516 Research Proposal & 1st Annotated Bibliography
Technologies – not simply computers as we know them – are changing the ways writing teachers are required to teach composition in the classroom. The main problem lies in the gap between what generationally challenged instructors (many born in the late industrial age), and the digital adeptness of the students they teach. This problem may bloom into crisis unless there is some kind of leveling of the playing field between student and teacher. The influence of emerging visual communications technologies is having a profound (and sometimes confusing) effect on not only the way English composition is being taught, but in the ways students interpret narrative, argumentative, and expository rhetoric in what are otherwise standard writing assignments.
It is all too easy to dismiss the changing formats that students use to express themselves with ideas and language, especially if we as instructors have been schooled in the pedagogies of traditional, canonical literature and formulaic compositional structures like the five paragraph essay. However, mediums like hypertext, and visual technologies (hand-held video recorders, flash software, Photoshop, digital cameras, power point, etc.) have, and are continuing to evolve, compositional genres in ways that are still trying to be understood – ways that are critical to the future of writing curriculum.
Nonetheless, the proverbial elephant in the room continues to be the question of our students’ basic writing skills – their ability to string words, sentences, and paragraphs together in purposeful, meaningful ways. Issues about teaching ideologies and pedagogical theory, although crucial in any discussion about composition, are too subjective and complex for an examination of the influence of visual rhetoric in the writing classroom. Although it will be important to address the various theories concerning the current state of students’ written language skills, it is equally important to illustrate the cognitive changes that are happening as a result of students’ cultural immersion in the new media environment of digital communication genres.
Another important aspect of my research focus lies in the question of how conventional (reading & writing) literacy, and technological (making a web site) literacy are becoming increasingly interrelated. Will it soon be just as critical to understand new levels of discourse, such as html code or podcasting, to be considered literate in the most basic sense of the word? This might be projecting a bit too much into the future, but is important considering the many prognostications about an expanding information-based society.
The first part of my research will focus on communications technologies in relation to pedagogies, literacy, and post-modern notions about writing. The second part will emphasize the actual technologies that teachers and students are using to create new compositional genres in the classroom and beyond. Although I assert a general thesis that these trends are inevitable, the main purpose of my project will be to inform the reader about the increasing influence of visual rhetoric in the classroom, and to raise questions concerning the necessity of textual literacy in an educational environment whose practical curriculum is becoming increasingly graphical, non-linear, and interactive.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Barker, Thomas T., Fred O Kemp. “Network Theory: A Post-Modern Pedagogy for the Writing Classroom.” Computers and Community. Carolyn Handa, ed. Portsmouth:
Boynton/Cook, 1990.
This article argues that because composition curriculum is moving away from the exclusively teacher/student interaction to a more community-centered, peer-critique environment, changes in the structure of writing classroom must be made to accommodate the post-modern “communal aspects of knowledge-making.” The authors introduce network theory as it relates to using computers in the classroom as a way for students to engage in collaborative writing using a variety of mediums such as email, publishing software, and electronic discussions.
Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001.
In this book, Manovich builds on theories about cinema and narrative to create a
language for discussing the new media forms of hypertext and databases. An important emphasis here is on the way the user moves through the spaces of these new media environments.
Plant, Sadie. Writing on Drugs. New York: Picador, 1999.
This book examine the history of drug use in well-known writers such as Poe, Burroughs, Foucault, and Coleridge. It also describes the influence drugs have on social consciousness and cultural life as a result of these artistic forays. Of interest here is a connection between MDMA (ecstasy), and the evolution of cyberpunk literature – creating the vocabulary for human-computer interface through an accelerated neurochemistry.
Rice, Jeff. “Cybogography: A Pedagogy of the Home Page.” Pedagogy: Critical
Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture.
5.1 (2005).
In this article, Rice combines theories about Web writing as a method of identity formation, and expressivist theories of composition (Peter Elbow), to create a new “theory of the home page” called Cyborgography. Rice explains that his purpose is to “defamiliarize” the process of using code to write a home page so that students can gain a richer understanding of the “complex relationships between writing, technology, and personal experience” (66).
Rice, Jeff. Writing About Cool: Hypertext and Cultural Studies in the Computer
Classroom. New York: Pearson Longman, 2004.
More of a textbook than a discussion of theory, Writing About Cool uses the concept of “cool” and how it is defined by popular culture as a focus for teaching connections between writing and technology. Rice use examples from the media, advertising, the Web, literature, and music to help students gain a critical understanding of popular culture’s influence on their daily lives.
Skubikowski, Kathleen, John Elder. “Computers and the Social Contexts of Writing.”
Computers and Community. Carolyn Handa, ed. Portsmouth: Boynton/Cook,
1990.
Although this article was published early on in the era of computer-mediated writing, it provides some valuable background about the way students’ writing changes as a result of the social interaction of networking, and the fluidity of word-processed text. The authors found that students were more willing to take chances with their writing if they perceived the process as “playing” with a piece rather than drafting an essay.
Swiss, Thomas. “Electronic Literature.” (no further bibliographic info available)
In this article, Swiss examines the past, present, and future of electronic literature in all of its forms. He covers everything from classic literature being re-formatted for the Web, to the continuing evolution of hypertext fiction and other examples of new media. Swiss also discusses the changes in publishing industry as a result of new modes of distribution.
Yagelski, Robert. Literacy Matters: Writing and Reading the Social Self. New York:
Teachers College Press, 2000.
This book is a thorough examination of the ways in which literacy affect our lives and shape our identities as social beings. Of particular interest here is Yagelski’s discussion of how definitions of literacy are being shaped by communications technologies such as email and hypertext.
It is all too easy to dismiss the changing formats that students use to express themselves with ideas and language, especially if we as instructors have been schooled in the pedagogies of traditional, canonical literature and formulaic compositional structures like the five paragraph essay. However, mediums like hypertext, and visual technologies (hand-held video recorders, flash software, Photoshop, digital cameras, power point, etc.) have, and are continuing to evolve, compositional genres in ways that are still trying to be understood – ways that are critical to the future of writing curriculum.
Nonetheless, the proverbial elephant in the room continues to be the question of our students’ basic writing skills – their ability to string words, sentences, and paragraphs together in purposeful, meaningful ways. Issues about teaching ideologies and pedagogical theory, although crucial in any discussion about composition, are too subjective and complex for an examination of the influence of visual rhetoric in the writing classroom. Although it will be important to address the various theories concerning the current state of students’ written language skills, it is equally important to illustrate the cognitive changes that are happening as a result of students’ cultural immersion in the new media environment of digital communication genres.
Another important aspect of my research focus lies in the question of how conventional (reading & writing) literacy, and technological (making a web site) literacy are becoming increasingly interrelated. Will it soon be just as critical to understand new levels of discourse, such as html code or podcasting, to be considered literate in the most basic sense of the word? This might be projecting a bit too much into the future, but is important considering the many prognostications about an expanding information-based society.
The first part of my research will focus on communications technologies in relation to pedagogies, literacy, and post-modern notions about writing. The second part will emphasize the actual technologies that teachers and students are using to create new compositional genres in the classroom and beyond. Although I assert a general thesis that these trends are inevitable, the main purpose of my project will be to inform the reader about the increasing influence of visual rhetoric in the classroom, and to raise questions concerning the necessity of textual literacy in an educational environment whose practical curriculum is becoming increasingly graphical, non-linear, and interactive.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Barker, Thomas T., Fred O Kemp. “Network Theory: A Post-Modern Pedagogy for the Writing Classroom.” Computers and Community. Carolyn Handa, ed. Portsmouth:
Boynton/Cook, 1990.
This article argues that because composition curriculum is moving away from the exclusively teacher/student interaction to a more community-centered, peer-critique environment, changes in the structure of writing classroom must be made to accommodate the post-modern “communal aspects of knowledge-making.” The authors introduce network theory as it relates to using computers in the classroom as a way for students to engage in collaborative writing using a variety of mediums such as email, publishing software, and electronic discussions.
Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001.
In this book, Manovich builds on theories about cinema and narrative to create a
language for discussing the new media forms of hypertext and databases. An important emphasis here is on the way the user moves through the spaces of these new media environments.
Plant, Sadie. Writing on Drugs. New York: Picador, 1999.
This book examine the history of drug use in well-known writers such as Poe, Burroughs, Foucault, and Coleridge. It also describes the influence drugs have on social consciousness and cultural life as a result of these artistic forays. Of interest here is a connection between MDMA (ecstasy), and the evolution of cyberpunk literature – creating the vocabulary for human-computer interface through an accelerated neurochemistry.
Rice, Jeff. “Cybogography: A Pedagogy of the Home Page.” Pedagogy: Critical
Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture.
5.1 (2005).
In this article, Rice combines theories about Web writing as a method of identity formation, and expressivist theories of composition (Peter Elbow), to create a new “theory of the home page” called Cyborgography. Rice explains that his purpose is to “defamiliarize” the process of using code to write a home page so that students can gain a richer understanding of the “complex relationships between writing, technology, and personal experience” (66).
Rice, Jeff. Writing About Cool: Hypertext and Cultural Studies in the Computer
Classroom. New York: Pearson Longman, 2004.
More of a textbook than a discussion of theory, Writing About Cool uses the concept of “cool” and how it is defined by popular culture as a focus for teaching connections between writing and technology. Rice use examples from the media, advertising, the Web, literature, and music to help students gain a critical understanding of popular culture’s influence on their daily lives.
Skubikowski, Kathleen, John Elder. “Computers and the Social Contexts of Writing.”
Computers and Community. Carolyn Handa, ed. Portsmouth: Boynton/Cook,
1990.
Although this article was published early on in the era of computer-mediated writing, it provides some valuable background about the way students’ writing changes as a result of the social interaction of networking, and the fluidity of word-processed text. The authors found that students were more willing to take chances with their writing if they perceived the process as “playing” with a piece rather than drafting an essay.
Swiss, Thomas. “Electronic Literature.” (no further bibliographic info available)
In this article, Swiss examines the past, present, and future of electronic literature in all of its forms. He covers everything from classic literature being re-formatted for the Web, to the continuing evolution of hypertext fiction and other examples of new media. Swiss also discusses the changes in publishing industry as a result of new modes of distribution.
Yagelski, Robert. Literacy Matters: Writing and Reading the Social Self. New York:
Teachers College Press, 2000.
This book is a thorough examination of the ways in which literacy affect our lives and shape our identities as social beings. Of particular interest here is Yagelski’s discussion of how definitions of literacy are being shaped by communications technologies such as email and hypertext.
posted by Scott Schuer | 11:15 AM
|
1 comments
