Bib #3

College English 88-90

Composing Behaviors of One- and Multi-Draft Writers
Muriel Harris
College English, Vol. 51, No. 2 (Feb., 1989), pp. 174-191

Note: This is a stretch, but there is ONE paragraph in this article that takes issue with the original notion that students who made more corrections on a word processors were doing a better job with revision – but this author challenges the assumption that more corrections automatically means better revision processes (this is echoed in another article from this time period that I will identify later!)

Writing as Collaboration
James A. Reither and Douglas Vipond
College English, Vol. 51, No. 8 (Dec., 1989), pp. 855-867

Note: the article deals with writing/peer-review as a social/collaborative exercise and only mentions the use of a word-processor once in the entire article (mentioning that it is/has been used for collaborative purposes).  This again echoes earlier work done to determine the social nature of computers in the classroom and their affordances for peer editing workshops (as students are more likely to be honest with each other as well as the network simply fosters a greater social bond between students).

Computer Conferences and Learning: Authority, Resistance, and Internally Persuasive Discourse

Marilyn M. Cooper, Cynthia L. Selfe

College English Vol. 52 No. 8 Dec. 1990 (pp. 847-869)

Cooper and Selfe detail their use of the computer lab (outside of the classroom) as a way for students to express their thoughts about the readings in a manner that they might not if they were asked to share in person in class.  Selfe and Cooper determine that students do, in fact, take advantage of the distance of their discourse.  Their students are seen as “resisting” a traditional discourse and creating new “subjectivities” through the use of computer conferencing.  AND THE MOMENT OF TRUTH: “The biggest challenge teachers face today in connection with computers is not that of using technology-we are already doing so-but rather that of using tech-nology to make a real difference in our classrooms.”  Self and Cooper seem to be the first (before I look at Computers and Composition) to suggest that we should not “sit back” and just let students compose on word processors, but we should be innovative with the technology! Self and Cooper also suggest multiple directions with the use of computers, not just conferencing.

Reading Hypertext: Order and Coherence in a New Medium

John M. Slatin
College English Vol. 52 No. 8 Dec 1990 (pp. 870-883)

As Slatin states “Both word processing and desktop pub-lishing have as their goal the production of conventional printed documents, whereas hypertext exists and can exist only online, only in the computer. A new medium involves both a new practice and a new rhetoric, a new body of theory.”  Slatin points to the completely new medium of hypertext as beneficial due to its refashioning of conventional textual organization.  Interested, too, is Slatin’s assertion that hypertext challenges the relationship between reader and author like nothing before it.

Teaching Word Processors to Be CAI Programs

Joel Nydahl

College English Vol. 52 No. 8 Dec 1990 (pp. 904-915)  

This article pits CAI software against what the author calls the “CAI potential” of word processors themselves. This is the moment of truth where English teachers finally come to the realization that the (simple) word processing capability of PCs holds just as much (if not more) potential than the software programs long thought to be the end-all be-all of composition instruction with computers.   Nydahl suggests that when students are encouraged to use the “latent capacities” of word processors in place of CAI, it fosters a better learning experience for the student as they are required to use more problem-solving skills within their composition/use of the word processor.  Nydahl does well to indicate the limitations of CAI software whereas the past several years of scholarship have been devoted to listing and exploring the affordances of CAI software.

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JAC Volume 9: 1989/1990?

Advanced Composition and the Computerized Library
Christine Hult
JAC Vol. 9

Hult indicates that libraries are changing their methods for research by abandoning card catalogs for computers and suggests that we must teach our advanced students how to conduct research with computers.  Hult describes four “computerized access tools” and provides suggestions on how to teach students in “advanced writing courses” how to use them.  The four tools she describes are online catalogs, computerized reference, online database searching, and compact discs and ROM (read only memory).  Ultimately, Hult points out that “the most important thing to remember is that information searching using computers is here to stay” (Hult).

Electrifying Classical Rhetoric: Ancient Media, Modern Technology, and Contemporary Composition

Kathleen E. Welch
JAC Vol 10.1

“we can look to electric rhetoric as one way to make the humanities something more substantial than the gentrifying of generations of upwardly mobile or already-arrived students who pass through the assembly lines of ' 'English" and other disciplines and roll off the line better prepared to buy…”

“Literacy became an even more powerful constructor of ways of thinking when movable print type made the writing and reading of the written word even more pervasive. The third stage is secondary orality. Largely electronic, this stage began with the invention of the telegraph in the 1840s and gathered more power as motion pictures, video, computers, and other forms became dominant communication modes.”  23

Fluency, Fluidity, and Word Processing

Carolyn Boiarsky
JAC Vol. 11.1

Boiarsky’s concerns focus on what she refers to as the “fluidity” of a student’s writing.  This “fluidity” refers to a student’s potential inability to make connections between their ideas during the pre-drafting and drafting phases of the writing process.  Boiarsky seeks to examine the relationship between this existing issue within student composing processes and the effect that word processing has on it.  Boiarsky concludes that if teachers are aware and able to teach their own skills with word processing composition to their students, the students will be better prepared to avoid these issues.

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CCC

Windows on Composing: Teaching Revision on Word Processors

Marcia S. Curtis
College Composition and Communication Vol. 39 No. 3 1988 (pp. 337-344)  

This interchange is important as it highlights a shift in thought/concern about word processors and the difference between “editing” and “revision” in the writing process.  The introduction to the debate indicates that word processors were thought (at the time) to be caught in a “backlash” with early scholarship indicating their benefit and current scholarship seeking to problematize their use.  Even more telling of this period in composition journals is Curtis’s call for instructors to trust their own pedagogical approaches and to experiment with word processors themselves rather than rely on the “available literature.”

Desktop Publishing: A Powerful Tool for Advanced Composition Courses

Patricia Sullivan

College Composition and Communication Vol. 39 No. 3 1988 (pp. 344-347)  

Sullivan provides an introduction to the capabilities of “desktop publishing” for advanced composition students.  Sullivan suggests that desktop publishing should not be used for freshmen composition because those courses already have a “loaded agenda.”

Principles of Generic Word Processing for Students with Independent Access to Computers

Ronald A. Sudol

College Composition and Communication Vol. 41 No. 3 1990(pp. 335-341)

Sudol suggests that we should be mining the resource of students who have access to their own home computers by not enrolling them in classes that use on-campus computers. Sudol’s reasoning for this is that the resources will be available for those students who do not have outside access. Sudol notes that the “physical proximity of computers does not by itself create a community of writers.”  This particular article is important to the progression of computers in composition courses as it marks a distinct move to suggest that the networking capabilities of computer use in composition (and the community that it fosters) do not necessarily have to occur in the same space.

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Computers and Composition V. 5 No. 2 April 88

The Computer and the Inexperienced Writer
Christine A. Hult
Computers and Composition Vol. 5 No. 2 April 1988

It’s ok to teach writing with word processors and to use them in composition classrooms, but Hult advises that students should come to the word processor with knowledge about the writing and revising process instead of learning it along with the word processor.  There is also the suggestion that we should not expect that word processors will help students become better with the revision process.

Research Update: Writing and Word Processing
Gail Hawisher
Computers and Composition Vol. 5 No. 2 April 1988

Revised empirical study of various studies gauging the effect of word processing on the writing/revision process of students.  Hawisher concludes, with even more data, that students do have fewer errors and lengthier compositions when using word processing. Hawisher is also able to conclude that basic writing students write better with word processing.

Risk Taking, Revising, and Word Processing
Delores K Schriner
Computers and Composition Vol. 5 No. 3 August 1988

Schriner contributes yet another empirical study on revision and word processing. “The results of this study confirm what other studies have shown: the word processor creates a favorable environment for writing, stimulating greater enthusiasm for the writing task among basic writers. The student writers in this study were also clearly more inclined to take risks while revising, experimenting with revisions at higher levels of the texts than those students composing with traditional tools.”

Word Processing: A Helpful Tool for Basic Writers

Craig Etchison
Computers and Composition Vol. 6 No. 2 April 89

Etchsion contributes to the empirical data on basic writers and the composing process with word processors. Etchison concludes that, while it is difficult to make sweeping generalizations when working with a small sample group, the results of his study seem to suggest that basic writers do well (and produce more text) with word processing.

A Process of Composing with Computers

Timothy Weiss

Computers and Composition Vol. 6 No. 2 April 89

Further enforcing a trend that “in order for students to gain the maximum benefits from the computer as an education and as a composition tool, they should use the computer throughout the composing process, and that teachers of writing should design computer exercises and activities that encourage this use among students.”

Developing Connections: Computers and Literacy
Ellen Barton and Ruth Ray
Computers and Composition Vol. 6 No. 3 August 1989

“We argue here against this fractured view of literacy and propose that students and faculty must take responsibility for developing a more integrated view of literacy in the university. We also suggest ways in which learning about computers could play a significant role in learning about literacy.”

How Word Processing is Changing our Teaching: New Technologies, New Approaches, New Challenges

Dawn Rodrigues and Raymond Rodrigues

Computers and Composition Vol. 7 No. 1 Nov. 89

Rodrigues and Rodrigues explore the ways in which teachers who use word processing and computers in their classrooms are altering their writing instruction.  The conclusion is that teachers are going beyond the typical writing classroom by instructing students to think differently about the writing process through the use of word processors for composing.

Overcoming Resistance: Computers in the Writing Classroom

Laura Brady
Computers and Composition Vol. 7 No. 2

Brady provides yet another article about resistance and potential for word processing.  This particular study focuses on first-year composition students and determines that the best case scenario is when all students are familiar with CAI, but maintains that even a classroom with a portion of proficient students can foster camaraderie in learning.

The Face of Collaboration in the Networked Writing Classroom

Geoffrey Sirc & Tom Reynolds

Computers and Composition Vol. 7 Special Issue 1990

Sirc and Reynolds explore the use of LAN networking in the classroom and determine that students are more receptive to critique when collaborating on the network.  This essay marks the first moment in composition journals where the conversation shifts to LAN networks in the classroom.

Distant Writers, Distant Critics, and Close Readings:
Linking Composition Classes Through A Peer-Critiquing Network

Michael Steven Marx

Computers and Composition Vol. 8 No. 1 Nov. 1990

“The use of a distance network to exchange drafts and critique letters between composition classes at different colleges creates a distance between student critics and student authors which, ironically, brings students closer together in analyzing and discussing written texts. Because of the increased understanding students have gained about the demands of effective written communication, a distance peer-critiquing network also brings students closer to their own writing.”