I have been surprised how little my digital comp elective missed a textbook... the students are very good about figuring out how to use programs via basic handouts I give them, experimentation, and collaboration. But I do think a text that discussed aesthetic issues/persuasion issues would be helpful when it came ttime to critique.

Comics. New media books that don't emphasize the relationship of comics (as hybrid forms that play with layout and sequence and rhythm) aren't worth much. And, Will Eisner's work would be more useful than Scott McCloud's. McCloud is interesting, but Eisner focuses on concrete operational details which would be more useful in teaching.

see # 52 re: a "missing ethics" and "missing kairos" to multimodal/new media composition

I'm not sure about a topic, but I do worry that the textbook material about multimodal composition will do to multimodal composition what the textbook industry has done to composition: kill it. See Geoff Sirc's ouevre.

Often there is an over-reliance on art and pop culture. These texts are also commonplace texts. I would like to see more examples of everyday texts.

theory and history of media

I'm just not sure.

What's missing are theoretical readings aimed at undergraduates. Everything is either technical (how-to) or uber-theoretical (for scholars). Nothing in between.

Same answer as for 51: Rich rhetorical scenarios: something like "devise and implement a media solution for a student organization that hopes to communicate a message to..."