Composition: History & Theory: 1990 - 1999
Hawisher, Gail E., et al. Computers and the Teaching of Writing in American Higher Education (1996)
Description
The authors of this text approached the advent of computers as teachers interested in using them to help their students become better writers. They find that “computers are ways of helping students achieve their learning goals and teachers their instructional goals” (4). The authors encourage readers and educators to consider “facing the need to function within changing (radically new) social, economic, and technical environments” that computers offer. The authors remind us that what is history in computers and composition is not the same in every place on earth, each city, each campus. In many cases what is history is just beginning at another school. Taking liberties with form, this is a multi-vocal text where the reader experiences conversations between the main text and sidebar text (which contains e-mails, statistics, and author exchanges), and interviews and MOO transcripts at the end of the chapters and the end of the book respectively.
The authors believe that what’s at stake with their subject is simple. The field of computers and composition is human, therefore it is political. This makes me think of Alexander’s Digital Youth and how he questioned whether education will provide our youth with the ability to shape new media, or will they passively wait to be shaped themselves by new media? Will this new literacy marginalize others as literacies have done in the past (written word)? What are the racial, gender, sexual, and economic implications of this field?
The authors begin by stating the history of computers and composition is not principally about computers, but about people; their book is about how computers entered the field and how people in the field used them. Furthermore, their history is part of a larger history in the revolution in communication technology: 1. For untold millennia humans could talk. 2. Then, for 4K years humankind devised ways to embody speech in written form that could be kept over time and transported over space. 3. Then, with Gutenberg, 500 years ago (and counting), written texts could be disseminated in mass copies. 4. The new era we are entering (as of ’96 and today), the era where we have discovered how to use electromagnetic energy to convey messages that up to now have been sent by voice, picture and text” (1). The authors emphasize the importance (as do the reviewers) of knowing just how all this stuff came to be in order to appreciate it and know what to do with it.
Computers were around in military, science, business, and even school administration long before reaching composition classrooms, let alone classrooms in general. From the 50s-80s, computers were absent from English classrooms because of the marginal status of: 1. composition studies in English, 2. English departments in the academy, and 3. the academy in the grander scheme of US government. Furthermore, what took so long for the computer to reach the classroom was because of teacher lobby for allocation of funds to libraries between 50s-70s. During this time it was hard to argue for number crunching machines when libraries needed much of the extra money that was available at the time. The 80s-90s saw the early word processors, mainframe line editors, and the advent of the personal computer. It is amazing to think of how simple word processing and digital copies of writing blew people away technology-wise (see Hugh Burns Int. p. 56), with all the software and gizmos we have at our fingers today. There are plenty of writing tools that we have yet to take full advantage of (and may never), there is so much yet to research and discover.
Computers and the Teaching of Writing in American Higher Education, 1979-1994: A History. (reviews)
Nellen, Ted. “A Reading of Hawisher, LeBlanc, Moran, & Selfe’s Computers and the Teaching of Writing in American Higher Education, 1979-1994: A History.” Kairos, 2.1. 16 Feb. 2009.
Nellen learned from the book that the evolution of the computer in the writing class is one of “sharing, experimenting, accepting and rejecting”. Nellen notes how the camaraderie of the authors and their interactions on “on listservs, at conferences, and moo sessions” is monumental in how they bring a communal feel to academia. The reviewer emphasizes the books consideration of the “Ah-ha effect” that was happening to teachers rather than students in how to use technology to improve the teaching of writing. This lent itself to a renewed excitement in teaching writing and an expansion of technology in the field of English. Furthermore, Ted liked how the book lends itself to identifying with the participants (authors, interviewees, textual interactions from the margins), he said it made him feel strong and empowered in a field that many doubt.
Strasma, Kip. “Papertext Review of Computers and the Teaching of Writing in American Higher Education,1979-1994: A History.” Kairos, 2.1. 16 Feb. 2009.
This was a hypertext review with various approaches to reading/appreciating the text such as hypertext, a computers and composition narrative, a journal, a great novel, science fiction, or as a textbook. Kenneth Burke suggests that realities can be shaped by language. Strasma cites Burke’s idea that “one’s attention is drawn to certain realities based upon the kinds of nomenclature used to entitle and communicate,” using it to explain his hyperlink review. The reviewer liked how the book layered concurrent events in the side margin text such as the “commentary from great books like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (107), and landmark events like the awarding of the Best Dissertation award to Sarah Sloane (189)”. Kip claims that “each re-reading of the text is new” and I must agree that when I began reading the text I realized this was a text you read more than once (Strasma). Finally, Strasma observes a shift in the books focus: “beginning with chapter two and the birth of the journal in newsletter form, more and more attention is directed toward that central publication” (Strasma).
Date of Upload
3/15/09