Introduction

The English alphabet comprises twenty-six unique symbols.

Most English-speaking children learn these symbols during their toddler years, from the ages two to five. Then, they’re done — they’ve learned everything there is to learn in the English language. Except, well, everything else: a myriad of linguistic complexities, grammatical conundrums, literary devices, and, of course, the billions of published works that populate our libraries and digital spaces.

Writing is so much more than its few constituent symbols. Perhaps a tool is only ever destined to reflect its user, and so the world of American literature has grown so recklessly and exquisitely complex. Yes, those twenty-six letters and smattering of punctuation marks are unlikely to change, but I constantly encounter a new facet of our language to taste, admire, consume.

I was well into my secondary education when I began to appreciate the “arts” in English Language Arts. Shakespeare’s riddle-like sonnets could be unraveled to reveal complicated characters with deeply relatable emotions; Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day, while dry, would bely a poignantly sentimental love story. I began to see that the “classics” are indeed classic, and there is reward in the work of deciphering poetry — literature is art, should I choose to see it that way.

But literature is also more than art, as I’d come to learn that this semester. To reduce writing to its aesthetic qualities is to cage it in a vacuum — it’s beautiful, but not realistic. After all, writing exists in a world full of people, readers. And writing, like sound, only enters reality and adorns its meaning when it is received by another being, even if that reader is only the author’s future self. But this makes sense, since language is fundamentally a vehicle for communication. 

In summary, writing is collaborative. Writing exists in a social, interpersonal space, and when I write — or rather, compose, because communication also encompasses visual, sonic, and nonverbal aspects — I collaborate: with my peers, my teachers, my audience, and even with society.

Artifact 0: Multimodal Diagnostic Video

Writing’s collaborative nature isn’t all that surprising; I’ve certainly been aware of it for most of my writing career. Yet only recently did I begin to consider its importance with equal weight to writing’s creative or artistic aspects. It started with Artifact 0 (below):

Artifact 0 submission: Multimodal Diagnostic Video

A few days after the project deadline, I received an email from Dr. Mullis informing me that I’d published my video as “private,” so she couldn’t view it, and she subsequently marked my submission as late. That meant a ten point deduction, and with other inconsistencies with the project rubric, my grade amounted to a 75, a glaring red C in my mind. 

At first, I was frustrated and defensive, coddling a bruised ego. I thought, ignoring late penalties and grading criteria, my video was pretty good — its quality should speak for itself. But this was an indignant and naive train of thought, one that revealed my arrogance and stubborn attitude. In a collaborative space, there are due dates and schedules; I couldn’t ignore others’ timelines in conceited preoccupation with my own “art.” 

So Artifact 0 was a wakeup call, a priming for my entrance into writing’s collaborative space.

Artifact 1: Rhetorical Analysis Essay & Public Facing Artifact

Our work with Artifact 1 was the perfect playground in which I could experiment with writing in a collaborative space. We were tasked with writing a rhetorical analysis essay, which considered a chosen text’s representation of mental illness in the media. We then had to convert our argument to a public facing artifact, either an Instagram post, a poster, or a public service announcement video, which would summarize the thesis and evidence from our analytical essay. My predominant focus for this project was audience: there was the audience of the text we analyzed, whose reception largely influenced the quality of the text’s representation of mental illness, and there was the theoretical audience of my public facing artifact, which dictated my creative choices as I constructed the piece. 

Regarding the audience of my text, which was Jeremy Zucker’s song “Sociopath,” I considered the song’s negative and positive impacts on its listeners. On one hand, Zucker described his toxic relationship with unforgiving clarity, imbuing his lyrics with his bitterness and frustration that may be difficult for listeners, especially those struggling with mental illness, to hear. On the other hand, his representation of mental health voiced the narrative of the other, the one accompanying someone struggling with mental illness, and he combatted the stigmas and taboos that still cling to topics relating to mental wellbeing. From a high-level perspective, I was able to witness the collaboration between the writer, Zucker, and his listeners, in a lyrical and instrumental presentation of writing. 

As for my public facing artifact, I chose to create an Instagram infographic, and I mainly focused on creating a post that would appeal to and engage my potential audience. The first step was to determine who my audience might be. I decided on adolescents and young adults who are either interested in music, mental health, or both. Creating an Instagram post, then, was the medium with the highest likelihood of reaching members of that audience. From there, the tastes and interests of my hypothetical viewers continued to influence my creative decisions: I created an original layout, chose muted colors with eye-catching highlights, and used larger text in hopes of balancing readability and sufficient substance. The final product really felt like a collaboration, a compromise between my aesthetic preferences and my audience’s interests, which melded to form the post below:

Artifact 1 submission: Public Facing Artifact, as it might appear on Instagram. For further details, see the Artifact 1 page.

Artifact 2: Literary Analysis Feature Article

With Artifact 2, my exploration of writing’s collaborative nature transitioned to the broader topic of writing conventions in media, as was natural given the project criteria. For our second project, we again took up the task of analyzing mental health in popular media, but for our artifact we wrote an analytical article using the conventions of a target magazine or other online publication. Our focal text was Stephen Chbosky’s novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

I chose VICE, a pop culture and lifestyle magazine, as my reference, and set upon crafting my article in the conversational yet thoroughly analytical tone that’s native to VICE's Literature/Life column. My article and my choice magazine mutually influenced each other: I sought the liberty of using first person pronouns and casual language to connect with my reader, which led me to choose VICE, while VICE’s typical topic matter guided me to discuss Charlie’s mental wellbeing in a full-length article. The final draft of my article, in my view, fully reflects VICE’s aesthetic and journalistic guidelines while also conveying my analysis of Charlie’s psyche in a tone and manner that I consider my own. And like Artifact 1, there is collaboration between myself and my audience, as I convey a message of empathy and attempt to prompt my readers to introspect as they read the argument I present them.

Artifact 2 submission: Literary Analysis Feature Article. Titled 'The Wallflower In Me: Are You Being Your Best Self?,' modeled off of the pop culture magazine, VICE.

Artifact 3: Website & Presentation

Finally, our class embarked on our third artifact, a group project and a true test of collaboration. This was collaborative writing in a literal sense: we worked with peers to generate a multimodal artifact that channeled our own analytical and creative perspectives while existing as a single, cohesive product. All the practice we performed throughout the semester, experimenting with different mediums and creating our own visuals or website articles, led up to this project, a culmination of intellectual, creative, and interpersonal collaboration.

The project came with a considerably long list of deliverable elements: we had to create a professional-looking website with at least eight pages, consisting of a home page, several articles, and a works cited. Four of the articles would be revisions of one of each members’ previous works, plus two additional collaboratively-written pieces. 

The criteria provided some scaffolding for the ideological aspect of our collaboration, as we were to choose a broad topic that would link together all the articles on our website and tie into the website’s genre. Fortunately, my teammates and I happened upon the topic of motivation and decided to run with it, since it was loose enough to relate to all of our previous works in some way, but specific enough that significant research and analysis could be conducted in relation to that umbrella term.

But the real challenge lay in the logistical complications of actually working with other people. Varying scheduling availability, communication styles, and motivations going into a group project are sure to cause conflict, but the most humbling experience for me during this process was the act of co-writing a piece. Writing a piece, together, meant ceding a part of my creative liberty to someone who, to be blunt, I’d just met, and didn’t fully trust, especially with something as personal and delicate as writing. It was the ultimate compromise. In retrospect, however, what I’d begrudged as an encroachment on my creative autonomy actually introduced new ideas and fresh perspectives into my threadbare patterns of thought.

In the long run, collaborative work (as cheesy as it sounds) is more efficient, effective, and persuasive than the sum of each individual’s parts. Sure, each of us could have created a website on our own time, but it would have taken much longer; and while a single’ person’s work might be more cohesive, it lacks the depth that arises from the coordination of multiple minds with different perspectives, thought processes, opinions, and writing styles. The result of our teamwork is evident in our final product, which is accessible here Links to an external site..

This process was a humbling series of discussions, deliberations, and compromises. I learned that writing is not only collaborative, but it thrives in this aspect of its nature; the product is enhanced when collaboration is highlighted during the construction of a written text.

Conclusion

Over the course of this semester, I studied the collaborative aspect of writing, in audience, genre conventions, and peer collaborators. And while these past months have reshaped both my writing and myself as a writer and a person, the novelty of literature is not lost on me; I still have so much to learn.