grant’s content. The purpose of the Grant, as I discuss, is to assert the importance and urgency of the M4VC with the intent of receiving funding. The content gives readers a thorough discussion of what the museum may offer the public and accurately describes/depicts the interior fixtures of the M4VC. The content of the Exhibition

Walkthrough section of the document proved most useful to my research questions because it summarizes select multimodal ensembles at the M4VC and describes intended audience outcomes from interaction with these ensembles, although the Narrative section provides supplementary, relevant information along this thread as well.

After I did an initial read-through of the Narrative and Exhibition Walkthrough sections of the Grant, I conducted multiple close readings before I was able to identify patterns and subsequently develop codes. To guide my close readings, I focused on my research questions most relevant to the data in this document: How are multimodal ensembles (alphabetic texts, objects, visual imagery) and literacy practices used in composing the past? In the context of this site, what are the affordances and constraints of meaning making through multimodal ensembles? These questions served as the framework for my inductive process.

Once I began the coding process, I used starter codes as highlighted by Spinuzzi

(2013) in order to pinpoint my expected findings from the data. Starter codes are descriptive codes that allowed me to classify my data by subject (for instance, any reference to visual imagery). In total, I went through three drafts of coding processes before I found one that best worked with data from the Grant. Some codes that I developed proved unnecessary or irrelevant to my questions (e.g. coding for audience emotional response to museum content).The most obvious place to begin was with the authors’ clear, straightforward mention of multimodalities.

Table 2 below lists all of the six modes (my starter codes) and provides definitions and examples from the Grant for each. The left column details each different multimodality that the Grant discusses. I have determined that, at this site, there are six multimodalities present that audiences use for meaning making: text, visual imagery16, objects, physical space, multimedia, and interactive technology. I descriptively

16 Visual imagery is a term that I use; however, the Grant authors use the term “visuals” instead. The term “visual imagery” is more descriptive for my discussion on multimodality and refers only to still imagery, such as photographs, sketches, paintings, and comic strips. 70 categorized and coded the six categories of different modes mentioned in the Grant. Four of these categories are modes that the authors identify (text, visuals, objects, multimedia17), and two are modes that the authors mention but do not explicitly identify

(physical space18 and interactive technology). The middle column defines each mode in terms of my research. The right column provides a direct example from the Grant’s text.

Table 2: Museum multimodalities in Grant Starter Code Definition Example Multimedia Audio and video “Ambient audio and video evoke a sense of idealism and activism…” (p. 3b). Objects Object artifacts “Visitors conclude from the materials in the impact displays that the shooting…deeply shocked Americans and citizens around the world” (p. 10b). Space The physical space of the museum “The second gallery immerses the visitors in what happened on May 4th…” (p. 1a) Technology Interactive technology (computers, “Visitors are provided the means keyboards) provided to visitors to to have their voices heard…” (p. record responses to museum content 12b). Text Alphabetic text “Illustrates for visitors the roots of student activism in the civil rights movement of the 50s and 1960s” (p. 4b). Visual Still images “Throughout the display, visitors imagery have seen images of young people assembling and demonstrating…” (p. 12b).

When the authors discuss the museum as a whole, they are incorporating all of these modes, as all are present at the museum. In individual multimodal ensembles, as I will

17 The term “multimedia” is somewhat loaded in multimodal scholarship and has multiple implications. The Grant authors use this term to denote audio and video; hereafter, when I use the term “multimedia”, I evoke their definition. 18 I distinguish physical space from rhetorical space. This chapter focuses solely on the museum’s use of physical space. Although physical space incorporates rhetorical principles (e.g. curator’s arrangement of materials), the space in itself does not have a presence that persuades or informs. 71 discuss in depth in my analysis, most often text is present alongside one or more decontextualized modes (visual imagery and/or objects).

Marking the multimodalities, I hoped, would allow me to make further inferences from the text about their role in composing the past; namely I was interested in their discussion of how audiences should engage with these modes. Ultimately, my coding scheme would include classifications of all different verbs or acts mentioned in the Grant, but getting there was not a straightforward process. Some codes proved to be dead ends.

For instance, in my initial coding scheme, I looked for explicit mention of “anticipation”, when the authors make clear statements on how they anticipate audiences will respond to the museum multimodalities (e.g. Audiences will see…; or, Audience should understand…). However, I realized that all of the multimodalities and their corresponding museum acts are anticipated. Rather than code for everything thing that might possibly be useful (as I felt compelled to do), I dialed back and highlighted all mention of museum acts.

The coding process allowed me to understand the different uses for space as well.

I began to see that, as I proceeded with my research, I realized that the Grant authors discuss space at this site in two distinct ways: physical and rhetorical. The Grant authors describe physical ways that space engages audiences, such as when they move about the museum. However, they also discuss rhetorical properties of the space as well: it is immersive. Thus, my large category, “space”, became fine-tuned to account for this important distinction. As a reminder, the space mentioned in the Grant’s components I examined refers to the interior of the M4VC.

I examined the document’s treatment of audience reading, interpretation, and interaction with the museum content. I highlighted the 114 unique instances in which the authors discuss anticipated meaning making processes that would take part between visitor and museum, or the museum acts. Reductively, museum acts refer to any verb used in the document performed by the visitor or museum as subject. Although I denote the museum acts mentioned throughout the entire document, the authors note specifically that the latter portion of the document, the Exhibit Walkthrough, provides readers with an understanding of “how the visitor may experience takeaway messages in the information and humanities content of the exhibit” (Davis, 2011, p. 2). I continued to devise codes that related to the points raised by my research questions (literacy practices, components of multimodal ensembles), and what I hoped to find from the data. For instance, my analytic readings of the Grant evidenced that the document authors specified different audience interactions with different modes (e.g. objects are modes often engaged when audiences are reflecting or understanding). When I realized that many of the museum acts signify audience literacy practices through engaging museum modes, I devised codes that would help me find these patterns. I wanted to know which acts audiences were performing with the aid of which modes. For example, were audiences “making meaning” or “synthesizing” (document authors’ words) only when alphabetic text was present in the multimodal ensemble?

As I marked these places in the document, I began to see that the authors accompany their discussion of these modes with different verbs (e.g. see, hear, understand), which I evidence later in Table 6. Discursive acts between visitor and institution include instances of meaning making through physical, sensory means such as

“Visitors will see…” However, the authors also include anticipated internal processes that visitors will take part in, such as reflect, learn, and understand. The museum acts discussed represent literacy practices with which audience members engage as they navigate the museum. The acts also indicate the authors’ desired responses to the multimodal ensembles at the museum.

Upon separating the acts in the document, found that all of them can be classified into five different categories of museum acts: cognitive acts, knowledge acquisition acts, embodied interaction acts, navigational acts, and following a directive acts. This finding asserts there are five different ways with which audiences are intended to engage with multimodalities at this site. Table 3 below illustrates these museum acts. The left column lists the different classification of museum acts coded in the Grant. The column in the middle provides a definition for each of these acts, providing transparency for the process

I used to classify the act. For example, if a museum act mentioned in the Grant implied that audiences would physically interact with an object or a text, I knew to classify this as an “embodied interaction act.” The right column lists all of the possible verbs from the document and their museum act classification. It is important to note that some of these specific verbs are used only once, and some are used multiple times. In this table, I account for each verb that appears in the Exhibit Walkthrough section. Some of these acts may fall into multiple categories; however, for the purposes of this general table, I placed them into categories that most strongly fit each act.

Table 3: Museum acts as they appear in Grant Museum act Museum act description Verbs used to describe intended code action Cognitive Acts that require cognitive,  Seek answers to acts internal participation from  Reflect audiences in order to engage,  Experience difficult to assess  Understand  Synthesize  Make meaning  Seek balance [among multiple perspectives]  Examine  Weigh [points of view]  Decide  Measure  Feel  Form their own view Following a Acts that anticipate direct,  Record response directive quantifiable interaction from  Add their voices acts audiences  Express views Knowledge Acts that position visitors and Learn acquisition institution within the  Tell [or does not tell] acts traditional “student/teacher”  Immerse model; acts the direct  Draw visitors in facilitation of the institution  Encourage  [Textual content] speak to  Convey  Evoke  Illustrate  Absorb  Take in [information]  Have opportunity to reflect  Are provided the means [to record reflection]  Look up [draft #] Navigational Acts that denote audiences’  Explore acts physical navigation of the  Conclude visit museum  Complete experience  Peruse Embodied Acts of visible physical  See interaction interaction with visitors and  Hear acts museum modes  Recording [response]  Experience [audio]  View

 Hold up a soundwand

I understand that the tables in this section strip the acts of their context, which was an integral component in the coding process. The authors might use a general verb, such as “see”, which could mean either the embodied interaction act of seeing or the cognitive act of seeing (and understanding). Table 4 below further clarifies the acts listed in Table

3. The column on the left restates (from Table 3) the museum act code, and the middle column restates that code’s description. The right column in Table 4 provides an example of this code as it appears in the Grant’s text. My intention with Table 4 is to contextualize for readers how I determined what to code the different acts mentioned within the text.

As stated above, I identified in the Grant text all verbs mentioned; I further sorted these verbs into different categories of acts based on the types of meaning created from their interaction (e.g. if audiences were acquiring knowledge, if audiences were recording their own knowledge, if audiences were being guided to move through a specific area).

Table 4: Museum act codes and examples in Grant Museum Museum Act Description Examples from Grant Act Code Cognitive Acts that require deep “Visitors understand the dramatic acts cognitive, internal participation turning point represented by the from audiences in order to draft lottery and the strong engage, difficult to assess emotions that this change evoked” (p. 6b). Following a Acts that anticipate direct, “…and have opportunity to add directive quantifiable interaction from their voices to the May 4th story acts audiences and history” (p. 2a). Knowledge Acts that position visitors and “Allows visitors to understand acquisition institution within the demonstrators’ belief that acts “student/teacher” model; acts significant change was needed…” that the audiences perform at (p. 4b). the direct facilitation of the institution (through typically written instructions)

Navigational Acts that denote audiences’ “Visitors move through the exhibit acts physical navigation of the experiencing an increasingly museum active role” (p. 2b). Embodied Acts of visible physical and/or “Visitors see primary evidence of interaction sensory (e.g. seeing, hearing) the costs to both U.S. soldiers and acts interaction with visitors and the Vietnamese…” (p. 7b). museum modes

After I isolated each unique recording of the audience’s anticipated engagement with a museum act (without stripping the museum act of its context as I have done above), I began to look for correlations among the literate practices (the museum acts) and multimodalities (texts, objects, and visual imagery) audiences read to reconstruct the events of May 4. This is best illustrated in Table 6, which depicts the frequency that acts and modes appear together in the Grant’s text.

Charmaz (2014) notes the possibility of uncovering tension during the coding process “between analytic insights and described events” (p. 115). Through the analysis of these tensions, she notes, researchers might uncover other avenues to pursue. In the introduction to this chapter, I note that the Grant authors needed to make the rhetorical move to provide multiple perspectives at the museum; not only to provide a well-rounded perspective at the museum, but to avoid projecting a specific ideology for a controversial historic event. One of the unanticipated patterns that I noted after I coded for museum modes and acts were discrepancies in the language used to discuss the entity (visitor or institution) who was initiating the museum act. This led me to read through the Grant again with the following question in mind: Who was telling whom to perform which acts with which modes? In some instances, audiences were expected to perform a museum act of their own volition; in other instances, the museum was explicitly guiding audiences to interact with the modes.

In the beginning of the document, the authors placed more agency with the museum during meaning making processes (e.g. understanding, seeing); however, towards the end, the visitors emerged more often as the agents of meaning making. The implementation grant authors identify this shift, noting that audiences “move through the exhibit experiencing an increasingly active role” (p. 2b). The three galleries at the M4VC essentially present audiences with information they may use to form an educated opinion on May 4, which they may record just before exiting. This is the ultimate means of creating a discursive museum environment, by allowing visitors to engage in dialogue that will become part of the May 4 conversation. Visitors are granted this agency through the institution, which instructs them to record their perspective if they choose. Table 5 below documents this process by defining each of the two codes and provides an example from the Grant. The column on the left indicates two different codes: museum as initiator or visitor as initiator. The column in the middle provides a definition for both codes, the framework I used when making a decision during the coding process. The column on the right provides an example directly from the Grant text so that readers may see how I have made the coding decision. For example, in Table 5 below, the “museum as initiator” example indicates that the museum is the one performing the action; the museum initiates what visitors will be doing during this instance of a museum act. In this case, the gallery is actively immersing the visitors. In the following example, for “visitor as initiator,” visitors are the ones who initiate this act. They are seeing (i.e. understanding) a concept through engagement with multimodalities at the museum.

Table 5: Museum act initiator codes Code Definition Example from Grant Museum Museum acts (e.g. seeing, “The second gallery immerses the as hearing) in which the museum visitors on what happened on May initiator is the agent who initiates the 4th…” (p. 1a). meaning making process. Visitor as Museum acts in which the “Visitors see that emotions ran initiator visitor is the agent who initiates high on both sides of the national the meaning making process. divide…” (p. 10b). When I coded the data again with this new development, I concluded that all museum acts fall into one of these categories. All museum acts are initiated by either the institution or the visitor. For instance Cognitive Acts (e.g. concluding, understanding) are typically classified as visitor as initiator. With this notion, the authors indicate it is up to the audience to initiate these internal processes after viewing the available museum content.

Analysis of Data and Coding

In this section, I discuss findings and analysis from coding the Grant: 1) museum acts; 2) museum modes; 3) visitor/institution as initiator. Table 6 below identifies the frequency of the museum act codes. The leftmost column lists each museum act code that

I have broken down in tables above. The next column lists the different multimodalities audiences engage while performing the act. The penultimate column lists the number of times each mode is used during mention of these acts; this allows me to understand, through quantifiable data, the dependency on different modes for different ways of meaning making. The last column posts the frequency that the act appears in the document out of the 114 unique museum acts mentioned. I detailed the frequency of modes engaged while audiences perform each different act so that I could identify patterns. I hypothesized, for example, that while building knowledge and understanding of histories through performing Knowledge Acquisition Acts, audiences would more

79 frequently with alphabetic texts (as anticipated by Grant authors). As shown in Table 6, however, audiences engage in multimedia and visual imagery most frequently while performing Knowledge Acquisition Acts. This implies that the Grant authors anticipate audiences will glean the most understanding through their engagement of highly visually stimulating museum content (photos, videos). It is important to note as well that one museum act may fit into two different categories. For instance, a given act may be classified as both a Knowledge Acquisition Act and a Cognitive Act, implying that the museum has stepped into the role of instructor and guided audiences to reflect on museum content. Distinguishing the modes used to perform museum acts may demonstrate the usefulness of a specific museum mode for different facets of meaning making during the audience’s visit. All museum acts I discuss are discursive between visitor and institution.

Table 6: Frequency of museum act codes in Grant Museum act Mode(s) engaged while Number of times Total act code performing the act used during the act frequency (out of 114) Cognitive Objects 20 57 acts Visual imagery 19 Text 17 Space 13 Multimedia 4 Technology 2 Knowledge Multimedia 13 27 acquisition Visual imagery 13 acts Text 9 Space 5 Objects 4 Technology 0 Embodied Multimedia 11 26 interaction Visual imagery 11 acts Text 8 Objects 4 Technology 2 Space 0

Navigational Space 4 9 acts Multimedia 2 Text 2 Visual imagery 2 Objects 1 Technology 1 Following a Technology 7 7 directive acts Text 0 Visual imagery 0 Objects 0 Space 0 Multimedia 0

A focus on the frequency of museum acts’ appearance in the Grant indicates which literacy practices are most contributive to the audience’s composition of the past.

Cognitive acts, or acts that require audiences to use their own reasoning, appear most frequently (57 times out of 114) in the Grant authors’ discussion of audience experience at the M4VC. This notion addresses the Grant authors’ assertions that audiences are primarily in charge of their own meaning making processes; they are presented with information to “weigh”, “analyze”, and “examine”. Rather than being told what to think as passive learners, audiences are intended to generate their own understanding. This also emphasizes the museum’s pedagogical nature and mission. The museum act with the second most instances, knowledge acquisition acts, appears just over half the amount of times as cognitive acts (27 out of 114). Museums are often positioned as instructors and visitors as students. This does not necessarily imply that in these instances the museum is telling audiences what to believe; rather, the museum facilitates audience meaning making. Language used in the Grant for instructional acts involve audiences “learning” and the museum “guiding”, “presenting”, or “conveying” as an instructor might.

Physical acts (26 out of 114) are the third most frequented act, evoking the vast amount

81 of visual modes available to audiences at this site, allowing audiences to “see” and

“hear”. Navigational acts (9 out of 114) and directive acts (7 out of 114) are important and contributive to the audience’s overall museum experience; I attribute their low frequency in the Grant’s discussion to several points. Navigational acts, when audiences move through the museum’s physical space, are not mentioned frequently in this document, and perhaps for flow of the visitor experience narrative (e.g. mentioning visitors “moving” from Gallery II to Gallery III). Directive acts engage audiences only at the end of Gallery III, when they may write and record their own perspective on May 4.

The literate practices used at the M4VC when composing the past follow a somewhat straightforward process: Selected multimodalities are placed strategically around the museum space, which audiences read and interpret to create meaning. The breakdown of acts suggests the different ways that audiences might interact with the material. All acts defined above in Table 6 contribute to the audience’s overall experience and therefore shape, to varying degrees, how audiences compose the past. The different acts determine what audiences will see and how they will process it. The acts also determine when audiences will receive these messages as they navigate the museum space.

A focus on the frequency of modes as they appear within each act indicates how audiences engage in meaning making while they perform the museum acts that allow them to compose the past. The frequency of the modes may provide insight into what is most conducive to audience experience as they perform certain acts. Each mode of meaning making has affordances and constraints (distinctions that I address further in

Chapter IV) and relies upon the other modes in their given ensemble to reach their full

82 potential. For example, objects cannot provide their own context in most cases at this site.

Allison Krause’s orange hat relies on a text-based caption below in order for it to make sense to audiences.

As evidenced in Table 6, the authors place objects, imagery, and multimedia at the forefront of modes engaged most frequently while audiences perform museum acts.

Text is not the most frequently appearing mode for any act. The text is often the unsung hero; how often might someone visit a museum with the sole intent of getting to read the signs and captions? However, these signs and captions enable all other acts to be performed. For example, audiences may not realize they are intended to record an impression of their visit until they see guiding text above the computer screen and keyboard at the end of Gallery III—this text directly guides them on how to respond to the museum materials present. The linguistic properties of written text (and spoken text) provides the contextualization necessary for audiences to know how to interpret museum modes so that they may perform all other acts. In order to reflect on photographic evidence for the atrocities in the segregated South, audiences need text to tell them how to interpret the photograph.

Visitor/ Institution as Act Initiators

Of the 114 total museum acts, 80 are initiated by visitors, 32 are initiated by the institution, and two are jointly initiated by both visitor and institution. The acts two that are jointly initiated include instances of visitor and institution working together; for example, the May 4 historic content at the museum expands as visitors add their perspectives using the computers at the end of Gallery III. When I coded for visitor/institution agency, namely who initiates what acts, I began to understand that the

83 authors allowed the institution to fulfill different roles, all of which from a position of authority as a gatekeeper of information. This personification of the institution by giving it an active role in meaning making is not unusual; we often use metaphors to describe the roles that the institution fills. Table 7 below codifies the distinct roles that the museum fulfills for visitors. The left column breaks down the different metaphoric roles that the institution fulfills when it instigates museum acts: a teacher, a tour guide, a gatekeeper of information. The right column provides an example from the Grant’s text. I did not code the specific metaphors (e.g. teacher) in the Grant; rather, this is a conclusion that I came to as I examined all the acts in which the institution is initiator. I began to notice that in the acts where the institution is in initiator, the institution fulfilled different roles.

Table 7: Institution as initiator of meaning making Institution as initiator of meaning Text example from document making Institution as teacher “But the exhibit does not tell visitors what to think about these events” (p. 2b). Institution as tour guide “The exhibit encourages visitors to process information and come to their own conclusions” (p. 2b). Institution as gatekeeper of “In the conclusion of the exhibit, the scope of information information narrows as visitors move towards reflection” (p. 6a).

Museums serve as teachers, tour guides, and information gatekeepers as they enact the multimodalities through their designers. Although “gatekeeper” may attach negative connotations as withholding information, here it serves more of a practicality in terms of space. The museum planners are not withholding information from audiences when they focus on only a few individuals’ experience during the Civil Rights

Movement; rather, they have chosen representatives of the Civil Rights Movement who

84 are contributive to audience understanding and contextualization of the times for the purposes of the museum.

In a sense, this language creates an anthropomorphized museum exhibit that actively serves many perceptively “dominant” roles in the audience’s meaning making practices throughout their visit. The planners work to create an environment in which these actions may take place successfully. In some ways, the museum functions in their stead and relays information that they have deemed relevant through the most appropriate modes. The M4VC as a space cannot provide the organic, discursive experience that we gain from an actual teacher or tour guide. However, the museum may fulfill active pedagogical roles that transcend what its human counterparts can enact. For instance, the gallery can “immerse” visitors in history because of the multimodalities it provides and the space it occupies. The gallery is also able to provide consistent experiences for visitors, with the same materials presented in the same manner.

Visitors perform specific roles at the museum as well, which I identify in Figure 7 below. Although the museum serves to guide visitors through their discursive acts, they are likely used to performing such acts and being positioned as learners. In some acts, they serve as passive receivers of information rather than active learners. Museum texts often give visitors the option to take an active role in their experience, and the document specifically notes that visitors become increasingly more active as their walkthrough of the museum progresses. Table 8 below charts the different roles that visitors may experience during their time in the museum, and serves as a counterpart to Table 7. The left column indicates the three metaphoric roles that visitors fulfill as they initiate museum acts (student, participant in or witness to history, contributor to May 4 collective

85 history). The right column provides examples of these distinctions taken directly from the

Grant’s text.

Table 8: Visitor as initiator of meaning making Visitor as initiator of meaning making Text example from document Visitor as student “In the first gallery, they take in contextual information about important issues and events of the 1960s” (p. 2a). Visitor as participant in or witness to “Visitors are provided the means to have their history voices heard and for their expression to become a part of the chronicle of the May 4th story” (p. 12b). Visitor as contributor to May 4 “As visitors near the end of the exhibit, they collective history have the opportunity to record their responses to the exhibit as a whole and to quotes and prompting questions on the wall above computer stations” (p. 12b).

At this site, as it is continuously emphasized in the Grant, visitors are not passive recipients of knowledge. In the role of student, they are given a degree of agency in formulating their own opinions. They then have the opportunity to “give back” to the

M4VC by contributing to the collective history.

It is necessary, I argue, to examine the complex, metaphorical relationships that emerge between visitor and institution if we are to understand the literacy practices that take place. As the acting agent shifts between visitor and museum (with only several instances of acts performed together), so does the potentiality for different learning outcomes. The institution’s role is to convey information, start conversation, and promote understanding. Visitors, as they perform the museum, understand that their role is to learn and engage with the multiliteracies for that purpose.

Visitor/Institution Agencies

The nature of the Grant provides a rationale for the May 4 Visitors Center

(M4VC) planning team’s use of specific modes, and situates their usefulness within

86 audience literacy practices at the museum. Throughout the document, the authors assert the intention of the M4VC to allow audiences to formulate their own opinions based on the information presented to them. Within this document, it is evident that the authors anticipate audiences to come to conclusions in some instances, even while the information is presented as objectively as possible. Understandably, due to the controversy that continues to surround May 4, the Grant authors make the rhetorical move to assert that audiences come to their own conclusions and that the museum presents multiple perspectives rather than one “right” way to interpret history. However, much of the information received is non-negotiable; modes present themselves to audiences and are fixed in the museum. They do not engage in conversation with audiences. It is still discursive in that audiences can read and respond, although the multimodal ensembles are fixed informants. The language in the Grant implies specific takeaways that audiences will receive from the multimodal ensembles. Even though the alphabetic text contextualizes the material objectively (e.g. using non-evaluative language and tone to describe the actions of the Guardsmen who fired into the crowd of student protesters), audiences are still intended to perform in intended ways with the multimodal ensembles. There are intended takeaways they should receive through these museum acts.

Briefly, I situate the historic tensions within a theoretical framework. The tensions involved in May 4 histories arise from an unclear victim and an unclear villain.

Postpositivism enlightens how visitors may be positioned as participants in knowledge and meaning making at the museum. The postposivist school of thought argues that knowledge is founded upon one widely accepted notion of truth (Moore, 2008).

Postpositivism addresses the hegemonic grounding of what constitutes the “truth.”

Museums tend to model this school of thought to a degree; a select few determine what the masses will see, and the artifacts and texts are presented as truths. It must also be acknowledged that knowledge is relative. Knowledge can be withheld, changed, or shaped depending on the interests of the person who professes the knowledge. As an aside, I do not consider the histories we learn as containing one indisputable truth; however, the ways in which museums typically participate in historical discourse infers an objective truth. Likewise, I do not presume that museum designers and curatorial staff seek to profess postpositivist notions of history. However, I do argue that the assumptions that many museumgoers could make about the comprehensive nature of the museum’s presentation implies representation of historical truths. In other words, most audiences are unlikely to visit a museum on any subject and wonder whose perspectives were left out or question the accuracy of the information at hand. Subjectivity is inevitable within historical discourse.

In a postpositivist framework, museum audiences may assume that they are passive recipients of the “truth” the institution of the museum professes. Museum studies scholarship that addresses museum visitor meaning making practice and acts (Hooper-

Greenhill, 2006; Garoian, 2001; Ravelli, 2006) would argue that visitors do shape the histories at the museum as they are active participants in the discussion that the multimodalities afford. Museums are discursive spaces; meaning making takes part between curator (writer) and audience (reader). The Grant authors determine that the public upholds a “strong” interest in May 4, whether or not they had a personal connection to the events or Kent State (p. 6a). Audience interest in Kent State’s May 4

88 resources was a significant point of reference in the Grant, which asserts the need for the

M4VC. Projected audience interest in and interaction with the M4VC shaped its creation.

To situate postpositivist discourse at the museum within NLS, I revisit Gee’s

(2012) Discourse with a capital “D”. Gee maintains that people engage in different

Discourses; knowledge of how to behave within a Discourse, he likens to knowledge of how to perform a dance. People learn to recognize sounds, symbols, behavioral expectations, of the Discourses with which they participate. The Discourse of visiting a museum is no different. The literate practices/museum acts mentioned in the Grant are enacted by audiences in relation to the museum. Audiences who have become situated in the Discourse of museums enter the space with an understanding of what their visit might entail: reading words; seeing film and photography; learning new information. When museum writers communicate their messages to audiences through multimodal ensembles at the museum, they are doing more than simply using language to convey ideas. They are playing the role of educator as they design multimodal ensembles that fulfill certain needs for varied audiences. There are social, political, and cultural histories that the M4VC, because of its official role as a museum, communicates to audiences who are positioned as learners.

Conclusions

The multimodal ensembles at the museum function as the “tip of the iceberg”.

Behind the multimodal ensembles present to audiences at this site exists “ghost texts” that are hidden to audiences, but serve as the backbone for what they see. In some ways, we could even view the M4VC as a material manifestation of a text—the Exhibition

Walkthrough in the Grant is made whole through the museum. The Exhibition

Walkthrough consists of text that speaks to visitor experience by mentioning the five different ways that audiences will engage with the six different modes (concluded through my coding, not their words). Another ghost text that informs my dissertation research, the museum script, is the text that documents and solidifies a place for each object, visual, text, and multimedia at the museum (to use the authors’ words).

In a typical visit, the museum guides audiences through a series of literate practices with which they are well versed. Audience command of museum Discourse, performing museum acts with multimodal ensembles, is essential to upholding the museum’s learning outcomes. The responsibility to meet these outcomes rests with the institution itself. The institution provides the means for audiences to meet the specific outcomes, and audiences have the agency to engage (or not) with these means. I argue that the “fixed” nature of museum literacies contributes to the postpositivist positioning of visitor and institution, in which they perceive a whole truth at the museum. The curatorial staff selects and writes material, which audiences then “read” to create their own interpretations. Audiences peruse museum content and compose their own history of

May 4 and relevant events, which blurs the line between reality and interpretation based on their performance of the acts.

The affordance for the museum to function in loco, or in place of its curators, relies upon the audiences’ command of the Discourse of navigating the museum, as well as reading and interpreting its content. The M4VC, as an institution, serves as a stand-in for the curators, historians, designers, and other behind-the-scenes committee members who contributed to the overall composing process, to reintroduce Murray’s (1972, 1978) concepts of prewriting, writing, and revision that I transfer to the composition of a

90 museum instead of an essay. The museum that audiences see is the finished product. The ghost texts, like the Grant, serve as prewriting tools, which guide the composition of the museum.

Much like the words in an essay or a novel, museum’s multimodalities and the layout can recreate similar experiences for multiple visitors, even if they may remember their visits differently. The multimodalities serve as substitutes for context-setting at the museum, in place of the curators or museum planners. Although the museum in some instances initiates meaning making processes for audiences, especially towards the beginning, they are primarily the instigators for the acts they perform. They may opt out of interacting with multimodal ensembles, so there is no way to ensure the intended interaction between visitor and institution takes place.

CHAPTER IV

READING AND INTERPRETING MULTIMODAL ENSEMBLES AT THE MUSEUM

In this chapter, I continue moving through the museum-based reinterpretation of

Murray’s (1972, 1978) writing process. In the previous chapter, I examined a document from the prewriting stage in which museum composers articulate anticipated responses from audiences. This chapter positions us as readers of the “written work”, or rather the museum that today’s audiences visit. I first discuss site-specific examples of multimodalities (visual imagery, objects, alphabetic texts)19 in order to emphasize the interdependency as they work together to contextualize May 4 and relevant histories for their audiences. In composition studies, there are few, if any, data-based studies that examine the collective contribution of modes in a multimodal ensemble. In museum studies, scholars (Hooper-Greenhill, 2001; Ravelli, 2006) have discussed the separate and synchronous functionality of museum modes, as evidenced in Chapter II. The contribution of this chapter to the field is a framework for examining the interdependency of each distinct mode in a multimodal ensemble and the message that is made from these interaction. I continue to explore my questions regarding how multimodal ensembles and literate practices aid in meaning making at this historic site. Overall, I conclude that the

19 Although I have visited the M4VC multiple times when completing this research, I ultimately used the museum’s master script document when compartmentalizing the modes for this examination. This document contains each image, object, and text available to audiences at the museum. This was mainly for practical purposes and to ensure that I did not leave anything out of its corresponding multimodal ensemble. 92 multimodal ensembles provide audiences with ways to make meaning as they enact literate practices. These literate practices are foregrounded in alphabetic texts, even while multimodal ensembles are comprised of other modes as well. I reaffirm the centrality of the written word as multimodal scholarship continues to push closer attention to the affordances of visual imagery, objects, and audio/video.

Introduction

Among the biggest challenges of this dissertation research has been positioning my own stance as researcher; I have reflected on my view of the May 4 Visitors Center’s histories and my view of the museum itself as an institution. Although many of my research endeavors in graduate school have involved museum sites, I have found it increasingly difficult to document my shift from my role as general museumgoer to that as researcher. I began to consider myself a researcher-as-museumgoer because I act the part of any other visitor as I read and interpret the available artifacts; however, I am not a visitor in the typical sense. Before beginning work on this dissertation, even as I researched museums for coursework or other projects, I had not reflected on my own museum practices. I was fortunate to grow up a short Metro ride away from the National

Mall, and I spent many weekends, holiday breaks, and class field trips wandering the

Smithsonian Institution’s museums, greeting my favorite artifacts (especially the dinosaur bones), and watching the museums themselves evolve to suit the demands of contemporary audiences. I was slightly disheartened when the National Museum of

American History was gutted and lost its old-fashioned appeal in the main lobby to something sleeker and more modern that resembles an airport.

My past experiences with museums, and their prominence in my life, led me to consider if this would be a methodological issue in this dissertation. I have become so accustomed to entering and using museum spaces, perhaps more so than a “typical” museumgoer who visits only sparingly. Throughout my life, the museum has fulfilled many roles for me, such as entertainer; educator; tour guide; and, during our school field trips, babysitter. I never questioned how the artifacts materialized in the spaces, who put them there, or even why people felt the need to visit museums. This somewhat passive experience is the way that most audiences experience museums. As evidenced in Chapter

III’s analysis of the Exhibition Walkthrough in the Grant, visitors to the M4VC are given agency in some regard as they navigate the space, they are largely operating under the recommendation of museum texts. Audiences are shown material that they believe is objective; it may be to a degree, but the material is still at the interpretation of the museum curators. As researcher, I entered the museum not primarily seeking to learn about the museum’s subject content, but searching for answers that required a more analytical approach than simply visiting the museum.

I initially focused my discussion only on visual imagery and object artifacts at the museum, which I hoped would heed multimodal scholarship’s call for a closer examination of meaning making beyond alphabetic text. However, as I carried out my research, I found that because the multimodalities at this site are deliberately arranged so that they are able to work together to create meaning, it is difficult to discuss them as distinct entities. In other words, if an object and text are paired together to create a multimodal ensemble, it is pertinent to discuss how they create meaning together because that is how the audience will read them. First, I demonstrate the multimodal interplay that

94 takes place among different multimodal ensembles at the M4VC. I suggest how audiences might engage with these multimodal ensembles and what meaning may come from their interpretation. Lastly, I discuss the modes separately to emphasize that each distinct mode has differing meaning making potential. I supplement some of these claims with points offered by undergraduate students in a sophomore-level college writing class who took part in a focus group discussion on their experiences as museumgoers.

Throughout, I evidence the argument that alphabetic text is the centripetal force of the museum. In other words, all modes must consistently refer to text to serve their purpose in providing historic context for audiences.

Multimodal Interplay

Multimodal interplay is the term I use to signify the synchronous, synergistic meaning making process of different modes, a concept explained by Hull and Nelson

(2014). They assert that “multimodal text can create a different system of signification, one that transcends the collective contribution of its constituent parts” (p. 457). The term

“interplay” that I use when discussing museum multimodalities indicates the back-and- forth nature of the modal interaction, and the impact that each mode has as it feeds off of the other(s) in a multimodal ensemble. Other terms for this phenomenon include

“braiding” (Mitchell, 2004, qtd. in Hull & Nelson) and “orchestration” (Kress & van

Leeuwen, 2001, qtd. in Hull & Nelson). I have chosen not to adopt these terms in my own research because they do not allow me to envision text as the centripetal force in multimodal ensembles at the museum. Both “braiding” and “orchestration” evoke different images of this process, but essentially draw upon modes’ dependency on each other. “Braiding” implies an equal dependency on the other modes as they become

95 interwoven during the composition process. “Orchestration” implies the layering of multiple modes to add depth and richness as they work together synchronously.

Different modes, Hull and Nelson (2014) argue, “each respectively impart certain kinds of meaning more easily than naturally than others” (p. 461). For instance, a photograph with a corresponding caption represents a symbiotic creation of meaning; each mode synergistically enhances the other. Separately they may both convey meaning to audiences, but together they create meaning unattainable on their own. In this example, the photograph may visually demonstrate what a short caption can do only shallowly (e.g. fear, sadness, anger). If the caption informs audiences that the protesters in the photo are

“angry”, this can be reinforced by the display of emotion audiences can see on their faces.

The data that supports my argument in this chapter comes from multimodal ensembles in Gallery I at the M4VC. As previously mentioned, one of the objectives for

Gallery I is to situate visitors in the mindset of the times; to achieve this, the museum breaks down main issues, each with a corresponding, distinct section in the museum. The sections of Gallery I (Social Justice, Generation Gap, Vietnam War) seemingly follow a specific formula, which gives audiences a great deal of agency in making meaning from the texts, objects, and visuals in this section. After many visits to the M4VC and read- throughs of the Script, I found that the text in multimodal ensembles in Gallery I serves one of two purposes: to inform, as in text that describes a photograph, or; to contextualize, as in text that situates material within the rest of the museum and might speak for the collective of multimodal ensembles in a subsection. In both types, text shapes the meaning of other modes. All of these texts represent interpretations from the

96 museum writers, whether they interpret parts of history or the mode they describe. Table

9 below provides examples for this distinction. The column on the left includes an example of text that objectively informs audiences. The column on the right includes an example of text that contextualizes for audiences, which requires a bit more interpretation on the part of the museum composers.

Table 9: Text that informs and contextualizes Text that informs Text that contextualizes “As a high school student in New “On April 30, 1970, after five years of York, Jeff Miller composes this poem nationwide demonstrations, mounting on war. He is fatally shot at Kent State tensions over the Vietnam War, and secret on May 4.” activities, President Nixon announces that the [Caption, appears underneath an object United States has invaded Cambodia.” artifact] [Printed text on wall, appears alongside a photograph of President Nixon and a direct quote from this speech]

The text that contextualizes museum content includes language that is a bit more loaded than the informant text in photo captions, although both serve as interpretations of historic materials. In some cases, as I demonstrate in the following section, the language that informs about emotionally charged subject content may be loaded as well. By

“loaded” language, I mean that the text imparts an ideological view of the museum writers. For example, they may describe police action against protesters as “cruel and inhumane.”

At the beginning of each subsection in Gallery I on the rail panel, audiences are given a brief paragraph’s description of the following content they will see in that section, and where it fits within a discussion of the 1960s (e.g. Generation Gap). The purpose of this text that audiences receive at the beginning of the section is to contextualize all of the objects and visual imagery they will see within the subsection. In

97 many instances, the text from this point forward (until the next section begins) serves only to describe the image or the object that audiences see in the given multimodal ensemble (e.g. a caption that informs audiences they are viewing a photograph of the Hog

Figure 2: Text as centripetal force in multimodal ensembles Farm hippie commune). Audiences must decide for themselves how all of the different multimodal ensembles should fit within the sections they represent and need to connect back to the contextualization they receive in the beginning caption.

Audiences do not typically enter a museum to read the text; rather, it is the visual imagery, object artifacts, and multimedia that are more captivating and memorable.

However, audiences are reliant on the text to help them make sense of the plethora of modes that cannot set their own contexts. Figure 2 above illustrates the overarching argument for this chapter: Text serves as the centripetal force in multimodal ensembles at this museum. As discussed above, the multimodalities synergistically enhance each other’s meaning through interplay, but no mode works as strongly as alphabetic text for audience interpretation and understanding. In Figure 2, the text is positioned in the center, and all modes consistently refer to it as they refer to each other to create meaning 98 synchronously. The space in between the text and the other modes determines how and when audiences receive information.

The Gallery I Visitor Experience

In this section, I provide a descriptive overview of audience experience in Gallery

I of the M4VC and emphasize some of the multimodal ensembles that contribute to the museum’s overall message. When visitors enter the M4VC, there are usually student workers or staff on hand to greet them and answer any questions. Unless they are part of a guided tour, they are free to wander at their own pace. Just as they commence their museum experience, they see large printed text on the wall that reads:

May 4, 1970, was the day the war came home. Outside this building, 28 members

of the Ohio National Guard fired at student demonstrators—wounding 9 and

killing 4 Kent State students./ Understand this pivotal event by stepping back in

time. Explore the temper of the United States during the 1960s. In this exhibit, see

how the youth of America made a difference./ By remembering the past, let us

shape a better future. (M4VC, 2012)

Upon first glance, Gallery I does not seem like it could fit the multitude of information that it does; however, the curators are able to accomplish many tasks with their choice of materials, deliberate placement, and contextualization. By the time they exit to Gallery II to watch a brief documentary-style film on the shootings, visitors should understand the justifiable anger that fueled the protests of the time.

Other text that audiences should see before exploring the rest of Gallery I provides further context on the 1960s. This text is printed on the right wall at the start of the first subsection, Social Justice, and summarizes the material that audiences will see in

99 the rest of this Gallery. It informs them that major, at-home conflicts included struggles for civil rights and disagreements between generations. The text leaves audiences with the thought that “Students at Kent State—like many across the nation and world—take action against the status quo,” furthering the notion that May 4 was not an isolated or spontaneous event, nor even one that had solely to do with the Vietnam War.

Gallery I consists of one long corridor, with large panel photos that correspond to each subsection of the Gallery: Social Justice, Generation Gap, and Vietnam War. Each subsection has two related large panel photos, juxtaposed with text and smaller photos that are also relevant to the subsection. All along the right wall, visitors see layered objects, photos, and texts. This layered effect (e.g. text printed directly on wall, surrounded by overlapping photo panels and artifact display cases) perhaps serves a practical purpose to fit a large amount of content in a small space, yet it contributes to a

3-D, immersive atmosphere. A rail panel runs along the wall, and contains photos with captions and text-based information, such as timelines and quotes. Various multimedia

(audio and video) plays for audiences on a loop as they peruse the museum. Each subsection has its own “old-fashioned” television set and multimedia sequence.

Audiences hear the sounds of the times (e.g. speeches, music, news clips) in the background as they see the other content.

Social Justice

The Social Justice subsection details the struggle for equal rights that African

Americans and allies fought in the 1960s. Audiences see evidence of these often violent conflicts in the fight for equality, such as a 1961 photo of a burning Freedom Riders bus and a 1963 photo of firefighters hosing black demonstrators in Birmingham, Alabama.

100

Other evidence of this struggle includes a photo of Martin Luther King, Jr. leading the

Children’s Crusade and a photo of black and white Columbia University students protesting their institution’s takeover of property within a predominantly black and

Hispanic community. Interspersed with these historic photographs are hanging chains of

Polaroid-style prints from the 1960s/70s from those connected to Kent State and/or May

4, such as Laura Davis and the four students killed. These Polaroid chains appear throughout Gallery I in seemingly arbitrary spaces and are without caption. Audiences can tell the photos are “vintage,” but cannot tell the subject of the photos unless they know beforehand. Text printed on the wall includes quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr. and George Wallace, governor of Alabama; both of whom speak from opposing stances on the segregation issue.

Below the layered photographs and texts runs the rail panel, which further details the struggle for social justice. There are four photographs of various protests and a

Freedom Rider’s mugshot. The rail panel contains a quote form a Kent State student,

Howie Emmer, who states that poverty, racism, and war are all interconnected issues.

The television sits just behind the rail panel and plays a multimedia loop that includes black and white footage of protests and Civil Rights speakers, such as Martin Luther

King, Jr. The volume is soft and does not become overwhelming or distracting. Visitors hear the familiar, and protestors singing hymns such as “We Shall Overcome”.

On the left wall, visitors see two large Social Justice photo panels: one of Ruby

Bridges, the first child to desegregate a southern school; the other of angry white parents protesting this desegregation. Text explains to audiences: “The Civil Rights Movement shines a light on societal wrongs ignored by mainstream culture. The movement inspires

101 students across the nation and around the world to work for positive change” (M4VC,

2012). The smaller juxtaposed photos and captions relate to the polarizing issue of desegregation as well.

Generation Gap

The subsections are not clearly marked off for visitors, but there is a noticeable shift in content. The Generation Gap subsection evidences what many visitors may recognize as the stereotypical, quintessential cultural history of the 1960s: hippies, folk music, and wild hair. Visitors transition from the Social Justice photos of protests and violence to content that provides closer look at the American people, specifically the contrasting older and younger generations. Text on the rail panel contextualizes the

Generation Gap for audiences:

America’s youth enter the 1960s expecting to participate in democracy. They

reach across social barriers and make their voices heard. They seek justice and

peace now they demand an end to the threat of nuclear annihilation. They

challenge every sort of authority—their parents, teachers, religious leaders, and

the government./ By 1970, a youth counterculture reaches every corner of

America. Young people assert their differences through music, fashion, and

values. Some adults view the movement as a danger to social order and tradition.

(M4VC, 2012)

Photographic evidence shifts away from Civil Rights issues to students’ rights and freedom of speech concerns. Text on the wall quotes “The Middle Americans,” Time’s

1969 person of the year: “This is the greatest country in the world. Why are people trying to tear it down?” (M4VC, 2012) Above this, audiences see a 1962 quote from the

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Students for a Democratic Society, which implies that the country’s youth seem to seek the “unattainable” so they may “avoid the unimaginable” (M4VC, 2012).

Other visual evidence of this generational divide includes a billboard ad of a man with unkempt hair and stubble, prompting students to “get a haircut”; and David Crosby in an American Indian-style fringed leather top and blue jeans standing alongside his father, who wears a formal suit. Two objects on display include Sandy Scheuer’s freshman year beanie from Kent State, and Allison Krause’s orange “hippie” hat. Other objects along the wall, positioned behind the television include contrasting musical selections, such as: Doris Day, Janis Joplin, Nat “King” Cole, Jimi Hendrix. Other hanging artifacts that visitors see include an American flag with a peace sign replacing the stars, and the well-known poster advertising the Woodstock Music & Art Fair. At a glance, the display is colorful and busy, much like the times it represents.

The two large panel photographs on the left wall also enforce the museum’s claims about contrasting values: a young, clean-cut family in the 1950s about to take their red mustang for a drive through suburbia; and a group of hippies riding atop a brightly painted school bus during their town’s parade. Visitors understand the subject matter of each photograph through a small-sized caption juxtaposed in the corner. The smaller photos in between the two panels include youth experiences local to Kent: young people in Kent riding a Volkswagen Bus, Allison Krause and her boyfriend, and an art class painting coincidentally produced together by Sandy Scheuer and Jeff Miller.

Some of the political strife mentioned in the Social Justice subsection comes to closure in the Generation Gap. Visitors see a photo of Coretta Scott King at her husband’s funeral. Another photo in color depicts young boys saluting Robert Kennedy’s

103 funeral train as it passes through their bucolic town.

Vietnam War

Visitors see material for the final subsection, Vietnam War, before they leave

Gallery I to view the May 4 film. The content here focuses on global, national, and local

(to Kent) issues that stemmed from the war: overseas deaths, dead civilians, the draft system, and increasing distrust of President Nixon. The text on the rail panel contextualizes for audiences the material they are seeing in this subsection, and emphasizes that President Nixon “continues to fight a war that will prove unwinnable.”

The text mentions that Americans could watch the war unfold from their living room television sets. Additionally, the text discusses the polarizing effect the war had on the

American people, which sparked protests, draft card burnings, and emigration to Canada.

Above this contextualizing brief is a timeline of the war.

Photographic evidence of the Vietnam War is understandably graphic and chaotic, with dead Vietnamese civilians in the aftermath of the My Lai massacre and a U.S. first- aid center during battle. Alongside these images, visitors see photographs of protestors who speak out against going to the war to experience these atrocities firsthand. The evidence of protests at this museum is not one-sided; visitors see a photograph from a pro-war protest as well. For further information on this divide, audiences may view a graphic that summarizes the main differences between Hawks (pro-war) and Doves (antiwar). The multimedia loop plays footage from the war, and includes iconic sounds (e.g. helicopter propellers) and moving images of the Vietnamese landscape, battles, and soldier experience (e.g. walking through jungle terrain carrying heavy equipment).

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The last part of Gallery I that visitors see helps them to transition to the specific history of May 4. Large text printed on the wall includes an excerpt from President

Nixon’s April 30, 1970 speech that galvanized nationwide revolt: “We take this action

[Cambodia invasion] not for the purpose of expanding the war into Cambodia, but for the purpose of ending the war in Vietnam, and winning the just peace we all desire” (M4VC,

2012). A smaller print on the wall alongside this quote includes a black-and-white photograph of President Nixon pointing to Cambodia on a map of Southeast Asia, and text that informs this speech came after mounting tensions and resulted in protest. A large map of the United States that marks all of the major student protests is the last graphic that visitors see. Juxtaposed over the map are panels for May 1, May 2, and May 3, which summarize the events on Kent’s campus during these days before the shootings.

Multimodal Ensemble Analyses

In this section, I build upon the Gallery I overview and explore the functionality of specific multimodal ensembles in each of the three subsections of Gallery I. I include a figure for each multimodal ensemble that illustrates the layout of the modes, with heavy descriptions of each. I then provide a rhetorical examination of the ethos (character), pathos (emotion), and logos (logic) for each multimodal ensemble. In terms of this dissertation, I examine ethos as the ideological characterization of museum subjects, pathos as a rhetorical appeal to audience emotion, and logos as factually based evidence.

All examples provided further assert this chapter’s claim that text serves as a centripetal force in multimodal ensembles at this museum.

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Social Justice

Multimodal Ensemble 1: The Rail Panel

Figure 320 below illustrates the layout of the rail panel, which sits just above or at knee-level for the average adult visitor. The text on the far left is headed “Social Justice,” and highlights the dissent among American youth regarding racial inequality and their demonstrations against Jim Crow laws (e.g. lunch counter sit-ins). The text emphasizes that as the frequency of the protests increased, the general disdain for protesters increased as well. Ideally, visitors should read this text during their visit because it contextualizes the rest of the Social Justice subsection.

Figure 3: Rail panel layouts The middle text is a quote from Kent State student Howie Emmer: “We came to see that all of the issues were connected. The problem of poverty was connected to the problem of racism, the problem of racism was connected to the problem of war” (M4VC,

2012). This text situates an ethos for the student protesters of May 4 in addition to protesters nationwide who spoke out against any injustices; audiences see further evidence that the May 4 protests were not isolated and that many other protests had occurred on Kent’s campus throughout the years. It also reinforces for audiences why the

M4VC has chosen to include a discussion of Civil Rights issues in a museum that seemingly might focus solely on the Vietnam War and freedom of speech. Later on, in

20 None of the drawn figures of multimodal ensembles is to scale; rather, they are meant to demonstrate layout and design. 106 the Vietnam War section, this quote becomes situated in logos when audiences see that

African Americans and working class white men were disproportionately sent to fight overseas.

The four photographs on the right side of the rail panel, each paired with a caption, appeal to the audience’s sense of pathos, as each allows them to visualize different parts of the larger struggle. The far left photograph is a 1961 mugshot of Danny

Thompson, the only Freedom Rider from Kent State, who was arrested for buying coffee in the “Colored Waiting Room” of a Greyhound bus station in Mississippi. The other three photographs include various Civil Rights protests across Kent State’s campus in the

1960s.

The rail panel’s alphabetic text serves to contextualize the rest of the information that audiences will see in the “Social Justice” subsection. An early focus during the audience’s museum visit on youth dissent and outrage at racial injustices sets them up to understand the youth’s mindset of the times and the commonality of protests. In this multimodal ensemble, the text is the main mode of communication. In the summation of the multimodal ensembles in the Social Justice subsection, this one serves to unify the rest. The other rail panels fulfill the same context-setting agenda.

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Multimodal Ensemble 2: Emotional Imagery of Racial

Inequality

Figure 4 on the right illustrates the layout of a multimodal ensemble that contains four images, three of which are captioned.

The bottom image sits just behind the rail panel, above knee-level for the average adult visitor, and the uppermost image is about six or seven feet in the air. The images, like many other multimodal ensembles that contribute to the layered effect of the material, are suspended by cables from the ceiling. This contributes to the museum’s sleek, modern feel, while serving a practical purpose in terms of limited space as well. All the images in this ensemble fulfill an emotional appeal to audiences. The bottom three images are filled with conflict and tension (violence against black demonstrators and a burning bus). The caption-less uppermost image is of a black woman with her small daughter beside a department store, a neon “Colored Entrance” sign above their Figure 4: Suspended captioned photo panel heads.

The text in the captioned photos informs audiences of the subject; due to the emotional nature of the photos, these captions use less neutral language than others in the museum. For example, one of the photos depicts firefighters dousing African American protesters with a fire hose, and has the corresponding caption: “A 1963 photo enables

Americans to witness the abuse of young demonstrators in racially oppressed

Birmingham” (M4VC, 2012). The uppermost image does not need a text-based caption

108 because the words within the image, “Colored Entrance” set enough context for visitors to understand the nature of the photo. Placed within the context of the other images in this ensemble, visitors may understand that this caption-less photo is an everyday example of Jim Crow laws in action.

In the case of the emotionally charged content in this multimodal ensemble, the text contributes to the pathetic appeal of the visual imagery, and both modes synchronously refer to each other as audiences construct meaning. The text tells audiences how to interpret the image; audiences can witness the violence and tension in the photos, but the text confirms that these are grave violations of basic human rights.

Multimodal Ensemble 3: Social Justice

Large Panel Photos

Figure 5 on the right illustrates the

Social Justice large captioned photo panel.

There are two large images with small-text captions juxtaposed over the image. The text in the strip in between briefly summarizes the contribution of the Social

Justice subsection, emphasizing the

“societal wrongs” identified during the Figure 5: Large captioned photo panel Civil Rights movement, which led to national

109 and international students who worked for “positive change.” The middle strip also includes three smaller captioned photos, at least one of which is a local photo from Kent,

Ohio history.

This multimodal ensemble appears along two other large panel photos with identical layout. All are on the left-hand wall, away from the other material relevant to their subsection it seems pragmatic to include an explicit reminder of the Social Justice purpose in the museum: the injustices that came to the forefront during the Civil Rights movement, and the anger it sparked in American students. A consistent referral to students working for the greater good situates an ethos for student protesters and the museum for telling their histories. The notion of students working for “positive change” is an interpretation of the museum writers; not all Americans believed student protesters were in the right. However, by including photos and their respective captions of the atrocities and injustices in the Jim Crow south as an appeal to their logos, audiences should piece together that those who spoke out against these government actions were not the enemy.

The large photo on top documents six-year-old Ruby Bridges’ iconic desegregation of a southern public school in 1960. Visitors see a young African

American girl in a white dress leaving her school building, surrounded, or “protected” according to the caption, by men in suits. The caption informs that these men are U.S. federal marshals. To contrast, according to the juxtaposed caption, the large image below depicts a group of angry white parents and teenagers who protest outside of the New

Orleans school that Ruby Bridges desegregated. They hold signs that promote segregation. Visitors can see the anger in the protesters’ faces, paired with the non-

110 threatening nature of the child who sparked these protests. Without the caption, audiences would not understand the subject or context of either of these photos unless they had prior knowledge of these photographs. The predominantly visual nature of these large panels is aesthetically interesting for the audience; however, it is the accompanying text that unifies the visual imagery in these multimodal ensembles.

Generation Gap

Multimodal Ensemble 1: Album Covers for Different Generations

In Chapter II, I evidenced that objects typically require alphabetic texts for context due to their protean nature. In other words, objects are contextually fluid and can serve different rhetorical purposes. How, then, might museum objects serve a purpose without a caption? Figure

6 on the right illustrates a multimodal ensemble comprised of objects artifacts with no caption. These object artifacts are Vietnam War-era album covers; four of which are albums popular among the older generation, and the other four are albums popular among the younger generation.

Both collections of album covers appear in similar display cases, as in Figure 6. Although these cases feature similar content, they do not appear directly alongside each other; rather, they frame either side of the Generation Gap subsection. There are no captions to tell audiences what; Figure 6: Album cover panel display

111 the text printed on these object artifacts fulfills that purpose. It is up to them to determine how these fit within the Generation Gap subsection.

The art on the album covers illustrates a start contrast for the conflicting generations’ tastes. For instance, the Jimi Hendrix album “Axis: Bold as Love” alludes to psychedelic pop art and depicts Hindu gods—an example of the Indian influence on popular music. The Beatles’ album cover for “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club

Band” appears chaotic and disorderly, with the band members sporting long hair and facial hair. To contrast these pieces, the Perez Prado, Nat “King” Cole, Doris Day, and

Frank Sinatra albums all follow a similar formula: the artists appear dressed, cleanly coiffed, and smiling.

Although a now outmoded means of listening to music, most audiences should be able to recognize the purpose of these objects that hang on the wall: album covers that once contained records. All represent popular artists of the times, although they were popular among different audiences and subcultures. Audiences will need to surmise this for themselves, but the surrounding multimodal ensembles that fall under the “Generation

Gap” umbrella should provide enough context that these objects fit within this motif as well. There exist plenty of photographs in the surrounding area that further evidence the contrasting styles. Music serves as an important historical, cultural relic, as artists typically profess values that reflect the times. The albums here represent the shift from the 1950s courtship and traditional family values to the 1960s free love and drug experimentation. As audiences examine the album covers, they hear audio stream from the multimedia display on the television, with sound clips of Janis Joplin’s and Jimi

Hendrix’s performances at Woodstock. The M4VC creates an ethical appeal with the

112 stark contrast of values through well-known cultural icons of the day; older generations of visitors should recognize the faces on the album covers, and younger generations may recognize at least a few. The differing visual styles of the two sets of albums (e.g. artwork, clothing) allows audiences give purpose and context to these album covers; however, they must connect this to other text-based and visual information they receive from surrounding multimodal ensembles.

The letter presents generational differences in a less divisive, more understanding light. This appeals to the audience’s sense of pathos in several ways: They are able to make personal connections to Bill’s struggle with his parents; The personal nature of this letter was intended for a small, private audience, and audiences may feel intrusive; The future that Bill discusses in his letter, the text infers, was taken away from him. Other object artifacts from the four students killed include Allison’s and Sandra’s hats, which provide a physical link to their existence. Bill’s letter, in addition to this physical link, gives audience a deeper insight into his person. The written text that serves as a fixture within the object sets a stronger context for the audience, and can “speak for itself” more than the other object artifacts (e.g. hats).

Multimodal ensemble 2: Sandy’s and Allison’s hats; Jeff’s letter/poem

Providing object artifacts from the students killed allows the audience to forge a connection to them. I am not certain whether the curators show these objects out of convenience (i.e. if these were the easiest to obtain), or whether the objects were carefully selected from multiple Figure 7: Allison’s and Sandy’s alternatives. Regardless, the objects here affirm the youth of the hats on display

113 victims. Audiences may view the four portraits, read the four names, and read stories about them; however, the objects represent a surviving extension of their person, a real, touchable “proof” of their existence. Pahl & Rowsell (2010) assert that “artifacts and identities are intertwined” (p. 8). Objects can transcend geographical and cultural borders and carry stories (Pahl & Rowsell).

Figures 7 and 8 represent the similar layout of the multimodal ensemble that

presents the objects and text-based information. Figure 7 above

depicts the similar layout of the displays for Allison’s and

Sandy’s hats. Allison’s hat is a red-orange “hippie” hat, and

Sandy’s is a freshman beanie that first-year students at Kent

State had to wear. The captions that precede both hats are

Figure 8: Jeff’s letter/poem to his mother descriptive. Allison’s hat display contains the caption: “In

1970, Allison Krause’s dorm room contains this hat favored by pop musicians and other longhairs.” The physical nature of these two objects forges an ethos for the students killed. Allison and Sandy were once students on this campus, who used the objects that audiences stand beside. The objects create a pathetic appeal as well; audiences can find common ground in these objects.

Figure 8 above depicts the multimodal ensemble that contains Jeff Miller’s

February 14, 1966 poem “When Does It End?”, which he composed as a high school student. There is a physical copy of the typewritten poem over a caption that tells audiences who wrote the poem and when, reinforcing that the composer was killed on

May 4. Audiences have the opportunity to read the brief poem in its entirety. The poem speaks to the purposeless fighting overseas, in which many lose their lives. An especially

114 chilling line reads “A teenager from a small Ohio farm clutches his side/ in pain…” after he is shot fighting for “those who did not even ask his help.” He ends the poem with:

“But all the frightened parents who still have their sons/ fear that/ the end is not in sight.”

This appeals to the audience’s sense of pathos in several ways. Jeff’s poem, in addition to this physical link, gives audience a deeper insight into his person and peace-making ideologies. Audiences know now Jeff Miller’s fate on May 4, and the poem now serves a different purpose than when it was written. Now it commemorates its composer, and the nature of the writing is foreshadowing. The written text that serves as a fixture within the object sets a stronger context for the audience, and can “speak for itself” more than the other object artifacts (e.g. hats).

Multimodal ensemble 3: Generation gap large panel photos

One of the most striking ways that the museum demonstrates the Generation Gap is through the contrast of images. The physical appearance (hairstyle, clothing, facial hair) of the older and younger generations solidifies some of these differing values—the text does not even have to make this point explicit for audiences, although each photo in this multimodal ensemble contains a descriptive caption. See Figure 5 above for the layout of the large panel photos (all three follow the same layout).

The focus of the large wall panel for the Generation Gap subsection serves are the two large photographs. The top photograph depicts, according to the caption, some members of the Hog Farm hippie commune, who ride atop a painted, multicolored bus during a Fourth of July parade. The caption informs that the photo was taken in 1968.

The caption is descriptive without much detail and effectively tells audiences what they see in the photograph. The large photo positioned below depicts a white, upper-middle

115 class family of four who poses in a red Mustang convertible in a suburban neighborhood.

The photograph was taken in 1966, according to the caption—only four years before the shootings. This photo, upon deeper glance, exemplifies the capitalist values that the youth rebelled against.

One of the small images that appears in the center strip of the multimodal ensemble a photo of a co-created art project, coincidentally by Sandy Scheuer and Jeff

Miller. The art was produced for a class only weeks before both were killed on May 4.

The text in the caption informs the audience who created the artwork, when it was created, and that the artwork’s creators were both killed in the shootings. Due to the abstract nature of the artwork, audiences need the caption to receive the message of the artists: Who is to say? Audiences also need the text to inform them of the artwork’s purpose and significance in this museum: the coincidental co-production of the art piece and the message of peace it leaves. As with other museum modes that are directly linked to the four students killed, this artwork asserts an ethos for them as regular university students who did not deserve to be killed, and appeals to the audience’s pathos with intimate glimpses into their lives.

The alphabetic text explicitly guides audience understanding of the abstract artwork, the visual image, and asserts its place in the museum. The artwork fits within the

“Generation Gap” section because it serves as a product of the counterculture’s ideals: questioning the prescribed value system. The subject of the artwork is the phrase “Who is to say?”, with stylized lettering that appears to be melting. No other context or information is given to the audience, so the rest is up for interpretation. Audiences do not

116 learn whether the artwork addresses Vietnam or other contemporary issues, although they may presume this to be true.

Vietnam War

Multimodal ensemble 1: The draft board

Figure 9 illustrates the December

1, 1969 draft board, an interactive object that asks visitors to find their draft number according to their birth date.

Text guides visitors to “find your number,” and a small caption in the corner informs them that they would be drafted if their number was 195 or below. This object appears alongside many other multimodal ensembles

(mainly visual imagery with alphabetic text) that discuss the draft, so audiences should have a basic understanding of its meaning by this point. They have likely

Figure 9: December 1, 1969 draft board read direct quotes from those impacted by the draft, and seen photographs of young men burning their draft cards. The photograph in the corner depicts the “lottery” of the draft process; in which numbers were pulled out of a glass jar. The photograph of the draft process and its corresponding caption allows audiences to understand the process before they participate in the interaction. Audiences

117 rely on the written word to engage fully with this object, and to understand its purpose in the museum.

Although contemporary visitors, especially those born well after the realities of conscription in the United States, may view this draft board as a game, it adds an element of realism and appeals to audiences’ sense of pathos. When conversations arise over the draft board, visitors begin to see how few of them would be “safe” from the draft lottery on this date. The use of the draft lottery board helps visitors understand the mindset of the times, particularly the fear and outrage of the antiwar protesters. As visitors scan the board and apply their birth dates, they perform the same actions that others before them have done, although at considerably lower stakes. Visitor interaction with this object may communicate the urgency of the antiwar protests, and the unfairness of forced enlistment based upon birthdate rather than autonomous choice. Had audiences been of age 45 years ago, the draft board would represent something entirely different.

Multimodal ensemble 2: President Nixon’s inflammatory speech

As the visitors navigate Gallery I and see information about the generation gap, the Civil Rights Movement, the

Vietnam War, and other landmark issues or movements of the 1960s, they conclude their general exposure to this decade with Figure 10: Nixon’s inflammatory speech panel a photograph of President Nixon pointing to a map of Southeast Asia during his April 30, 1970 speech. He locates Cambodia

118 alongside Vietnam, indicating where the war’s expansion will occur. The layout of the modes in this ensemble is represented in Figure 10.

In place of viewing the speech in its entirety, museum audiences may piece together the image with the alphabetic text to get a sense of the most relevant highlights from this event. The photograph allows audiences to see what the American people witnessed during the telecast. To enhance the photograph and caption, large alphabetic text on the wall quotes the part of President Nixon’s speech in which he elaborates the purpose of the war’s expansion: to end the war and to attain peace. The protesters identified the contradiction and began to speak out. Up to this point, visitors have heard multiple perspectives on the Vietnam War, and may decide for themselves whether

Nixon’s actions are justified. Explicating the speech highlights for audiences allows them quickly to understand the significance of the event and its role in student protests, and subsequently May 4. This concludes the context-setting Gallery I. From this point forward, all multimodal ensembles refer to May 4 and Kent State.

Multimodal ensemble 3: Vietnam War large panel photos

The last of the large panels along the left side of the wall contains large photographs of that fall under the Vietnam War subsection. The large photos, with small captions juxtaposed over the image in the corner, depict local (to Kent) protests, rather than the fighting overseas. The top image includes students in the moratorium march down Main Street in downtown Kent, with Allison Krause visible in the forefront of the marchers. The caption points this information out to visitors. Text in the strip in between the two panels tells visitors that “For student protestors, the war is unjust and immoral, costs too many lives, and forces military service on the working class and poor” (M4VC,

119

2012). This further asserts the ethos for the protests on May 4; again, this was not an isolated event, and similar protests took place around the nation and world. The bottom photo, according to the caption, depicts mothers in a counter protest for the moratorium march. They stand on the edge of a sidewalk as a small boy sits on the curb in front of them. Their picket signs claim that the protesters are supporting the communist enemies.

See Figure 4.4 above for the layout of the large panel multimodal ensemble.

The middle photographs include a pro-war protest by Kent Students and an iconic photo of a protester at the Pentagon placing a white flower into a rifle barrel. The third small photo depicts a National Guardsmen smiling as he pulls a flower from his rifle barrel at Kent State on May 3, 1970. The caption tells a brief narrative: When he pulled out the flower, Allison Krause reportedly stated “Flowers are better than bullets” (M4VC,

2012). This sentiment appeals to the audience’s pathos, and Allison’s words are often quoted. Again, in all three of these instances, text informs audiences about the subject and nature of these photographs. The text is especially suggestive for the National

Guardsmen image, which serves as a supplemental piece for the narrative it tells. Allison is not featured in the photograph, so audiences place trust in the caption.

Visuals, Objects, and Texts: Purposes, Affordances, and Constraints

Visual Imagery at the Museum

The M4VC’s use of visual imagery, especially photographs and graphic diagrams, is perhaps what stands out most to audiences. In remembering events and individuals through photography, one is often at the mercy of those who provide the context.

Photography affords the May 4 Visitors Center possibilities to recompose these histories through ways that museums with other historical content from different eras might not,

120 and this affordance is used to its full advantage. There is meaning and context enfolded within each photograph on display, some of which with accompanying text. In these instances, it is primarily the text’s role to ensure the audience receives the proper takeaways as intended by the curators.

As discussed in Chapter II, memory and visualization are interwoven, and the

M4VC relies heavily upon visual imagery (e.g. photos, cartoons, diagrams) as well as audience capability for recomposing histories through visual means when using the surrounding, physical space of the May 4 events (e.g. “seeing” where the students began the protests, ran up the hill, and dodged Guardsmen’s bullets). As discussed Chapter I, the debate to preserve the rhetorical space of May 4 became a polarizing issue only years after the shootings. The debate arose partly because of the symbolic nature of what

“erasing” or building over these spaces would mean to the histories that took place there, but also because a physical alteration of these spaces would eradicate the tangibility and realness of the shootings. The Commons and grounds surrounding Taylor Hall is one of many sites of tragedy that remains visually intact (despite the gym annex) from the time of the shootings. Other spaces of tragedy, such as battlefields, concentration camps, or massacre sites go through similar decision making processes—to preserve or not to preserve? Typically spaces of tragedy, if (political, economic) circumstances allow, are preserved to remain public pedagogical tools or cautionary reminders.

The erasure of the rhetorical May 4 spaces arguably would further distance the shootings from contemporary audiences. A student in the sophomore-level writing class I spoke to noted, “There is a plaque up by Taylor Hall and it shows [a May 4, 1970 photograph of] Taylor Hall. It looks exactly the same…like nothing has changed. It just

121 kind of gives you a perspective on the event happening right here on our campus grounds.” Many iconic photographs taken around the time of the May 4 shootings feature

Taylor Hall in the background, or else its surrounding fields or parking lot.

When visitors walk into the M4VC, the large volume of visual imagery may be overwhelming, especially when presented to them in a small space. Audiences have a new visual to see every way they turn; there is hardly any blank space, especially in

Gallery I. The curatorial committee carefully selected each photograph to serve a role in the larger museum narrative. If they could not secure rights to use an image, either due to financial or copyright constraints, they sought other images that would not deviate from the target message, as evidenced in tracing the drafts of the implementation grant document21.

The M4VC provides discussion of mainly issues that led to the escalation of May

4, particularly those that impacted the youth population. Kent State has a vast collection of May 4 photographs, and more continue to resurface as former students and others with access make donations to the archives or distribute them elsewhere.22 In the museum, many of the photographs on display have ties to northeast Ohio. The curators were careful to continue relating larger, national issues back to the local. Interestingly, local photographers are credited with some of the photos that help historically define the era, such Ron Haberle’s photograph of the gruesome aftermath of the My Lai massacre. A large proportion of the photographs have northeast Ohio or Kent subjects, especially

21 The Grant drafts, along with meeting notes, correspondences, and many other written records of the museum’s conception and construction, are available to the public at the May 4 Archives located in Kent State University’s library. 22 For example, a Kent State alum claimed he received a number of photographs, which he then compiled to post a public photo album to Facebook on April 18, 2017. The photos depicted the days leading up to May 4 and offered a display of the lighthearted fraternization that took place between students and Guardsmen. 122 protests or other local events. Many of the photographs from May 4, 1970 were taken by

Kent State students, especially those who worked for the Kent Stater newspaper. John

Filo went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for his iconic photograph of teenage runaway Mary

Ann Vecchio kneeling over the body of Jeffrey Miller. Had the Kent Stater office been across campus during the time of the shootings, the photographic record may have been different or less comprehensive. May 4 was a student-centric event: Students were impacted physically, emotionally, and/or financially; Students mainly documented May 4 as it unfolded; Students at Kent State (current and former) continue to fight for the relevance of May 4 discussion. May 4 became a national issue, and the voices of the students got lost in the debate. The M4VC continues to bring the struggle of the youth population and the students, at Kent State and nationwide, back into focus.

Visual imagery: Affordances and constraints

Visual imagery at this museum, I argue, affords the following as a standalone mode23:

1. Enables a realist lens for audiences to view history;

2. Serves as metonyms for larger groups or concepts.

The extensive photographic record of the shootings and their immediate aftermath allows for a strong visual retelling of the events. Presenting every photograph available, although not spatially feasible, seemingly might provide a more comprehensive visual examination of May 4. Yet, museums do not need to be transparent about their whole archival record that exists beneath the surface of what museumgoers see. Presenting the

23 The second point I adapt from Bernard-Donals, 2012; Burke, 1941; Burton, 2018; Seto, 1999. 123 visual as a metonym efficiently allows museums to provide an accurate, “whole” composition of a concept.

Visual imagery enhances audience experience at the museum, but it relies on other modes, especially written texts, to make up for its constraints. As discussed in the previous chapter, visual imagery, when presented on its own to an audience, forces them to create their own context for the photograph. When audiences are not “told” how to interpret an artifact that cannot speak for itself, they may draw inaccurate conclusions, or those unintended by the curators. At the M4VC, there is not enough space to caption every example of visual imagery, but the curators provide text in places where the meaning would be compromised without it.

Object Artifacts at the Museum

Object artifacts at the museum are also visual modes, although, as I explain in

Chapter II, audiences may interpret them through multiple senses in addition to the visual. The M4VC relies on object artifacts to add a distinct dimension and depth to the histories presented, although they cannot take advantage of their power as readily as other museums. One of the constraints for housing objects at a museum is their tendency to take up space—a resource that the M4VC has little to spare. Some of the artifacts are personal belongings from the students killed. The objects at the museum include posters, hand- or typewritten documents, newspapers, and even clothing.

Typically, audiences can easily recall the objects they encounter at the museum.

During a discussion with a sophomore-level college writing class, object artifacts, particularly interactive objects, tended to be what many of the students recalled from their visits. I asked the students to give me an example of anything that really stood out to

124 them at a recent museum visit. One student, Brittany, excitedly discussed her fascination with an interactive object at the William McKinley Presidential Library and Museum in

Canton, Ohio:

There’s this one Hoover sweeper on a chair and it shows the suction power

because you turn on the vacuum, [which is] able to lift [you] up out of the chair.

And that’s like the first thing I always go to because I’m from North Canton,

that’s where the Hoover plant was before it shut down and went to China

somewhere…When [my boyfriend] first came down here and I took him to the

museum, that was the first thing I dragged him to…I don’t know why, but that’s

like the one thing that I just had to immediately run to. Even though there’s like

one million things in the museum to do and interact with, I go straight to that

chair.

Because objects are embodied and evoke sensory response, “the object becomes realized as material and sensual” as people recall their experiences with them (Pahl & Rowsell, 2010, p. 11). Another undergraduate student mentioned the sculpture with the bullet hole outside of Taylor Hall that sparked her curiosity when walking by. The decision to keep the sculpture, Solar Totem #1 by

Don Drumm (see Figure 11), as it stood on May 4, Figure 11: Solar Totem #1 with chalk 1970 allows audiences to understand the markings destructive properties of the bullets on the human with tangible evidence that the bullets

125 pierced steel. Although she was unable to get a good look due to area construction at the time, under normal circumstance, viewers can walk up to the sculpture and touch it, or examine it as closely as they like. Viewers see that some people have written on the sculpture in chalk, leaving their own mark. These two examples of object artifacts in public, museum-like settings allow audiences to receive and experience messages through multiple senses.

Object artifacts: Affordances and constraints

At the museum, I argue that the objects serve the following24:

1. Function as synecdoche, which evolves from spatial restrictions

2. Allow audiences to experience history through multiple senses; and

3. Afford tangible histories for audiences.

The interpretive nature of objects affords a great deal of flexibility; at first glance at the museum, it may not seem unclear how the objects represent their respective topics.

For instance, why did the curators feel it necessary to include an orange hat in the May 4 display? Upon closer examination, objects tell rich stories (Pahl & Rowsell, 2010).

Rather, they provide tangible evidence of deep histories, but rely on text to explicate this to audiences. While photographs provide evidence of their subject’s tangibility, Batchen

(2004) explains, they are only composed by reflections and chemical reactions that create an image. Photographs are only echoes of light and shadow bouncing off of beings, objects, and lands. Objects are primary historical resources and carry different meanings for audiences than does visual imagery.

24 The first point I adapt from Bernard-Donals, 2012; Burke, 1941; Burton, 2018; Seto, 1999. The second and third points I have concluded with scholarship by Pahl & Rowsell, 2010. 126

The constraints for objects at the museum are similar to those of visual imagery; namely, objects cannot contextualize themselves and therefore rely on the written word.

Some of the objects, such as hats, are abstract in their representation of histories.

Audiences may wonder where they fit within the larger composition, and must be told how to interpret them. Other objects, such as handwritten notes or newspapers, are contextualized through their own written word.

Alphabetic Texts

Alphabetic texts at the museum serve as written communication at the discretion of the museum curators, designers, or other gatekeepers. Alphabetic texts are, as Ravelli

(2006) determines, meant to communicate knowledge and purpose of other museum artifacts (e.g. photos) and are often necessary help audiences navigate the physical space of the museum. There are other alphabetic text-based modes of meaning making that I do not include in my discussion of this mode. To exemplify: Although Jeff Miller’s high school poem is alphabetic text-based, I consider this to be an object artifact. This artifact has not been created for the purposes of facilitation museum communications. In the

Grant, the curators consider examples like this to be object artifacts as well.

Museum texts: Affordances and constraints

The written texts frame the other modes at the museum. Museumgoers have their own individual methods of navigating museum exhibits with traditional setups; some prefer to read every word and examine every artifact, or at least until they get tired; and others look at mainly (or only) the visual imagery and object artifacts. As our culture becomes increasingly visual, it seems that museums incorporate more imagery and objects. Without reading the text, audiences will not get a whole picture as the museum

127 intends. Therefore, the museum relies upon audience ability to read and interpret the written word in order to get the intended experience. At the M4VC, I argue that the text serves the following purposes25:

1. To guide audience interpretation of decontextualized artifacts (visual imagery

and object artifacts);

2. To provide objective (when possible), historically factual information;

3. To add depth to historical claims through primary resources (e.g. excerpts

from newspapers or speeches), and;

4. To direct audiences through the physical navigation of the museum.

The text ultimately solidifies the narrative that the other modes help to compose.

Even a minimal, two-sentence descriptive caption may contextualize an object or image sufficiently enough for audiences to place the artifact within the larger narrative. Text is what guides audience experience and learning at the museum. As demonstrated, other modes enhance the text, particularly with appeals to both pathos and ethos; audiences may forge personal or emotional connections to photographs and objects more so than the descriptive text that accompanies them. However, without this written text, the object or photos may not have the rhetorical appeal that the museum composers intend simply because the audiences do not understand their purpose or meaning.

Conclusion

Initially, I set out to assert the importance of visual modes (visual imagery and objects) and highlight what they can do that text cannot. With this, I hoped to trace and provide rationale for a hierarchy of modes, wherein text had been demoted below

25 Points one and four, I adapt from Ravelli (2006)’s work on museum texts. 128 imagery- and object-based literacies. However, within the progress of this research, I began to see text as the centripetal force of the museum’s message, to which the other modes, in most cases, consistently refer back to. As a researcher, I noted that text must be part of the discussion because of its role in the multimodal ensemble, and the other modes’ dependency on text. Rather than provide an account for the limitations of text- based communication, I began to see an even stronger argument for the affordances of composing histories through multimodal ensembles.

Research on multimodal literacies asserts a general audience proficiency in reading and making meaning from multimodalities because they have become accustomed to doing so. Audiences likely enter the museum with preconceived thoughts and feelings towards different modes at the museum and the museum itself, even if they do not consciously consider these tied-in emotions during their visit. In my own metaphorical consideration of the museum, I envision the museum space with its multimodalities as an immersive, interactive historical textbook that clearly follows a set narrative process: beginning (setting context), middle (the heart of the experience), and end (implications and reflection).

The M4VC is able to assess some aspects of visitor experience and learning through an interactive reflection at the conclusion of Gallery III, and gather informal, empirical data from conversations with museum visitors. The museum multimodalities have been carefully selected and placed in order to create meaning for audiences, and the planning committee clarifies some of these decisions in the Grant, which I discuss in the following chapter. The planning committee also charts anticipated literate practices with which the audiences might engage as they peruse the galleries. Ultimately, the immersive

129 properties of the museum allow for audiences to learn and understand histories through multiple modes brought to a heightened potential through interaction with other modal counterparts. This immersive way of meaning making is enhanced by the surrounding rhetorical space.

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CHAPTER V

THE ROLE OF SPACE IN MULTIMODAL COMPOSITION

The two previous chapters have examined the multimodal ensembles and the audience/institutional literacy practices inside the museum space of the May 4 Visitors

Center (M4VC). In the proceeding chapter, I step outside the walls of the museum and into the surrounding rhetorical space where the events of May 4 took place—furthering my examination of the “written work” that audiences see, or the curated/composed rhetorical space. This chapter continues to visit my question on the role of multimodal ensembles in the composition of history; now, specifically, I examine their role in mediating rhetorical space for audiences. I demonstrate that the May 4 rhetorical space, the guided audio tour, and its accompanying informational trail markers all serve to mediate tension in the histories that audiences learn.

Distinguishing Physical Space and Rhetorical Space

Space exists in two distinct modes at the museum and surrounding site: physical space and rhetorical space. Physical space dictates how and when audiences navigate the area and receive information, and it physically holds together all the other modes.

Rhetorical space is space that has persuasive power because of significant historic events that have taken place; memory and history is attached to these spaces. On May 4, 1970,

131 an ordinary practice field with no rhetorical significance became a rhetorical space that has memories of tragedy attached.

All multimodal ensembles are bounded by spatial constraints, some more clearly than others. There is a definable border where the multimodal ensemble ends; the narrative it gives to audiences through multimodal communication is enclosed within these bounds. Inside the museum, these bounds are easily identifiable (e.g. a display case that contains an object and a written description, or the edges of a photograph panel). The

May 4 outside, rhetorical space is not clearly bounded; however, there is clearly an unmarked distinction between the May 4 space and the “ordinary” space of the university. However, as I mention in Chapter I (p. 18), there are “pockets” of consecrated

May 4 spaces, such as the May 4 Resource Room in the library that has portraits of the four students killed, as well as books on the shootings. The May 4 Task Force meets in this room, but most of the time Kent students and faculty use it for everyday meetings and study. The term “May 4” becomes a part of everyday dialogue at Kent State when people refer to these areas, even if they do not reference the shootings directly.

One of the benefits of the May 4 Visitor Center’s location is its proximity to the physical space or grounds where the shootings took place. Much of the area looks as it did in 1970, and important, recognizable landmarks from photos are still intact.

Therefore, it is fitting that navigating the rhetorical space becomes part of the overall audience experience as they recompose their own May 4 histories. At the May 4 space, audiences may roam however they like. However, there is an optional mediated approach to the space that they may take. The walking tour and accompanying trail markers

132 mediate historic meaning of the space for audiences, therefore allowing this physical space to become a rhetorical space that holds meaning audiences can understand.

The May 4 historic site includes the area around Taylor Hall where the shootings took place: the Commons, Blanket Hill, Prentice Hall parking lot, and the old practice fields. Physically, the grounds serve as parking lots, as throughways for students, as playing fields for sports teams. Rhetorically, the grounds have histories and meaning attached. The space can be used as material for composing histories. The May 4 grounds are constantly acting as both a physical space and a rhetorical space. They have these histories attached, they have memorials that help audiences realize these histories. Yet, they serve these practical purposes as well. Audiences may peruse the May 4 grounds at their own pace (unless on a staff-guided walking tour), and enter and leave the grounds as they wish. As in the M4VC, a specific narrative has been constructed for them; a certain order of trail markers exists to help audiences navigate the rhetorical space. In contrast, the M4VC museum space is set up to expect a singular flow of traffic through a clearly defined pathway. The space in the museum has been constructed to suit the purpose of telling May 4 histories, whereas the outside space was mostly constructed before it became a consecrated rhetorical space. It was not initially designed to tell historic narratives to audiences. On the walking tour, audiences are supposed to begin at Point 1 and end at Point 7.

Previously in Chapter III (p. 128), I evidence that objects and visual imagery, two decontextualized modes, rely on the written word so that they may communicate to audiences. Rhetorical space is a decontextualized mode and must also rely upon the printed or spoken word. Rhetorical space informs and persuades audiences when context

133 is provided. If audiences are not previously aware of May 4 histories, the May 4 rhetorical space will remain a physical space, absent of its rhetorical traits. Trail markers with written text that contextualize the space for audiences elaborate on affirm the rhetorical significance of this space, thus transforming the space from merely physical to rhetorical.

Limited scholarship contrasts audience interaction with traditional museums (e.g.

M4VC) to audience interaction with curated multimodal ensembles built around rhetorically significant lands (e.g. trail markers surrounding May 4 grounds). In her research on museum sites with thematic content on slavery and plantation living,

Halloran (2009) distinguishes differences between ethnographic museums and living history museums. An ethnographic museum follows a more traditional museum setup with multimodal ensembles, much like the museum at the M4VC. A living museum, however, recreates history for audiences through reconstructions in historic spaces.

Halloran argues that these living museum sites “emphasize the historical authenticity of their location in order to integrate their visitors into the intimate settings of everyday life to make history come alive for them” (p. 100). Although she does not use this term, these living history museum sites are housed on rhetorical space because there is history and memory attached. In this instance, the physical location matters when constructing a rhetorically-based argument for the space.

Halloran (2009) found that at the living history museum sites, there is less curatorial mediation; in other words, audiences are free to wander about the space without bombardment of alphabetic texts that inform them every step of the way.

Curatorial mediation, a term Halloran uses, is synonymous to the May 4 site’s composers

134 processes of composing multimodal ensembles that convey meaning to audiences.

Whereas in more traditional museum settings, she notes, curatorial mediation is more evident; in other words, the objects or photos on display typically have accompanying alphabetic text that guides audience interpretation. At a living history museum site, mediation may take place during a guided tour of the space. Otherwise, audiences may wander as they please.

The Role of Space in Memorializing Uncertain Histories

After visiting the May 4 Visitors Center, talking to survivors, and reading scholarship, I understood the controversial nature of the events of May 4. I was aware of the need that many survivors and their allies felt to preserve the rhetorical space during the Tent City protests in 1975 and the erasure of memory that would result from the erasure of the site. Yet, I did not consider the implications during the process of publically memorializing a historic event with uncertain, contested facts. The May 4 memorialization process was fraught with tension, which is common for historic events with contested facts and subsequent polarization. The tension in this case comes from varied sources: memorialization of uncertain histories, controversy surrounding the facts of who was at fault, and the University’s past dealings with the tragedy. Kent State’s position as a public, state-funded institution added another layer to the decision-making process involving if and how to memorialize.

In Chapter III (p. 84), I denote the museum writers’ use of multimodality to navigate areas of uncertainty and tension. In this chapter, I expand that discussion to include rhetorical space’s role in audience navigation of these tensions. I look to rhetorical space as the final, unifying component of historic meaning making at the May

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4 site. I assert rhetorical space as a mode of meaning making, which is something that multimodal scholarship does not do at this point. As in the previous chapter, I list the modal affordances of rhetorical space and demonstrate these through a discussion of the

M4VC’s audio walking tour of the May 4 grounds. Ultimately, I investigate how the space is called to mediate tension and resolve uncertainty surrounding the events of May

4. I explore my research questions: What is the role of space in multimodal ensembles? In the context of this site, what are the affordances and constraints of meaning making through multimodal ensembles?

Throughout this dissertation, I mention both physical space and rhetorical space as “under-discussed variables,” because of their prominent, yet overlooked, role in composing histories at the M4VC and surrounding area. In Chapter II (p. 48), I state that both classifications of space as a meaning making modes are rarely, if ever, discussed in

NLS or multimodal scholarship. This chapter serves as a means to address this gap. In

Chapter IV, I demonstrate the importance of physical space in multimodal ensembles and discuss how arrangement in the physical space impacts how and when audiences receive messages. In this chapter, I assert the affordances and constraints for rhetorical space in multimodal ensembles. One of the most prominent affordances of rhetorical space, as I mention above, is the ability to mediate the tension that comes from the memorialization of uncertain histories.

Students at Kent State walk past the markers in the Prentice Hall parking lot where the four students were fatally shot in 1970, and oftentimes do not give them a second glance because these spots have become so common to their daily experience.

Sometimes outside visitors walk around the markers with reverence, snap photos, or

136 place a rock on a lamp post in Prentice Hall parking lot to show they have come to the site. The space is often occupied by people who use it for multiple purposes: a gravesite, a place of memory, a shortcut to class, a parking lot. Spaces can be both physical and rhetorical at the same time as they are used for different purposes simultaneously. On

May 4 and the days leading up to the commemoration, the entire Prentice Hall lot is closed off for candlelight vigils and ceremonies. Jerry Lewis, faculty marshal present during the shootings, organized the first memorial walk through campus, which ended with a candlelight vigil in the Prentice Hall parking lot. This was “one of the first efforts to sanctify the space” (Simpson & Wilson, 2016, p. 24). Clearly, this is no ordinary parking lot—although for some people, it may be; an internationally known tragedy has occurred here and a decision had to be made: Do we continue to use the parking lot as is, do we tear it down, or do we recognize what happened here?

In the introduction to his book Shadowed Ground: America’s Landscapes of

Violence and Tragedy, geographer Kenneth Foote (2003) states:

Landscape might be seen … as a sort of communicational resource, a system of

signs and symbols, capable of extending the temporal and spatial range of

communication. In effect the physical durability of landscape permits it to carry

meaning into the future so as to help sustain memory and cultural traditions.

Societies and cultures have many other ways to sustain collective values and

beliefs, including ritual and oral tradition, but landscape stands apart from these—

like writing—as a durable, visual representation. The sites of violence examined

in this book are inscriptions in the landscape—a sort of ‘earth writing’ in the

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sense of the etymological roots of the word geography—that help to explain how

Americans have come to terms with violence and tragedy. (p. 33)

The realities that the M4VC builds from are that Ohio National Guardsmen fired into a crowd and killed four students and wounded nine. Tension and ambiguity surrounds who was at fault, the innocence and guilt of the student protesters, the

Guardsmen who just followed orders, the national contempt for antiwar activism—to list a few. Even a number of May 4 survivors expressed desire to move on and leave the shootings in the past. Creating a fixed space, the M4VC, to commemorate an event that some believe is not fixed in its meaning left the implementation team with uncertainties to navigate. Memorializing May 4 is not as “cut-and-dry” as, for example, memorializing

WWII, a clear triumph of good over evil. Foote (2003) identifies that “there is no ready way to commemorate mistakes, to inscribe memorials with the message that a great injustice took place, one that should forever be remembered and never be repeated” (p.

305). Essentially, there was no memorial framework in place for Kent State, as each incident of tragedy is circumstantial and uniquely contextual. Memorialization of gun violence victims at other schools or universities, such as Virginia Tech, have clearly defined, indisputable victims and murderers. At Kent State, there is no universally decreed historic narrative. Despite the four students killed and nine wounded, stasis has not been reached on the students’ degrees of involvement and the Guardsmen’s culpability.

Historian Ari Kelman (2015) writes about his investigation of uncertain histories, controversy, and the struggle to maintain control over the memorial process in A

Misplaced Massacre. Descendants of American Indians killed during the Sand Creek

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Massacre of 1864 fought to be the keepers of memory when the U.S. National Park

Service (NPS) sought to preserve the land and the history on their terms. Even labeling the event a “massacre” was a contested political move; a chief historian for the NPS,

Robert Utley, instead had referred to the event as a “clash of cultures” (p. 5). For the descendants, the massacre site in southeastern Colorado serves as a reminder of mass genocide committed during westward expansion and a reclaiming of forcibly taken ancestral lands—both realities that are overlooked or sugar-coated in the histories that many of us learn. Speaking to the tension in this memorialization process, Kelman notes:

Memorials are shaped by politics. This is especially true for federally sponsored

historic sites, because government officials have long viewed public

commemoration as a kind of patriotic alchemy, a way to conjure unity from

divisiveness through appeals to Americans’ shared sense of history. (p. 5)

Sites of memory that encapsulate uncomfortable historic events must be carefully maintained by those who wish to control which histories are told.

May 4 Site as a Rhetorical Space

Since May 4, 1970, the Commons, Prentice Hall parking lot, and the area surrounding Taylor Hall has been a rhetorical site of memory. For a map of Taylor

Hall and surrounding landmarks, see Figure 1 on the following page. A year after the shootings, a small memorial bearing the names of the four students killed Figure 12: 1971 Kent State shooting memorial was erected by the University in the Prentice Hall parking

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p of the May 4 site, with trail markers and landmarks included. site, 4 of p landmarks scale. to May and markers trail with drawn Not the

: Ma : Figure 13 Figure

140 lot site—the first step in the lengthy, piecemeal May 4 memorial process (see Figure 13).

Clearly, placement was important in the display of the memorial (beside the parking lot where the students died). Presently, the Prentice Hall parking lot serves an official twofold purpose: a memorial site and a functioning parking lot. Although the parking lot is functioning, it is not “ordinary”; four spaces are blocked off by lampposts that were erected in 1999, 29 years after the four students died in those spots (Simpson & Wilson).

Although the site is consecrated in some regard with memorials and blocked off spaces, the University has chosen for the site to remain true to its original purpose. The

University acknowledges the tragedy that marks the Prentice Hall parking lot; yet, the decision not to reappropriate the space completely into a memorial site implies that the

University is moving on as it reflects. There are other, nearby areas (such as the May 4

Memorial) for grieving, remembering, and reflecting; the parking lot will remain as it has always been. Only during the May 4 anniversary is the Prentice Hall parking lot used solely for grieving, remembering, and reflecting.

Physical space is pre-existing and in place before, during, and after any significant historic events take place; it is a “durable, visual representation,” (Foote, 2003, p. 33).

We can change the appearance of the landscape, but we cannot erase it. Rhetorical space can mediate histories for audiences, although not without curation. A rhetor must contextualize space for the audiences. On the May 4 grounds, there are semiotic structures (e.g. lampposts, historic markers, sculptures, trail markers) that have been placed in designated locations throughout the area for the purposes of mediating the spaces historical and rhetorical significance.

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In May 1977, activists occupied the grounds beside Prentice Hall parking lot where the students were wounded and killed to protest the University’s plans to build a gym annex at this spot. Simpson and Wilson state that “for activists, [building the gym annex] amounted to the desecration of a sacred space” (p. 12). This occupation became known as Tent City, as the protesters camped out on the space through the summer. In

September 1977, the University moved forward with construction and the gym annex was completed in 1979 (Simpson & Wilson). This building changed the landscape of May 4, making it narrower, without erasing it completely.

The protesters, Simpson and Wilson (2016) note, “were fighting against the obliteration of a site that in their minds ought to be sanctified” (p. 190). At this point, seven years after the shootings, there were still on-campus tensions that remained. Some protesters felt the building of the gym annex was a cover-up conspiracy. The president of Kent State at the time, Glenn

Olds, stated: “You can’t Figure 14: Kent State shooting site with gym annex on the right memorialize the whole campus. This is a university, not a Gettysburg site” (Olds, quoted in Simpson & Wilson). Figure 15 shows part of the May 4 landscape as it exists today; the building on the far right of the photograph is the gym annex that extends over part of the May 4 rhetorical space. The dormitories in the background were built well after May

4, 1970. The sign in the foreground is a trail marker for the guided audio tour with information on Prentice Hall parking lot, which is on the left, outside the image.

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The rationale for and desire to preserve the May 4 shooting site is grounded in scholarship in rhetoric and composition, which maintains that memory, space, and visualization are closely intertwined (Blair, Dickinson, & Ott, 2009; Endres & Senda-

Cook, 2011; Poole, 2008; Price, 2012; Wright, 2005; Yates, 1969). In Chapter I, I briefly told the story of the Ancient Greek poet Simonides, who was able to recall deceased guests at a dinner party by visualizing the space and recalling where each guest sat. This parable is often retold in scholarship on memory and space. Ancient scholarship

(Aristotle; Rhetorica ad Herennium) lays the foundation for the intersection of memory and visualization. Aristotle addresses the necessity to call upon imagery when recollecting, and the unknown author (formerly believed to be Cicero) of the Rhetorica ad Herennium provides tactics for orators to visualize spaces and objects when recalling a speech. Although the intersection of memory and space is an ancient concept, Wright

(2005) notes that an interest in this intersection resurfaced in the twentieth century “as historians have realized the importance of materiality on memory” (p. 52). Spaces, she maintains, help individuals remember. Physical spaces can be shaped or manipulated to represent different histories or to erase them completely and made rhetorical through multimodal ensembles. Simpson and Wilson affirm this intersection, noting that

"memory is tied so firmly to place” (p. 24). Likewise, the authors maintain, the Gym

Annex controversy “revealed further the concerns over remembering and forgetting, between space as sacred and space as utilitarian” (p. 24). Currently, the University maintains the sacredness of this space through memorials and commemorative events, but still allows for the initial, utilitarian purpose of the space to continue, again allowing the space to continuously transcend its physical and rhetorical properties. The University’s

143 decision to allow Prentice Hall parking lot to continue to be used without sectioning it off completely for memorialization is not the root of dissent or tension in this case. The dissent and tension emerges from any University proposals to reconstruct the space. By altering a site of memory, the authors argue, memory or histories can be changed or destroyed. To change the landscape of May 4 is to change the memory of May 4.

In 2005, Simpson and Wilson (2016) reignited an oral history project of the May

4 shootings initiated in 1990 by Kent citizen Sandra Perlman Halem for which they interviewed witnesses, locals, and anyone else who can provide a firsthand account of the local climate at this time. One of their findings was that many interviewees wanted to move on from the tragedy. The University did not overtly recognize what protesters felt was a sacred space until decades after the shootings. In 1990, the May 4 Memorial was unveiled, sparking dissent from the American Legion and an organization supporting

Ohio veterans (Simpson & Wilson). Those in opposition to commemorating May 4 cite varying reasons for their beliefs; however, the University ultimately preserved the space and ensures that May 4 histories are not forgotten. The opening of the M4VC in 2012,

Simpson and Wilson remark, “signaled greater acceptance of the events as part of the institution’s history” (p. 181). The University also requires that all incoming freshmen enroll in a First Year Experience (FYE) course, in which they learn about the significance of May 4 and tour the M4VC. This holds that future generations of Kent State students will be able to understand and explain for others what happened at their school. at the very least, Kent State students should demonstrate knowledge of this event and signify that the University takes these events seriously. University decisions such as these that

144 guarantee May 4 histories are widely told solidifies the respect and honoring that the institution holds for the event.

Some aspects of the May 4 landscape are unfixed and constantly changing.

Students flood the area between classes, hold pickup games, or sunbathe. The trees that frame the Commons change from green to orange to brown, and around May 4, daffodils bloom on the hill behind Taylor Hall. Perhaps only on the annual May 4 commemoration does it look as it did on May 4, 1970—with the crowds (albeit smaller today), the political speeches, and the budding leaves on the trees. In sum, no two visits to the grounds are the same. Ravelli (2006) notes that communication in museums “potentially encompasses all of an institution’s practices which make meaning” (p. 1), with an emphasis on written texts, although she acknowledges that there are many more modes of communication in museums. Much as Ravelli prompts us to consider any mode of communication or meaning making, it becomes especially poignant in this outside area that is seemingly boundless and unfixed that sights, smells, sounds, and many other variables impact a visitor’s experience. The museum has been constructed for a specific purpose. The space of the walking tour is not designated solely for the purpose of reflection and May 4 pedagogy; rather it fills many roles.

Tragedies and other significant events throughout history have often been given designated spaces in their memory. At Kent State, the rhetorical space where the shootings occurred has multiple constructions that inform audiences that a tragedy has taken place and the University remembers (Gregory & Lewis, 1988). Memorials erected in the years following the shootings include the markers in the parking lot where the students died, the “Walking Together” sculpture near the Commons, and the May 4

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Memorial. In addition to memorial constructions made after the shootings, the University has chosen to keep the pagoda in front of Taylor Hall from where the Guardsmen fired; as well as the iron sculpture, Solar Totem #1, that was pierced with a bullet. Wright states, “A memory must have a place where it can crystallize and secrete itself” (p. 55).

Wright continues that if there is no place with which to attach the memory, the memory can disappear as well as the discourse that surrounds it. The spaces that have attached memory are lieux de mémoire, or places of memory (Nora, 1989; Wright). French historian Pierre Nora cites instances of marginalized groups who have no “historical capital”, for instance the disappearance of peasant culture. They held their own history and memory, but their spaces of memory had been erased through industrialization. They maintained histories through orality, but had no physical sites to attach these stories. Sites of memory bring people together to share in public discourse. S. Michael Halloran (2004) examined the rhetorical, educational properties of the Saratoga Battlefield in New York, which has attached history and memory from the Revolutionary War. Although the

Revolutionary War is not an “uncertain history” like May 4, a battlefield in any respect conjures elements like death and loss. Halloran determines that the Saratoga Battlefield is a “public experience,” in that “in coming together there with others we can transcend our differences to an experience that makes this place a home to all of us collectively” (p.

129-130). This site is foregrounded in United States collective history and memory, encouraging public discourse of shared histories.

In the case of May 4, the University as a whole has the memory attached to it.

Especially among those who lived during the 1960s and 70s, just the term “Kent State” conjures remarks related to the shootings. The University further guards against erasure

146 of May 4 memory by requiring that all students learn about it in their FYE courses.

However, not having designated monuments to remember these on-campus events would raise questions and criticism as well. On-site memorialization of a tragedy, according to

Jorgensen-Earp (2006), speaks to the tragedy differently than memorials constructed in other places. She states: “Sites of public tragedy take on an atmosphere of the holy. The actual locations of tragic events generate both an expectation of memorialization and a constraint upon the discourse of the site” (pp. 42-43). The consecration of the May 4 space, even if it still maintains a utilitarian purpose, demonstrates how the University perceives and remembers the events. Simpson and Wilson (2016) note that “in the case of the Visitors Center, the memorial, and the walking tour, they represent the effort to preserve the site of the shootings” (p. 216). Had Prentice Hall parking lot been torn up, or any of the surrounding areas rezoned, we would not experience the memory in the same way we can now (with walking tours, on-site monuments), but the memory and discourse would still remain a part of the institution. As long as Kent State exists, May 4 histories have a physical space for attachment.

The Audio Walking Tour

A minimal amount of scholarship is available on walking tours, especially walking tours as a way to mediate a historical, political, and/or ideological agenda to those who embark on them. Walking tours are useful tools for composing histories of a site, especially from a multimodal standpoint. Most importantly, they combine the written or spoken word with the spaces they serve to mediate for audiences. Together, at least these two modes (the written/spoken word and physical/rhetorical space) work synchronously as audiences receive histories. Bartlett (2002) affirms walking tours as a

147 means to connect to space through her analysis of campus walking tours and related materials (brochures, websites) of Atlanta’s Emory University. Bartlett cites Tomashow, who maintains that people who have direct experiences with place are more likely to have transformational experiences that leads them to change their behaviors or beliefs.

Although these words describe those who embark on environmentally-themed walking tours, this concept is transferable to those who experience the May 4 walking tour; visiting the space where students died may effectively contexualize and mediate the May

4 histories that we have learned. Fink (2011) also addresses the transformative powers of the walking tour; her study participants embarked on photography walking tours of their community, in which they photographed different parts of their neighborhood. Although her walking tours were not prescribed (rather, they were led by the participants), it prompted participants to navigate spaces they ordinarily might not and look closer at details (e.g. street art) of the community they share.

Wang and Kao (2017) discuss guided walking tours of memorial landscapes in

Taipei, Taiwan. Specifically, they examine “memorialization in its dynamic everyday form” (p. 1002) and assert the pedagogical potentialities and transformative (for visitors) properties of the guided walking tour. Walking tours, they note, are adaptable by whomever leads the tour, can affirm “memorial value” (p. 1003), and “can summon up intimate memories embedded in place” (p. 1003). Two walking tour cases they studied involved narratives of social and political resistance. Although the causes for resistance in the Taipei cases (minority group marginalization; housing demolition) were different than that of the students in May 4 (Vietnam War expansion), Wang’s and Kao’s conclusions about the tours hit home for Kent as well: Walking tours offer another means

148 of legitimizing memories and experiences, particularly for those whose voices are not often heard in mainstream discourse.

Kent State’s outdoor self-guided walking tour was arranged as a phase of the overall M4VC project. If visitors embark on the walking tour after first exploring the

M4VC, they have already seen evidence of the shootings’ national and international impact in Gallery III. They read the words of many prominent political and cultural figures who have spoken out about May 4, such as Hillary Clinton, Arthur Miller, and

Senator George McGovern. Such strong, well-known voices of the era help to build a

May 4 ethos, asserting its place in American history. The walking tour includes further participation from a prominent voice of the era: Julian Bond, professor and leader in the civil rights movement, who provides the audio narration. The argument for Bond’s contribution is that he links the civil rights movement and the antiwar movement that is further discussed in the M4VC (Davis, 2011, p. 4a). The authors of the Grant list four phases of the outdoor self-guided walking tour: 1) seven trail marker panels that contain images and text; 2) an “educational brochure with text, photos and maps” (p. 4a); 3) a

Ken Burns-style documentary with seven parts for each trail marker; and, 4) the audio- only version of the documentary. For the purposes of this dissertation, I focus on phases one and four, the trail marker panels and accompanying audio-only version of the documentary. The script for the audio tour was reviewed by many May 4 witnesses, students, historians, and alumni. To engage in the audio tour, visitors may use their cell phones to dial a direct connection to the audio tour, or may borrow iPods with the uploaded audio from the University Library. The speaker who introduces Julian Bond as

149 narrator of the walking tour invites audiences to “trace the steps of history” (Bond &

Davis, 2012), alluding to the immersive affordances of the rhetorical space.

Figure 15 shows the first marker, which overlooks the Commons. The information and photos used in this multimodal ensemble are also available for viewing inside the M4VC. The remaining six markers follow a similar layout, with the map of the grounds in the top right Figure 15: Trail marker #1 corner, captioned photos, direct quotes, and brief summaries. These markers are not arbitrarily placed; rather, they give audiences information in chronological order, and contain information relevant to the positions they are in. For instance, the second marker is placed in the site of the burned

ROTC building and contains information about the building’s burning and the implications.

When I gathered data from the walking tour for this chapter, it was a cold, windy

December afternoon during winter break, so there were not many others out walking around. This impacts my own experience because it allowed for few distractions or other events that could be less than conducive for my tour experience. However, because of the weather, I found myself keeping on the move rather than stopping to reflect on different points. It should also be noted that, although I had not yet completed the full audio tour before this time, I had visited the site many times over the past five years and read the

150 trail markers. On a quiet day like this, it is difficult to envision the Commons and area surrounding Taylor Hall teeming with crowds, noise, and activity. It felt like I had the

May 4 space, and the history it keeps, all to myself in this moment.

Marker 1: “The Day the War Came Home (M4VC)”

I began the tour at the first Trail Marker as intended, directly in front of the

M4VC at the back of Taylor Hall, which directly overlooks the Commons down the steep, tree-covered hill. I called the number of the audio tour, which directly linked me to

Julian Bond’s recording. He briefly introduces the tour, touches on his own ethos as civil rights leader, and then begins to set the context of May 4. Narration of the first point is more lengthy and in depth than those for any of the other points. Bond emphasizes the divisive nature of the American people during the 1960s, the unpopularity of Richard

Nixon and the Vietnam War, and the commonality of on-campus student protests, which ultimately would lead to Kent State. Much of Bond’s discussion includes his own experience as a civil rights leader and outspoken antiwar activist, therefore linking the two histories together as in the M4VC Gallery I. Bond details Kent’s overall climate in the days leading up to May 4, which included students burying a copy of the constitution at Victory Bell (visible to the left of this marker and down the hill) and various protests throughout campus and downtown Kent. Bond remarks that May 4 was “the day the war came home, the day America’s children became war casualties on American soil” (Bond

& Davis, 2012). He wraps up the first trail marker’s narration with a statement about the often overlooked Jackson State shootings, and the ensuing national student strike.

The Trail Marker, as seen in Figure 5.1 above, summarizes the points that Bond makes about demonstrators peacefully protesting the invasion of Cambodia and reasserts

151 what happened on May 4. One of the captioned photos depicts students burying the constitution by the Victory Bell. The discussion begins on a global and national level before localizing in Kent, the space the tour audiences now occupy. Because of Bond’s description and the placement of the Trail Marker, audiences understand that the area they overlook is rhetorically significant to the memory of the May 4 shootings, and they piece together more understanding as they continue the tour.

Marker 2: “By Any Means Necessary (ROTC Building)”

The second Trail Marker is a considerable distance from the first. I walked through the May 4 Memorial site and down steps to reach a marker that was almost directly across the Commons from where I started. I had a view of the entire Commons again, with the Victory Bell at the bottom of the hill and Taylor Hall at the top. The audio at this time plays a long sequence of piano music, which doesn’t appear at the end of others—perhaps to allow for reflection as audiences pass through the memorial or simply to give audiences time to reach the next part before they need to call in for the audio for the second marker. The music, in this case, is another layered, added mode. The tour is taken at the audience’s own pace; it does not rush them. If visitors want to put the tour on hold and spend extra time in any place, they may do so.

The second part allows audiences to stand on the site of the infamous ROTC building that was burned down during the events leading up to May 4. There is a picture on the sign of the burned out shell of the building, which is a bit unsettling because with

Taylor Hall in the back, it looks exactly as it does today. Bond’s narration tells audiences about the night of May 2, 1970, in which rowdy, violent demonstrators attempted to burn down the ROTC building and became violent when guards on standby moved to disperse

152 them. An unknown arsonist set the interior of the building on fire. When Kent Mayor

Sartrom heard of the incident, he called the Ohio National

Guardsmen. Bond states that when the Guardsmen occupied campus, students posed for Figure 16: Trail marker #2 photos with them and befriended them. The atmosphere reminded one witness of his time in Korea. At this time, Guardsmen carried bayoneted M-1 rifles, which were loaded, unbeknownst to the demonstrators.

One of the most significant on-campus events that led to the shootings took place directly where audiences stand when they see this trail marker. Figure 16 depicts the view from the second marker. In the photo, Taylor Hall is clearly visible in the background, and the Victory Bell is to the front of the building on the right. The captioned photos offer visual evidence of the events that Bond mentions, such as student fraternization with Guardsmen, the burned shell of the ROTC building, student demonstrators, and

Guardsmen in gas masks and bayonetted rifles.

Marker 3: “Freedom of Speech and Assembly (Victory Bell)”

The third trail marker gives audiences a clear view of the Commons, with the

Victory Bell and Taylor Hall on the right; all are landmark spots in this point’s discussion. Bond’s narration tells audiences that demonstrators tolled the bell at 11:00 in

153 the morning to signal people to come to the commons. At the protest’s peak, around

2,000 were present, which included activists, observers, and faculty marshals. The protest was peaceful, and Bond notes that the students felt they were exercising their right to free speech. Later, however, the courts ruled that dispersing the protest was lawful. When

General Canterbury, one of the three highest ranked in attendance, ordered for the protest’s dispersal, demonstrators began to throw rocks.

Figure 17 depicts the view from the third marker, with the Victory Bell visible in the far right of the frame and the corner of Taylor Hall up the hill behind it. The panel includes images of the

Guardsmen facilitating the Figure 17: Trail marker #3 dispersal of demonstrators on the Commons. They line up and advance on the demonstrators. Beside the photos, audiences see a timeline from the protest’s initiation at 11:00 to General Canterbury’s orders to advance at 12:05.

The photographs, again, are unsettling because they allowed me to easily visualize what happened on this day. I kept having bursts in my head, imagining the

Commons swarming with people, tanks, and chaos. Being in the space definitely facilitated this, but I also must acknowledge that I have seen the Commons in crowded states before, and I have seen extensive footage of these events. At this point on my self-

154 guided audio tour, I was really starting to get a sense of how important the visuals were— with the ROTC building in the previous sign, I was able to understand why the situatedness of that particular sign in that particular space was important. However, in this marker I was able to envision the actual protest and gathering on the Commons.

Marker 4: “Law and Order and Dissent (Top of Commons)”

At the fourth trail marker, visitors stand at the top of the hill leading down to the

Commons, where the National Guard began to advance on the students, causing them to run uphill and around the side of Taylor Hall, past the pagoda before the Guardsmen opened fire. Bond’s narration tells audiences that the Guardsmen fired teargas canisters when students ran from their advancement; some students threw the canisters back at the

Guardsmen. The Guardsmen advanced up Blanket Hill (directly behind audiences as they read this sign), situated between Taylor Hall and Johnson Hall. They prevented the demonstrators from returning to the Commons.

The trail marker panel contains three captioned photos. One of the photos depicts the Guardsmen advancing up the Blanket Hill behind the sign with the pagoda clearly visible as it still stands today. To use this word again: What I found most unsettling about this part here, was the photograph of dispersing protesters with Bill Shroeder walking through the crowd, notebook in hand. Not too long after that photo was taken, he was fatally shot. This point marks the beginning of audience’s following the chronological path of student demonstrators on May 4. From this point forward, they walk where the students walked on that day.

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Marker 5: “Practice Field: End of the Advance & Thirteen Seconds (Pagoda,

Practice Field)”

To reach the next marker, visitors walk up Blanket Hill and come to the front of

Taylor Hall, tracing the route of the student demonstrators as

Guardsmen advanced. Bond’s narration tells audiences that once they passed the pagoda, students ran in all directions; some fled, and some went to the Prentice Hall parking lot. Bond makes explicit Figure 18: Two main landmarks of trail marker #5 (pagoda and Taylor Hall) that the students who threw rocks at the Guardsmen were too far away to put them in danger. Bond calls attention to the iron statue with a bullet hole. Although the audio doesn’t explicitly state this, I imagined the implications of the bullet hitting the human body, if it could pass through a thick sheet of iron with ease. The Guardsmen knelt in formation and pointed their rifles at students in the parking lot. Twenty-eight Guardsmen fired around 70 bullets in 13 seconds. He counts up to number 13 so audiences can temporally feel the short amount of time that so much changed.

The marker panel points audience attention to several points of focus: the pagoda and the Solar Totem #1 sculpture. The pagoda still stands, and the text on the sign indicates this as a focal point. The sculpture still has a clean bullet hole, which people often mark with chalk to call attention to it. This trail marker contains seven captioned

156 photos, and each supports different statements from Bond’s narration. For instance, visitors see photographic record of freshman Joseph Lewis’ “gesturing” at Guardsmen just before he is shot twice and injured. Figure 18 was not taken from the vantage point of

Marker 5, but depicts two of the main landmarks (the pagoda on the left and the Solar

Totem #1 just to the right of the center) to which Bond calls attention, evoking the space to support his narrative. Visitors can view the pagoda and the photographs of Guardsmen kneeling in formation beside it, and picture the history unfold in the space they currently occupy.

Marker 6: “Four Dead and Nine Wounded (Prentice Hall Parking Lot)”

Audiences walk downhill in front of Taylor Hall towards the Prentice Hall parking lot where four students lost their lives. We can see where they fell from the lamppost markers. The closest marker is for Jeff Miller, the subject of John Filo’s Pulitzer

Prize-winning photo. Bond’s narration picks up Figure 19: Vantage point from trail marker #6 (Prentice Hall parking lot) chronologically where it left off after the Guardsmen fired into the crowd of student demonstrators. He remarks that students had to administer first aid to each other, call ambulances, and ensure that the wounded were assisted. Bond evokes the space when he gives details about the four students who were killed, where they were standing, and how old they were. Audiences

157 can visibly see the proximity of the students in the parking lot and the Guardsmen under the pagoda. Bond tells audiences that the Guardsmen tell disparaging stories about their rationale for firing their rifles. Ultimately, the highest ranking officers present on May 4 testified that the firing was indiscriminant.

The marker contains three captioned photos: students attending to the wounded

John Cleary, students holding hands and forming barriers around the wounded, and Mary

Ann Vecchio screaming over Jeff Miller’s body. All photos factor in to Bond’s narration.

Figure 19 shows the Prentice Hall lot from the vantage point of the marker, which is out of the frame. Visible in the photo is the location where Jeff Miller was killed. As discussed in the previous section, the Prentice Hall parking lot is functioning except when it is closed during commemoration events. The three other students have markers hidden among the cars in the photo.

Marker 7: “Further Tragedy Averted (Stopher-Johnson)”

Audiences move around the other side of Taylor Hall, past the Ohio Historical

Marker and are back to where they started, overlooking the Commons. Bond’s narration tells audiences what happened immediately after the shootings. This is the path that around 300 students took in the aftermath, when they reassembled on the Commons to protest the actions of the Guardsmen. Students were now aware that the Guardsmen’s rifles were loaded and that people had been shot. Kent State faculty member Glenn Frank was clearly distressed as he conversed with the Guardsmen and pleaded with the students to disperse or else they could be shot. Audiences can view captioned photos of Frank’s negotiations with the Guardsmen and then with the students. Admittedly, I did not think hearing about this through audio and seeing the photos were nearly as moving as seeing

158 the actual video recording of this moment, which the M4VC plays during their Gallery II documentary. Frank’s pleas with the students got through, and they followed him off the

Commons. At this point, the tour concludes, but audiences are free to revisit any of the sites or enter the M4VC.

The Role of Rhetorical Space in Multimodal Composition

During the self-guided audio walking tour, it became apparent to me that rhetorical space can be classified as a mode of meaning making that fits within a multimodal ensemble. Physical space can be shaped as any other raw material, much like an object or photograph in the museum, and can be contextualized through the written or spoken word. Like the other non-alphabetic textual modes, space has offerings for audiences that words do not. Physical space provides audiences a means to visualize and embody histories through their own navigation. This is how fixtures like the walking tour may fit within an overall narrative of May 4. Like the other multimodalities, physical space has affordances that allow it to enhance the communicative properties of other modes, and has constraints that cause it to rely on the written or spoken linguistic for contextualization. Much like a photograph, physical space cannot speak for itself.

Rhetorical space at the M4VC, its situatedness in the actual May 4 grounds, does become part of the message. When audiences walk out of the M4VC, they are in a rhetorical space that is used as part of the overall May 4 discussion. Although the walking tour is an optional component of the visit, audiences still find themselves immersed in the same space that the students occupied in 1970 just by entering and exiting the M4VC.

The walking tour narration mentions landmark, recognizable points throughout the space, and relies on them to help deliver the message. The multimodalities other than

159 rhetorical space (alphabetic text, audio, and visual imagery) are arranged in such a way that visitors could hear the narration and view the marker panels without even being in the space itself and still get the information they need to understand May 4. During the tour, the space becomes a mode that grounds audience experience, much like alphabetic text. The text is the underlier that instructs and guides. The meaning of the rhetorical space may only be understood through the presence of other modes; in this case through the audio tour and/or the trail markers with imagery and alphabetic text. The physical properties of the grounds came were preexisting to the histories the now represent, and the audio tour designers worked around what was already present so that they could best guide audiences. The audio narration of the tour relies on the space without addressing it as the centerpiece (the historical, verbal dialogue is the most prevalent component of the tour); however, in the act of retracing students’ steps as they learn the history of May 4, audiences become immersed in the May 4 historical narrative that Bond tells. There is tangible “proof” of the histories that the audiences hear about, strategically placed or acknowledged around the space, for example photos from 1970 and an iron statue with a bullet hole. Audiences are placed at the scene of the historic events, and the space itself is evidentiary, which plays a role in meaning making.

Text not only provides contextualization for the rhetorical space, but it also provides boundaries. The museum is bounded by its walls, and audiences understand the physical space that is reserved for the museum. The point markers along the way guide where audiences should be at specific times during Bond’s narration; likewise, the narration introduces each of the seven chapters of the tour by naming the waypoint to

160 which it corresponds. The walking tour has no physical bounds but is bounded by literacy; through words and actions, visitors should understand the limitations of the tour.

The walking tour evokes the rhetorical space most often as an enhancement to visual imagery. It offers photographs and subsequently uses the space to reinforce what the photos depict. For example: In point 1, audiences see a photo of students burying the

Constitution underneath the Victory Bell. As they continue the tour, audiences see the

Victory Bell still stands and remains in place as a piece of history, a visual reminder of that day. It would be stating the obvious to note that the space provides a three- dimensional accompaniment to what the photographs depict, but the ability to move about and interact with rhetorical space allows audiences to become fully immersed in the visual imagery, an affordance possible with no other mode.

Space: Affordances and Constraints of Meaning Making

As a mode of meaning making, space shares many affordances with other modes, and offers different possibilities that transcend the other modes as well. Endres and

Senda-Cook’s (2011) discussion of place and space in sites of protest informed my own understanding immensely. They elaborate that protesters may use the importance of place

(or, in my terms here, the rhetorically significant location of the physical space such as the Commons) to help shape their message. Physical space (or place in their terms) combines “material and symbolic qualities” (p. 259). The symbolic qualities of the physical space help to assert the rhetor’s message. Scollon and Scollon (2003) likewise argue: “The meaning of signs is anchored in the material world” (3). I further this notion and argue that the meaning of the material world is also anchored in signs.

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Below, I list the affordances of physical space at this sight and highlight how the physical becomes rhetorical:

 Physical space is protean; it can be changed, molded, or shaped to fit certain

needs or to convey specific messages or histories.

 Physical space is visual; it can act in the same way that visual imagery

(photographs) does for audiences.

 Physical space is interactive in an immersive way; audiences can freely move

about the area within the bounds of the rhetorical space.

 Physical space is sensory; audiences can “read” and experience it with all

senses, which contributes to the messages they receive.

 Pairing physical space with the written or spoken word affords it

transformative properties: The physical becomes rhetorical.

After being a Kent State graduate student for five years, I have walked through the Commons and around Taylor Hall many times, through many climates, and through varying levels of noise and crowds. At times, the area has been closed off for construction, and at other times it has been inaccessible in other ways: student athletes sprinting up Blanket Hill during practice, two feet of snow on the ground, or severe thunderstorms. In this sense, rhetorical space is dependent on audience accessibility to convey messages. Not only might this accessibility hinge on factors like weather, crowds, or other events. In order to read and interpret rhetorical space, audiences themselves must rely upon their own material bodies; as readers, they need a degree of mobility to access and to navigate the site. This makes it limiting to some audiences, just as the written word is limited to literate audiences.

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As with other decontextualized modes, rhetorical space is reliant on alphabetic text (whether written or spoken) to tell audiences how to read, interpret, and engage with it. The alphabetic text is explanatory, explicative, and expository. Bond’s narration, and in some instances the text on the panel markers, support the limitations of the rhetorical space—its inability to provide its own context for audiences. On the tour, aural or written texts guide audience interpretation with the rhetorical space. Text on the markers tells audiences where to go and in what order. Bond’s narration and the text on the markers identifies recognizable and significant points located throughout the space (e.g. Victory

Bell, pagoda) that foster tangibility for the narratives that the audience receives. Freedom of movement and accessibility to these landmark spots allows audiences to customize their own tour experience; they can stand underneath the pagoda, sit beside the Victory

Bell, and read the chalk printed on Solar Totem #1.

Conclusions

The act of being in the rhetorical space where the shootings took place is powerful; however, it is not enough to be in the space, especially if we don’t know enough to contextualize the space ourselves. Visitors need the agenda setting and continuous contextualization that only the multimodalities (primarily visual imagery and aural or written text) can set for them. If audiences embark on the tour in the same fashion as I did, the audio and the text serve as the primary means to set the context and provide guidance. Through these means, audiences are told why and how the rhetorical space they occupy is significant and contributive to May 4 history.

The act of navigating the space and receiving messages through other modes of meaning making affords a more powerful experience. This experience is more sensory

163 and physical than navigating the museum space. This confirms my initial impression that the space would enhance the overall audience experience of their exposure to May 4 histories. Although space cannot exist as a standalone mode of meaning making (without sufficient prior understanding for contextualizing purposes), it can evoke the material body in ways that other modes cannot. Overall, they can occupy the same space as the historic events they are learning about.

To borrow language from the Grant, visitors on the walking tour can “decide for themselves” what to believe as they engage with the rhetorical space. The walking tour narrative provides exposition of the events and the space provides mediation. It has not been carefully designed and arranged like the material in the M4VC; rather, the tour has been designed around pre-existing content. Audiences may or may not be moved as they navigate the grounds, but witnessing the degree of discourse and commemorative acts that still exist at this site today (e.g. stones on the parking lot lampposts or chalk condemning President Nixon) can be effectively transforming.

Reflections on Space: A Class Discussion

On April 27, 2017, I met with a sophomore-level college writing class to conduct an informal discussion about the May 4 rhetorical space. Beforehand, the students were instructed to take Julian Bond’s narrated walking tour; however, the students who embarked on the tour decided to forgo this and took an unstructured, self-guided approach. Four students took the tour and the rest of the class opted out. Although I have not accessed data on the volume of calls to the walking tour phone line, empirically, it seems to me that most visitors tend to take the same approach as these students: an informal, self-led walk around the grounds. At the time of their tour, there was

164 construction around Taylor Hall, so the students were unable to get the “full” experience of all seven trail markers. They also followed the markers out of order, beginning with

Trail Marker #2 across the Commons from Taylor Hall. For a list of the questions that guided our discussion, see Appendix B on page 197.

The students mainly discussed their engagement with the trail markers, which mediated the rhetorical space for them. It should be noted that, as Kent students, they brought with them previous knowledge of May 4 gained in their FYE classes. The trail markers told them about the spaces they walk through each day on their way to class.

They were aware that the shootings took place in this space, but had not, as they indicate, stopped to think about the meaning of this. When asked to describe their experience, one student remarked: “It was kind of cool just standing there with the picture of the building,

[while] you’re seeing [the building as it stands today].” Indeed, what seemed to stand out the most to the students was the blend of space and time that the pictures offered to them; the exterior of Taylor Hall has not changed much since May 4, 1970. Another student affirmed her excitement about the photographs’ affordance of blending space and time, remarking:

[Taylor Hall] looks exactly the same [as it does in the photo]. I was like, “That’s

crazy!” That’s exactly the same, like nothing has changed... It just kind of gives

you a perspective on the event happening right here on our campus grounds.

When asked if they felt any sort of connection to the histories represented in the walking tour, one student remarked:

I kind of felt connected [when] we were on the walking tour, like being there with

the pictures showing that it happened here. Especially over the marker where, in

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the parking lot, because that famous picture of like the guy laying on the ground

and the girl laying next to him [John Filo’s photo]. I was telling [my friend] one

of my favorite pictures is someone holding up that picture, like the old-time

picture, and matching it up with where it happened at. And we were standing

there looking at it and I just remember that picture. Like that is super realistic, and

I felt like I was there on May 4 when it was happening.

This student discusses the view from Trail Marker #6 that points out to audiences the location where Jeff Miller fell. The marker includes Filo’s Pulitzer Prize winning photo of Mary Ann Vecchio screaming as she kneels beside him. The more current photo that the student references is one of someone holding up a print of Filo’s photo up in the exact location as it exists today, blending space and time.

The four students who went on the tour were not perturbed by the tense histories mediated in the multimodal ensembles (the trail markers) that dot the May 4 space.

Rather, it seemed they were most interested in the notion that parts of campus appear similarly today as they did in 1970. Even still, these students felt closer to the past in some respects; even if they did not feel strongly about the events, they were able to connect to past students of Kent State through acknowledgement of a shared experience.

The students who were killed and injured on May 4, 1970 were students at Kent State just as they are now. On the day they were killed, Bill, Jeff, Allison, and Sandy walked through the Commons and passed by Taylor Hall, which still looks the same.

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CHAPTER VI

CONCLUSION: THE PROCESS AND THE PRODUCT

In this dissertation, I have argued the following: 1) Alphabetic text serves as the underlying mediator that contextualizes all other modes in multimodal ensembles; 2)

Audiences make meaning from multimodal ensembles as they enact literacy practices prompted by the institution and foregrounded in alphabetic texts throughout the museum;

3) Alphabetic texts mediate for audiences the articulations of the museum composers; 4)

I close my dissertation with this final chapter. First, I summarize the main points and contributions to New Literacy Studies (NLS) and multimodality from Chapters III,

IV, and V, and what an intersection with museum studies can contribute to multimodal scholarship that is or is not focused on museum spaces. I then provide a final discussion on the tension surrounding May 4 discourse and the museum’s efforts to navigate different interpretations of the events. Lastly, I explore avenues for further research. In this dissertation, I have investigated the following research questions: How are multimodal ensembles (alphabetic texts, objects, visual imagery) and literacy practices

167 used in composing the past? What is the role of space in multimodal ensembles? In the context of this site, what are the affordances and constraints of meaning making through multimodal ensembles?

In undertaking this vast project to address these questions, I have found myself continuously referring back to the “process vs. product” concept in composition studies

(Murray, 1972, 1978; Nystrand, Green, & Wiemelt, 1993; Perl, 1979), which maintains that it is more useful to writers to focus on the writing process (pre-writing, writing, and revision) behind the writing product (final essay draft). In this case, the composing process behind the museum has taken greater precedence than I had anticipated.

Museums, or any other “product” of composition, may only be effectively understood when we look into their larger context and purpose. I have described my position as

“researcher-as-museumgoer” throughout this research project, which emphasizes my examination of the two sides of the M4VC: the surface-level multimodalities that engage museumgoers in historical discourse; and, additionally, the fully-submerged undercurrents that have shaped and continue to shape the museum space that can be uncovered through research and inquiry. During the dissertation writing and research process, I was pulled in many different directions by sometimes insurmountable data that kept appearing in unexpected places—in books, in the Archives, in areas throughout campus. Not until my investigation of May 4 did I realize how engrained the histories have been in on-campus spaces, even during the years when May 4 was not overtly included in University-mediated discussion. The collective history of May 4 is situated firmly within the University, and continues to expand and inform new audiences with new perspectives.

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I initially set out to focus on the museum as a “product,” what we in composition studies would define as the culmination of the writing (or in this case, implementing) process that the audience sees; yet, I came to realize that the “product” of the museum is merely the tip of the iceberg. Underneath the texts, images, objects, and multimedia that fit within the “product” of the museum, presenting audiences with a history of May 4, lies decades-old discourse that began on the day of the shootings. Multimodal scholarship typically focuses on the products of multimodal composition, without examining the multimodal composing process. The May 4 Archives has afforded me the opportunity to use museum planning documents in my research. To my knowledge, it is rare that researchers in our field gain access, or find purpose for, such documents. The planning documents have allowed me to trace the composing process of the museum. The overall volume of communication documents (emails, memos, etc.) demonstrates the collaborative nature of the museum’s composing process. I chose to focus on the exhibition walkthrough, as part of a larger grant proposal that asserts the museum’s importance as a national historic landmark. The exhibition walkthrough provides insight into the museum composers’ desired response from audiences as they interact with museum multimodalities. Through this document, I was able to classify distinct acts that audiences perform when they visit the museum and interact with its content. This document provides a behind the scenes look at the multimodal content at the museum.

Memorializing May 4 was not a prescriptive nor a straightforward process, as

Foote (2003) notes. In order to write a dissertation with an appropriate dimensional scope, it became evident that I would need to provide more than a discussion of modes at the museums and how they communicate to audiences. I would need to address the

169 contextual nature of the histories told at the museum; essentially, I would need to immerse myself in the historical narratives, the politics, and the perspectives behind what we see at the museum. It was not until later in the research process, when I had reviewed the Grant several dozen times, when I noticed the uncertainty and tension that comes with memorializing what Foote would define as an unresolved tragedy steeped in uncertainty.

Understanding how different modes work together to communicate to audiences is interesting and useful to the field; however, the museum writers’ use of museum multimodalities to navigate these tensions adds new depth to the affordances of multimodal communication. The voice of the museum composers come through in the alphabetic text at the museum site, but the other modes of communication are not their own. The visual imagery and objects were selected, sometimes out of accessibility and funds rather than for their significance in recomposing May 4 histories. However, because of the varied sources of the museum content, the museum becomes a site where history is recomposed through heteroglossia, or multiple voices. Some modes offer evidence or proof of the tragedy (such as videos and photographs), some offer emotional appeals (such as objects from the victims and spoken accounts of survivors). The modes converge to compose a history of May 4 for audiences through multiple sources, voices, and perspectives. I believe this is truly what the museum planners achieve when they explain that part of the M4VC mission is to provide multiple perspectives.

Museum Literacy Practices

Intersecting NLS and multimodality with museum studies was a necessary move for a thorough examination of a historic museum’s context, and allowed me to address the complimentary nature of these fields. For instance, museum studies addresses

170 multimodal communication in their own terms (and has for some time), and discusses audience engagement with these modes (Hooper-Greenhill, 2001; Ravelli, 2005).

However, museum studies does not typically address the composing process behind the final museum “product”, as would interest researchers in rhetoric and composition. In

Chapter III (p. 72), I found through coding the Grant that the museum writers classify five distinct ways with which audiences will make meaning from the museum’s multimodalities. Audiences make meaning from six distinct multimodalities that the writers classify (although they only explicitly identify four). These six modes include: 1) alphabetic texts; 2) object artifacts; 3) visual imagery; 4) physical space; 5) audio

(spoken); 6) audio (music/sounds). The ways that audiences engage these modes are as follows: 1) cognitive acts; 2) knowledge acquisition acts; 3) embodied interaction acts; 4) navigational acts; 5) following a directive acts.

The analysis of the Grant has revealed to me a means to codify how writers might anticipate audience reading and interpretation of their own multimodal compositions.

Audience engagement with multiliteracies allows the museum an affordance: to function in loco for the museum writers to set contexts. In other words, the multimodal ensembles stand in place for the museum’s composers who are not physically there, teaching histories to audiences. To these ends, the multimodalities, serve as mediators between the writer (museum planners/curators) and the reader (museumgoers). Although the voice of the museum composers emerges as they curate and mediate the multimodal ensembles, the multimodalities themselves allow for the expression of tense histories through heteroglossia, or multiple voices. Many modes of mediation converge into a multimodal ensemble to help audiences create meaning. This incorporates many forms of preexisting

171 data, such as photographs, audio/video clips, and written words from multiple perspectives. As the museum composers have professed since the project’s initiation, they continuously seek to offer multiple perspectives of May 4 to audiences. Not only do they demonstrate many points of view; they offer multiple perspectives through each multimodal ensemble, in which many voices converge.

Museum Multimodalities

In Chapter II, I discussed scholarship in museum studies that discusses the multimodalities in terms of their field. Particularly, the works of Hooper-Greenhill (1992,

1994, 2000), Ravelli (1996, 2005), have been most beneficial to my research. Hooper-

Greenhill and Ravelli both break down multimodalities (although they do not use this term) as separate parts of a larger whole. For instance, Ravelli’s book Museum texts:

Communication framework focuses solely on alphabetic texts at the museum, and offers a comprehensive examination of the varied ways that audiences encounter the written word, from ticket stubs to artifact descriptions. In her 1994 book, Museums and their visitors, Hooper-Greenhill discusses the varied ways audiences receive communication at the museum (e.g. signage, object artifacts, gift shops). She examines the modes and places of communication as parts of a larger whole. Museum studies has helped me to frame how I might use multimodal concepts in terms of our own field, because little, if any, scholarship on multimodal composing at the museum in exists currently. In addition, multimodal scholarship tends to focus on the multimodal composition as a whole, without a closer examination of all the contributing parts.

In Chapter IV, I further explored the six multimodalities that I identified in

Chapter III. When presented together in a multimodal ensemble, the modes work

172 synchronously together to create meaning for audiences. In these interactions, text serves as the centripetal force. Text refers to the modes (whether descriptive or instructive), which in turn serve the text. The non-textual modes affirm what the text instructs or describes.

By using a combination of pre-existing scholarship in museum studies and multimodality, and an examination of the role of different museum modes at this site, I was able to list the meaning making affordances. These lists of affordances could be transferable to a discussion of the multimodalities at other museum sites, or similar sites that exist with pedagogical intent. I have condensed these lists into Table 10, which denotes all of the distinct modes I have discussed in this dissertation and their corresponding affordances. The column on the left lists each of the five distinct modes.

The column on the right lists the affordances I have concluded from my data analyses in this dissertation.

Table 10: Museum multimodalities and affordances Museum Mode List of Affordances Alphabetic Texts 5. Guide audience interpretation of decontextualized artifacts (visual imagery and object artifacts); 6. Provide objective (when possible), historically factual information; 7. Add depth to historical claims through primary resources (e.g. excerpts from newspapers or speeches), and; 8. Direct audiences through the physical navigation of the museum. Object Artifacts 4. Function as synecdoche, which evolves from spatial restrictions 5. Allow audiences to experience history through multiple senses; and 6. Afford tangible histories for audiences. Physical Space & Rhetorical Space Physically bounds a multimodal ensemble; Determines how and when audiences receive certain messages.

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Is protean; it can be changed, molded, or shaped to fit certain needs or to convey specific messages or histories. Is visual; it can act in the same way that visual imagery (photographs) does for audiences. Is interactive in an immersive way; audiences can freely move about the area within the bounds of the rhetorical space. Is sensory; audiences can “read” and experience it with all senses, which contributes to the messages they receive. Visual Imagery 3. Enables a realist lens for audiences to view history; 4. Serves as metonyms for larger groups or concepts.

Depending on the purpose or intent of a given multimodal ensemble, it is important to consider the implications that come with using different modes to convey meaning to audiences. The lists of multimodal affordances in Table 10 may serve as a framework for the multimodal composition process for the implementation of a similar museum site or for a similar pedagogical purpose for varied, general audiences.

Multimodal scholars may examine these affordances in terms of their own research sites, primarily in those where multimodal communication is an integral part of audience meaning making. It is clear to me, based on the museum studies scholarship that examines the parts of the larger whole of the museum (e.g. texts, objects), that these affordances may be transferable among different sites. I encourage that all scholars who examine sites of memory or memorialization additionally explore the social, political, and cultural considerations that shape their sites of study. I would also encourage multimodal scholars to enter the museum. Museum spaces offer unique opportunities for

174 multimodal composition and communication. Through the interplay of modes, audiences can become immersed in the museum’s message and subject matter.

Space: Another Mode of Composition

In the context of my research, I have found it necessary to categorize “space” into two separate distinctions: physical space and rhetorical space. Physical space includes the finite area of the museum, bounded by its walls, and the multimodal ensembles, bounded by their display cases, frames, or edges. Rhetorical space at this site has memory attached, which can be curated to create an argument for this space. Both offer different, yet significant affordances for multimodal communication at my research site. Inside the

M4VC museum, the physical space takes precedence as it dictates how audiences navigate the May 4 histories and, through arrangement, determines when they receive specific messages. In the area that surrounds Taylor Hall, the rhetorical space becomes a larger contributor to composing histories for audiences. Ultimately, I conclude that the curation of the May 4 space affords a means to mediate the tensions in the history attached to this site. The multimodal ensembles (trail markers, audio narration) help audiences navigate the space. The fixed nature of the space adds another voice to the heteroglossia, the voices that converge to tell histories at this site.

The affordance of rhetorical space in the composition of histories is multi-faceted and something I continue to investigate. As mentioned previously, I was aware early in this project that the rhetorical space of May 4 was at the heart of much debate and decision-making over the last nearly five decades. However, it was not until later on in my project when it became evident how this played a role in the implementation of the

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M4VC. I came to their realization through the works of Nora (1989) and Wright (2005), who discuss rhetorical properties of space; and Foote (2003) and Kelman (2015), who examine what it means to memorialize space, particularly from the other side of history.

Overall, the rhetorical space has stood as a constant fixture in the retelling of May 4 histories since the day of the shootings.

Navigating Discursive Tensions through Multimodality

The Grant in Chapter III offers a unique glimpse into part of the multimodal composing process for museum writers. We are able to see the end goal for audience interpretation; what will audiences learn from multimodal ensembles, and how will we get them to reach this understanding? After I coded the multimodalities and museum acts in the Grant, I found it pertinent to code for agency. Sometimes, the museum was the active participant in initiating the act, and sometimes the audience was. When I examined the act initiators, this is when I began to note the discursive tension in the language. For instance, the Grant authors made it clear that the museum does not tell audiences what they should think about May 4. Not all museums would need to make these clear distinctions about their objectivity. For instance, I cannot imagine that the Natural

Museum of American History needs to explain their objective stance on informing audiences about dinosaurs; rather, they may be more concerned about making scientific data understandable for general audiences.

Scholars who examine museum spaces regularly point out hegemonic undertones in museum discourse; some of which can exclude perspectives or selectively interpret historic events. Audience perception of museum spaces is socially constructed; audiences rarely question or critique museum materials. Therefore, it is the ethical responsibility of

176 the curators to provide a complete narrative for audiences, without the exclusion of perspectives that may not be conducive or in agreement with the curators’ own beliefs. At the M4VC, the composers have included evidence of multiple perspectives through alphabetic texts (e.g. both pro-war and anti-war arguments). Multimodality offers multiple perspectives as well because it combines the primary sources with the composers’ interpretation, inviting audiences to decide for themselves.

In Chapter I, I discussed the controversies in historical discourse of May 4, such as the question of who was at fault in the shootings and the University’s decision to build over the rhetorical space. With this in mind, and as evidenced in Chapter III, the museum planners had to negotiate discursive tensions as they chose materials and wrote texts to represent perspectives on May 4 histories. The affordance of multimodal ensemble to give a multiple-voiced perspective to audiences allowed museum composers to mediate these tensions. Aside from indisputable facts (e.g. four students were killed and nine were wounded), the museum writers had to navigate interpretations of May 4 histories.

Linguistic choices can impact a text’s subjectivity when describing the same event; for example, “four students were killed” evokes a much different interpretation of events than “Ohio National Guardsmen murdered four students”. Evidently, the text-based discourse at the museum more closely resembles the former.

I argue that the use of multimodality allows the M4VC to mediate these tensions that exist in May 4 historical discourse. Through the use of visual imagery, object artifacts, rhetorical space, and multimedia (audio/video), audiences are invited into a space that collapses the time/space barrier as they navigate these tensions themselves.

The museum planners voiced their intent to create a space that immerses audiences into

177 history, and this is how they achieve this. Subjectivity is inevitable; audiences will always be exposed to a museum writer’s interpretation of events through the choices they use in their text and the decision to include specific imagery and artifacts that represent histories. The multimodalities offer a means to balance objectivity and subjectivity; objects, imagery, and video/audio are paired with the museum writers’ words. In this museum space, there is constant, open discourse between primary histories and historic interpretation.

Further Research: Intersecting Museums, Multimodality, and Literacies

Museums and those who work with them behind the scenes have much to contribute to NLS and multimodal scholarship. Indeed, many of the concepts introduced in these two fields have been part of discussion in museum studies literature. Museum studies has often looked outward, beyond the “product” of the museum to assess how and why audiences may react with museum content, layout, or design in certain ways.

Multimodal scholarship often asserts the importance of the writer’s own multimodal composition process; however, in our field, there needs to be a broader discussion on how audiences read and interpret multimodality. A focus on the audience adds a much needed perspective to multimodal scholarship.

Other interesting prospects for future research that intersects NLS, multimodality, and museum studies would involve human participants at the museum site. At the museum, tour guides often act as mediators between the museum content and audience understanding. Tour guides may impact audience reading and interpreting of the different multimodalities.

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Researching the Museum’s Composition at the May 4 Archives

The May 4 Collection at the Kent State University Archives is located on the twelfth floor of the main library. The 228-box collection contains photographs, newspapers, records, memorabilia, individual donor papers, and related content from the

Tent City protests and the implementation of the M4VC—to describe just a small percentage of its contents. The collection continues to expand as more individuals donate relevant materials. Archivists at Kent State continue to digitize materials to make the information more easily accessible to the public.

In addition to the May 4 Collection at Kent State, archival researchers interested in May 4 might also consider the collection at Yale University. Peter Davies, whose papers serve as the backbone of the collection, originated Yale’s May 4 collection in

1977. The Peter Davies papers include letters and research materials from his examination of the shootings for his book The Truth about Kent State: A Challenge to the

American Conscience. According to the Yale University Library website, the collection also contains “a large quantity of research material that would be very useful in a fresh inquiry into Kent State and its aftermath” (Yale University Library). This research material includes F.B.I. documents; Kent State on-campus materials such as yearbooks and pamphlets; and records of legal proceedings. This collection, the website states, condenses many scattered materials into one space to provide comprehensive information on “the public perception of Kent State” (Yale University Library).

The materials in the May 4 Collection at Kent State informed my research in multiple ways, and have prompted consideration for further study at this site as well. In

Chapter III, I use the 2011 Implementation Grant Document for America’s Cultural and

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Historic Organizations found at the Archives; this document is the culmination of many previous drafts, and one of multiple documents that provides insight into the steps taken to implement the museum on campus. Researchers have access to the multiple drafts with comments and feedback, and could trace the planning of the museum and the written communication that took place during this process. Scholars in NLS may find the comprehensive scope of planning document drafts and records useful to a discussion of how literacy has shaped the museum’s implementation and continues to hold it together.

The written drafts that precede and stand behind the museum are most certainly overlooked items in the May 4 Collection; yet, they signify the culmination of many different May 4 histories into one cohesive, immersive space.

A particularly fascinating series of documents that emerged from one of the boxes from the May 4 Collection were 45 evaluations of museum content. The majority of evaluations seemed to be from students, who are the primary audience of the M4VC. It is important to note that these evaluations were completed during the implementation process using the museum script, not the actual space. Some qualitative questions asked researchers to choose among multiple prospective photographs for display and rationalize their selections. There were even more pragmatic questions for the audience, such as one that made sure young audiences would know who Katharine Hepburn is. The evaluation form also contained quantitative questions that used a Likert scale for ratings such as

“most effective” to “least effective” and “appropriate” to “inappropriate”. The notion of creating a rubric as an effective means to assess museum content would be useful for researchers of multimodal composition pedagogy, who often look for ways to assess multimodal composition in the classroom. Shipka (2011) addresses the “discomfort” that

180 instructors may feel when assessing multimodal projects; proper steps toward developing a means to assess such varied assignments, she recommends, would be to give students the language tools necessary to explain the “potentials and limitations” for their own multimodal compositions (p. 112). Essentially, the museum writers here provide their own assessment framework that is self-reflexive and aware of its own potential shortcomings.

The May 4 collection offers opportunities for pedagogy as well. In the past, I took a sophomore-level writing class on two trips to the Archives, and was gladdened by the overwhelmingly positive response of the class. Students worked individually or in pairs and combed through boxes of pamphlets, photos, letters, and student writings. Each box contained a prompt and questions for students to answer as they searched the contents and at the end of our session, each student had a different perspective on May 4 to contribute from their findings. Although the subject of May 4 is not interesting to all students, as I make clear in Chapter I, the students overall enjoyed looking through the contents of their respective boxes. From a pedagogical standpoint, the Archives offers a hands-on research opportunity for students to gather primary sources relevant to their own inquiries. Scholarship in rhetoric and composition has recently begun to examine the pedagogical potential of the archives. Scholars Neal, Bridgman, and McElroy (2016) worked with students at their university’s archives. As students selected material to digitize for the archives, and in doing so, became builders and curators of public memory.

A Final Thought

The M4VC reopened in August 2017 after months of closure for renovation. The renovations included an expansion, or takeover of an adjacent room to be used for class

181 visits. Also featured in this room is an exhibit called “Sandy’s Scrapbook,” which allows visitors an intimate glimpse at Sandy Scheuer’s personal life. Here, Sandy breaks from the metonymic “Kent four” and audiences get to know her on a personal level through different representative multimodalities. We see photographs of her with her sister on large panels designed with a scrapbook-style layout, which emphasizes the personal nature of the materials on display. We see object artifact representations from childhood: a stuffed poodle and an ashtray she made at summer camp (see Figure 20). We see handwritten notes from friends and family. Audiences know her sad fate and the international outcry that ensued, but that is not talked about here. In this room, we are reminded that she had an entire past distinct from May 4. The focus is on her life rather than her death.

Such immersion in Sandy’s life is not possible through any means besides multimodal composition, particularly in multimodal ensembles on display in a space rhetorically significant to her life and death. A multimodal ensemble allows for a material culmination of important artifacts from Sandy’s life.

Texts or films on her life would

Figure 20: Sandy Scheuer’s personal items from childhood provide effective insight and pathetic appeal that comes with the personal nature of her exhibit, but at the museum, audiences have access to more. They see Sandy’s personal objects, letters, and photographs in a space

182 designated specifically for her story’s display and message. Audiences can process and interpret these artifacts at their own pace.

Audiences will have the opportunity over time to get to know all four students killed; their stories will be featured in this exhibit on rotation. It is easy to lose sight of the four individuals lost that day and focus on the larger implications of their deaths. The

M4VC ensures that these individuals do not get buried under the larger histories and controversial narratives. With this, the M4VC does more than persuasively appeal to the audience’s sense of pathos; they remind what was truly lost when students were shot and killed at their school, regardless of the polarization that still stands with the issue of May

4. Kent State is an anchor for May 4 histories, a lieux de mémoire (Nora, 1989; Wright,

2005) to which stories of the past stick. For this reason, despite all of the documentaries, photographs, and books available on May 4, audiences will continue to venture to the place where it happened in order to investigate their questions about the past.

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APPENDIX A

Coding Key

Drawing from the research questions I list in Chapter 1, I designed codes that would address the following: 1. Correlations among the literate practices and multimodalities (texts, objects, visual imagery, space, and multimedia) audiences read to reconstruct the events of May 4; 2. The interaction among visitor and institution during meaning making practices at the museum; and 3. The affordances and constraints of the literate practices within this museum. Code Abbreviation Definition Cognitive acts COG Acts that require deep cognitive, internal participation from audiences in order to engage, difficult to assess Directive acts DIR Acts that anticipate direct, quantifiable interaction from audiences Navigation NAV Acts that denote audiences’ physical navigation of the museum Physical act PHYS Acts in which audiences learn content through physical evocation of senses, discussed as a sensory function

Formal INST Acts that position visitors and institution within the instruction “student/teacher” model Museum as MUS Museum acts (e.g. seeing, hearing) in which the initiator museum is the initiator. Visitor as VIS Museum acts (e.g. seeing, hearing) in which the initiator visitor is the initiator. Multimedia MED The authors discuss the multimedia for visitor experience and understanding (includes audio, video). Objects OBJ The authors project audience interaction with an object artifact. Space SPC The authors directly or indirectly refer to the space of the museum. I include as a “hidden” museum mode.

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Technology TECH The authors project audience interaction with provided computer technology. Text TXT The authors project audience interaction with text- based communication. Visual Imagery IMG The authors project audience interaction with visual imagery content.

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APPENDIX B

Questions for ENG 21011 Class Discussion

1. Describe your experience of the environment (i.e., weather, other activities, others taking the tour?) as you took the tour. 2. Describe your experience listening to the narration as you took the tour. 3. Describe your thoughts / feelings about the tour. 4. What did you learn about the events of May 4? How would you describe the events to someone uniformed about May 4th? 5. What was the effect of actually being there for you? 6. What were your thoughts navigating the physical space of the May 4 shootings? 7. Was the tour emotional at any point for you? When and what triggered the emotion? 8. What were the differences for you between reading and being there? Which did you prefer? 9. After the walking tour, what questions do you still have about May 4? What would you still like to know? 10. What did you learn that you didn’t know before? 11. What specific thing stands out for you from your experience? 12. Have you ever had a learning experience like one? Can you describe it? 13. How is navigating the physical space of May 4 persuasive in itself? 14. What ideologies does the tour demonstrate? 15. How did (or didn’t) the walking tour set perspective on May 4 for you?

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