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Sterling Heights, Michigan, United States
PhD in Rhetoric and Composition + Senior Lecturer in Composition at Wayne State University with a passion for education, health, and fitness (mental and physical). I teach writing, research composition, and blog about anything from teaching fitness, owning a small business, physical and mental health, to perspectives on body acceptance and body positivity.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Money and morality

I begin with one of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite films (which was also my favorite play prior to reading anything by Harold Pinter - but I digress): In My Fair Lady, Colonel Pickering asks Alfred Doolittle, "Have you no morals, man?!" and Alfred replies, "Nah, gov'ner. Can't afford 'em." 

The scene from Pygmallion is the first thing that entered my brain while reading "Scott, Hogg, and the Gift-Book Editors."  And it is precisely that scene which encompasses, I think, the intersection of idealism and capital that so affected Scott, Hogg, and other authors.

Although I admit that I do not have much to say about Keepsake books, my ears and eyes are tuned to the conversation about the evolution of copyright and I am always excited to read accounts of the persona of popular/notable authors in history.  Coincidentally, but appropriately enough, my students debated author ethos this morning.  A few students noted that, when it comes to ethos, they are never concerned about "who" is writing a fictional text and that they only find it necessary to know ethos for someone who is making a clear (in this case written) argument.  Whether or not we think this is a "correct" approach to authorship, it made me think (and still does) about how perspectives change when we do know something about a person's ideologies/character regardless of whether or not we went searching for that information.

This makes me think of Scott and Hogg and their resistance to the Keepsake and increasingly consumable/"generic literary production." Hill ultimately describes the "author in the face of industrial production" as having a compromised status - but as we know from the accounts of both Scott and Hogg, this is based on their perceptions of themselves (as in the case of Wordsworth, too) and not necessarily the perceptions of those enjoying the literature (be it an illustrated Keepsake or not).  And so, in the spirit of raw undergraduate freshmen critique of ethos, should we as readers even care what opinion the authors have of themselves? Amidst the larger issue of copyright, intellectual property, and "divine inspiration," this may be a basic query glossed over. Yes, economics and consumption matters - as the audience dictated the demand for Keepsake novels, but I wonder to what degree the readership knew about such severe distaste from the authors themselves and what impact that might have had.*

*Disclaimer: If this was covered in either essay and I just missed it/forgot it, please feel free to point it out to me! :)

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Research Bibliography #8


01-02
Computers and Composition:
           
The art of ALT: toward a more accessible Web
John M. Slatin
Computers and Composition Vol. 18.1 2001 pp. 73-81

Continuing innovations in pedagogical uses of the Web are consistent with our discipline’s long-standing commitment to the expansion of literacy. Surging interest in multimedia and visual rhetoric emphasizes the importance of the 1999 Web Content Accessibility Guidelines as a tool for instructors seeking to make their Web documents accessible to learners and colleagues who have disabilities. Text-only variants of media-rich sites are not sufficient; on the Web, as on our campuses, separate is not and cannot be equal. Changes in the way we approach designing class Web sites may be necessary to enable all learners to participate equally in the learning community. Accessibility is not a property of the document: It is situated in specific contexts and distributed across multiple agents and artifacts. A Web experience designed to be rich and meaningful for people with disabilities is likely to be rich and meaningful for those without disabilities as well; however, the reverse is not necessarily true.

Digital literacy and rhetoric: a selected bibliography
Carolyn Handa
Computers and Composition Vol. 18.2 2001 Pp. 195-202     

The perils of creating a class Web site: it was the best of times, it was the …
Greg WIckliff, Kathleen Blake Yancey
Computers and Composition Vol. 18.2 2001 pp. 177-186

This article explains the visual and computing demands of Web-site authoring in a junior level, undergraduate honors course at a large public university. We argue that the students in this course—highly literate and skilled in the production of conventional printed academic writing—performed much like basic writers when challenged with acquiring a broad set of new visual and computer literacy skills. We argue for the value of the illustrated essay as a halfway point for connecting our expectations of Web site authoring to students’ previous experiences with the production of printed academic discourse.

Part 2: toward an integrated composition pedagogy in hypertext
Sean D. Williams
Computers and Composition Vol. 18.2 2001 pp. 123-135

Because digital technology increases student access to a diversity of expressive media, we as composition instructors must model our engagement with the multiple forms of literacy that constitute students’ lives. We must reimagine composition, therefore, as a discipline that teaches a composite literacy that integrates verbal and visual media within hypertext. To help students develop the skills necessary to compose and to critique new media compositions, I argue that composition instruction should be based upon a design model mirroring composition’s process-based pedagogy, by asking students to plan, transform evaluate and revise media-rich, hypertextual documents. I also comment on a sample assignment that demonstrates how an integrated composition might be constructed using the design model and conclude by arguing that, in addition to helping students acquire skill with a new literacy, this pedagogy encourages students to recognize that multiple perspectives always attend any issue under discussion.

Emerging pedagogy: teaching digital hypertexts in social contexts
Kip Strasma
Computers and Composition Vol. 18.3 2001 Pp. 257-274

Fluid texts such as digital texts and hyperfictions present users with both individual and social challenges. In the classroom, particularly, teachers should take advantage of the multiple aspects of narrative time constructed through hypertextual duration, frequency, and order. These challenges, or disjunctures, invite teachers and students into transformative moments, or rejunctures, within the context of the classroom. Based upon an ethnographic study of two college courses, I illustrate several of these opportunities as they subvert the dominant orders of textuality totalized by print-based culture and form an emergent pedagogy.

Note: Vol. 18.4 : Special Issue about distance learning

How near and yet how far? Theorizing distance teaching
Susan Miller
Computers and Composition Vol. 18.4 2001 pp. 321-328

This article theoretically maps out the larger principles that we must consider when thinking about distance learning. I explore the ways in which students’ and teachers’ identities must shift in these new contexts. Pointing to the changes that will or could occur when we move writing courses online, I make the overarching argument that Composition Studies needs “a theorized preparation for shifts in pedagogy that distance courses make visible.”

Interfacing email tutoring: Shaping an emergent literate practice
Dana Anderson
Computers and Composition Vol. 19.1 2002 pp. 71-87

A growing consensus within writing center literature regards the various modes of computer-mediated collaboration as discrete literate practices with literate aims different than those of face-to-face collaboration. My descriptive analysis of 29 online writing lab (OWL) sites for email tutoring—currently the most popular mode of computer-mediated collaboration—considers how email tutoring site interfaces represent the literate practice of email tutoring, shaping expectations and experiences consistent with its literate aims. The analysis suggests that email tutoring interfaces articulate what can be taxonomized as first- and second-level representations of their services. Within these levels of representation, interfaces gather information from collaborative participants through means that can be characterized as simple, intermediate, and extensive. In addition, how individual OWLs represent the tutors who participate in email tutoring can be placed along a continuum from functional to personal emphases. In conclusion, I assert that an important aspect of theorizing the future of technology and literacy in the writing center is current attention toward how the actual OWL interfaces allowing for online collaboration shape emergent computer-mediated literate practices such as email tutoring.

“It wasn’t me, was it?” Plagiarism and the Web
Danielle DeVoss, Annette C. Rosati
Computers and Composition Vol. 19.2 2002 pp. 191-203

Issues of plagiarism are complex, and made all the more complicated by students’ increasing use of the World Wide Web as a research space. In this article, we describe several situations we faced as teachers in writing-intensive classrooms—experiences common to most teachers of writing. We share these examples to explore how issues related to plagiarism and its effects are both reproduced and change in new research spaces. We also share these stories to discuss how we can best handle plagiarism in first-year writing classrooms and how we can best equip students with the tools necessary to do appropriate research—both online and offline.

Note: Vol. 19.3 has a lot of articles about gender (female) and identity. 

Power, language, and identity: Voices from an online course
L.E.Sujo de Montes, Sally M. Oran, Elizabeth M. Willis
Computers and Composition Vol. 19.3 2002 pp. 251-271

Distance learning, especially in computer-mediated environments, is the new trend in education. Universities fear that they will be left behind or even become extinct if they do not offer online courses (). Very little is known about effective pedagogy in online environments, much less the power, authority, and control relationships that occur when conversations are not face-to-face. The course described in this article is a bilingual education course in which participants were involved in extensive writing and publishing of their ideas on the Web. Through bulletin board postings, power relationships between majority and minority students became evident during the semester. Students described their struggles with living and working in a society that, in many cases, institutionalizes racism. Included in this article is a discussion of how the race factor is usually turned “off” () or is in its “default,” White mode () in online environments. Finally, the authors offer implications for interactions between instructors and students and student peers in online

The politics of the program: ms word as the invisible grammarian
Tim McGee, Patricia Ericsson
Computers and Composition Vol. 19.4 2002 pp. 453-470

Because of its widespread availability to writing students, the grammar and style checker in ms word deserves a thorough critique. Although recent scholarship has addressed general issues surrounding grammar and style checkers, we investigate this particular program in depth, focusing on its theoretical underpinnings. We contrast the approaches to grammar and style embodied in the software with those found in current composition pedagogy and conclude with suggestions that go beyond customizing the Grammar Checker to advocating more thorough discussions of the very notions of stylistic and grammatical correctness.

Annotation technologies: A software and research review
Joanna Wolfe
Computers and Composition Vol. 19.4 2002 pp. 471-497

This article describes a range of currently available and developing technologies for creating and presenting annotations, glosses, and other comments on digital documents. The potential applications of these tools for providing feedback to student writers, supporting extended group discussions around digital texts, and facilitating research and reading-to-write tasks are discussed. Different software programs are compared and evaluated and composition researchers are urged to engage in research that will influence the design of future annotation technologies.

Note: Some stuff on technologies/software/grammar/word

PEDAGOGY 01-02

This Page Is under Construction": Reading Women Shaping On-line Identities
Danielle N. DeVoss, Cynthia L. Selfe
Pedagogy
Volume 2, Issue 1, Winter 2002 pp. 31-48 

“Increasing numbers of English studies teachers, recognizing the importance of on-line literacy practices, incorporate assignments into their classes that require students to design and publish home pages on the World Wide Web. In addition, increasing numbers of students design such pages on their own to showcase their interests, indicate their electronic literacy skills to prospective employers, and create on-line spaces for themselves. Our understandings of identity, subjectivity, agency, and literacy are reshaped in virtual realms, where the task of composing evolves. As a profession, however, we have paid little attention to the ways that individuals establish their identities on-line on and through home pages.”

Researching in the New Public Access
Brian P. Hudson
Pedagogy
Volume 2, Issue 2, Spring 2002 pp. 257-261

Excerpt: “Whenever I think of public access television, I think of Ask Me Anything, a call-in show on a Detroit public access cable station some years back. It featured a puffy, mustachioed host who called himself Professor Quagmire and did each show in a graduation cap and gown. Local viewers would call in with questions—anything from "Why is the sky blue?" to "What does E = mc really mean?"—and Professor Quagmire would answer them. Sometimes his answers were well informed, even academic. Other times he would take a few basic facts and pair them with ad-lib jokes and half-truths, firing scattershot for the right answer or at least for a cheap laugh. Occasionally his responses were on target. Often they were far off the mark or downright ridiculous. The Internet is much like Professor Quagmire: sometimes full of information, at other times merely full of it. With the same easy-access, anything-goes mentality that has long dominated the public access airwaves, the Internet has become the new epitome of free expression and unfettered information. For student researchers, this can be both a blessing and a curse.”

Click Here to Organize
Marcia. Dickson
Pedagogy
Volume 2, Issue 2, Spring 2002 pp. 253-257

Issues with access

Critical Work in First-Year Composition: Computers, Pedagogy, and Research
Barbara B. Duffelmeyer
Pedagogy
Volume 2, Issue 3, Fall 2002 pp. 357-374

“Constructing forms of agency . . . relies on individuals' abilities to see culture as "leaky" by mobilizing the multiplicity they bring to any cultural production. . . . Rather than a predetermined discursive or ideological production, the subject becomes a site of cultural negotiation herself, individuated in her relationship to ideology. —Donna LeCourt (1998: 285) For those who work in postsecondary composition and believe in a critical pedagogical approach to that work, simple, dichotomous positionings relative to writing technology (either-or, hegemonic, or oppositional) are problematic. Indeed, our discipline's scholarship is moving away from reductive, unrealistic ways of thinking about teaching and learning in computer-enhanced composition classrooms (Braun 2001: 129).”

Written Communication


Comparing E-Mail and Synchronous Conferencing in Online Peer Response
Lee Honeycutt
Written Communication January 2001 18: 26-60

“This article details study results comparing e-mail and synchronous conferencing as vehicles for online peer response. The study draws on Clark and Brennan's theory of communicative “grounding,” which predicts that participants use different techniques for achieving mutual knowledge depending on the type of media being used. Content analysis of transcripts from both types of response sessions showed that when using e-mail, students made significantly greater reference to documents, their contents, and rhetorical contexts than when using synchronous conferencing. Students made greater reference to both writing and response tasks using synchronous chats than when using e-mail. Students' individual media preferences showed no significant differences in terms of message formulation, reception, and usefulness of comments in aiding revision. However, in a forced comparison scale, students rated e-mail more serious and helpful than chats, which were then rated more playful than e-mail. Implications of the study's results and areas for future research are also discussed.

Technical Communication Quarterly

Thinking Critically about Technological Literacy: Developing a Framework to Guide Computer Pedagogy in Technical Communication
Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch
Technical Communication Quarterly Vol. 11.3 2002 pp. 267-288

Issues related to technological literacy can provide a useful frame for thinking critically about computer-based instruction in technical communication. This article identifies issues of technological literacy related to performance, contextual factors, and linguistic activities. When considered collectively, these issues provide technical communication students with a mechanism to identify and analyze a range of perspectives associated with technology and communication.


Integrating Intercultural Online Learning Experiences into the Computer Classroom
Kirk St. Amant
Technical Communication Quarterly Vol. 11.3 2002 pp. 289-315

Technical communicators of the new millennium will need to develop certain skills to succeed in international online interactions (IOls), and computer classrooms with online access can help students to develop these skills through direct interaction with materials and individuals from other cultures. This article presents exercises instructors can use to help students develop these particular skills.
Critical Engagement with Technology in the Classroom
Michael J. Salvo
Technical Communication Quarterly Vol. 11.3 2002 pp. 317-337

This article proposes a model for critically engaging technology in technical communication graduate curricula. While computers and writing studies concentrates on academic writing, the development of the field provides a model for engaging technological issues in professional and classroom contexts. Technical communicators have an ethical as well as intellectual responsibility to engage the interface between technology and culture. This article describes one example, a graduate class in information architecture, as a model for engaging the nexus of literacy, technology, and culture.


Why Are Partnerships Necessary for Computer Classroom Administration?
Sean D. Williams
Technical Communication Quarterly Vol. 11.3 2002 pp. 339-358

Computer classrooms (CCs) have been an important part of writing instruction since the mid 1980s, yet little scholarship concerns the roles that directors of computer classrooms play in maintaining these facilities. Based on a review of scholarship of CC administration and an informal survey of CC administrators, this article argues that CC directors walk a tightrope between the role of teacher and manager and that we need to focus on building partnerships to maintain our facilities, because we simply cannot do by ourselves everything that this complex role requires of us.

Technical Communication


Visual-spatial Thinking in Hypertexts
Johnson-Sheehan, Richard; Baehr, Craig
Technical Communication, Volume 48, Number 1, February 2001 , pp. 22-30(9)

This article explores what it means to think visually and spatially in hypertexts. As visual-spatial texts, hypertexts urge users to think differently than they do with paper-based (verbal-linear) texts, perceiving the hypertext in three-dimensions and imagining the possible “future paths” that might be followed in the text. Drawing from research on visual-spatial thinking from cognitive science, we explore how users react and maneuver in real and virtual three-dimensional spaces. Then we offer four principles of visual thinking that can be applied to the development of hypertexts. Illustrative uses of these principles are provided.


Metaphorical Confusion and Spatial Mapping in an Age of Ubiquitous Computing
Gillette, David
Technical Communication, Volume 48, Number 1, February 2001 , pp. 42-48(7)

When computing moves into the shifting, spatially defined information environments that surround us every day, technical communicators need to think about how users already understand and work with the world itself as a type of walk-through, live-in information device. We need to consider how embedding computers into the world will alter the information designs we have been building for two-dimensional on-screen spaces. We need to broaden online design aesthetics and construction techniques by applying not only standard design theory derived from print, film, and television, but also by incorporating theories from the domains of commercial design, cognitive psychology, and architectural and civil design. The first place we can put some of these ideas to use is in understanding how spatial mapping functions in the search for information.


Document (re)Presentation: Object-orientation, Visual Language, and XML
Johnsen, Lars
Technical Communication, Volume 48, Number 1, February 2001 , pp. 59-65(7)

This article demonstrates how the combination of object-orientation and Horn’s notions of visual language morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics may be used to analyze and describe the mapping of marked-up XML files onto user documents. The article also raises the question of whether—or to what extent—the coupling of object-orientation and visual language might be exploited more directly for design purposes in a document production paradigm based on XML.


Technical Communication in an Altered Technology Landscape: What Might Be
Zimmerman, Muriel
Technical Communication, Volume 48, Number 2, May 2001 , pp. 200-205(6)

Technical communicators create support products that mediate between people and their computers. However, human-computer relations of the future may not require the reading of manuals or even direct manipulation of the interface. These relations may be delegated to agents, computer surrogates that possess a body of knowledge about something and about the user in relation to that something. A new class of applications may suggest information relevant to the user’s situation, proactively offering advice that the user didn’t know to ask for. Technical communicators will have continuing roles in enabling users because of their knowledge of the ways that people want to learn from machines. The skills required for technical communicators in the next computer revolution will change at least as much in the next 5 years as they have in the past 5 years.


On Writing, Technical Communication, and Information Technology: The Core Competencies of Technical Communication
Hart-Davidson, William
Technical Communication, Volume 48, Number 2, May 2001 , pp. 145-155(11)

This article contributes two arguments to the disciplinary conversation of technical communication with the aim of exploring leadership opportunities our field has in the field of information technology. The arguments assert that
1. Writing is the core technology in any IT system, and all IT systems attempt to leverage the core strengths of writing to make these systems more valuable.
2. Technical communicators have a central role to play in IT systems consonant with our core competencies: we attend to the balance of situated as opposed to generalized strategies and the balance of appeals to identity in writing about the practical use of technology, and we are well prepared to attend to these balances in other important arenas of IT discourse.
Together, these two arguments are meant to begin or continue conversations—in workplace and academic contexts alike—that bring the issues of IT development and the future of technical communication closely together.


Making the Most of Interactivity Online
Andrisani, Debbie; Gaal, Anna V.; Gillette, David; Steward, Sherry
Technical Communication, Volume 48, Number 3, August 2001 , pp. 309-323(15)

Technical communicators need to create effective online interactions to help users understand the scope, purpose, and limits of their online documents. Ideally, a well-designed online document provides an integrated data environment. It functions as the interface between the user and a system, allowing for the retrieval and assimilation of information needed to perform a task. Online information can be presented in a variety of formats, including online help systems, computer-based training (CBT) programs, and interactive electronic technical manuals (IETM). The benefits of an effective online system include the elimination of paper bulk and storage, improved document usability through interactivity, and the use of the document as a learning, training, and research aid.


Information Design for the Small-screen Interface: An Overview of Web Design Issues for Personal Digital Assistants
Albers, Michael; Kim, Loel
Technical Communication, Volume 49, Number 1, February 2002 , pp. 45-60(16)

At the same time that increasing amounts of information are being disseminated using Web interfaces, personal digital assistants (PDAs) or handheld computing devices have proliferated. However, as the ways that we need to use information grow, and as the range of information available online continues to diversify, our basic Web design assumptions should be examined to determine how the small, low-resolution screen, predominantly text-based design, and relatively cumbersome interfaces affect information search and retrieval.
In the near future, we expect these issues to have a major impact on information design as more and more information is accessed through PDAs. This article charts a theoretical framework for understanding differences between handheld and full-sized Web environments, and identifies design issues for further research.

Technical Communication, Knowledge Management, and XML
Applen, J. D.
Technical Communication, Volume 49, Number 3, August 2002 , pp. 301-313(13)

Technical communicators can expand their roles into the realm of knowledge management by augmenting their already considerable skills with a basic understanding of XML coding and a critical understanding of how this applied tool can allow us to shape, store, and transfer knowledge. To do this, they can start by examining how the use of tools and their relationship to the materials, assumptions, and methods of the scientific community contribute to the culture of research activity and then transferring these ideas to their workplaces. Additionally, they need to understand that knowledge management systems can include tacit knowledge. In their roles as knowledge managers, they can teach organization members to help design, access, and contribute to databases; alert them to new information as it is made available in knowledge repositories; and work to facilitate an environment of trust and sharing that allows knowledge management systems to flourish.

JAC


The Political Economy of Computers and Composition: “Democracy Hope” in the Era of Globalization
M.J Braun
JAC Vol. 21.1 2001 

Braun beings by identifying the long-standing trend in the discipline of composition: fostering opposition between the technology “luddites” and the “technophiles.”  Braun suggests that there is greater complexity behind both “camps” as they are currently understood and cites a few scholars whose work exemplifies the ability to go beyond the old dichotomy.  This article furthers this discussion by introducing the “critique of capital” into the discussion of the technologizing of composition.

Note: (got lost in the debate between Marback and Blakeslee)


Process-Product Ambiguity: Theorizing a Perspective on World Wide Web Argumentation
Sean D. Williams
JAC 22.2 2002

“It is the purpose of this article to examine this paradox, to theorize what might characterize World Wide Web argumentation, and specifically to give an account of the "process-product ambiguity" that enables Web-based argument. In what follows, I ground the notion of process-product ambiguity in a combination of Toulmin's model of argumentation and webtextuality because both rely on motion (process) and reasoning within constrained contexts (product). I conclude with a summary that draws together the discussions of process-product ambiguity, proposing a new perspective on argumentation specifically suited for the Web.”

KAIROS


Generating New Theory for Online Writing Instruction (OWI)
Beth L. Hewett
Kairos 6:2 2001

“In this webtext, I argue that educators, scholars, and researchers with interests in online writing instruction (OWI) should adopt a theory-generating stance regarding the online environment, technological platforms, pedagogies, and guiding philosophies encapsulated within OWI. I use online writing instruction or OWI as an umbrella term that includes all educational uses of computer or Internet technologies for teaching or coaching writing. Under OWI, I place computer-mediated communication (CMC) for classroom and writing/peer group situations, computer-based literary study, as well as individualized writing instruction such as that found in online writing lab (OWL) tutorials.”


What Writing Students Get From the Net: Using Synchronous Communication to Develop Writerly Skills
Lara Baker Whelan
Kairos 6:1 2001

The author provides her own experiences with teaching technology as a reaction to those around her who claimed that technology will provide nothing new for the composition classroom and is, essentially, a waste of time.  Whelan states, “Ironically, however, the detractors of teaching technology encouraged me to continue to teach online in order to find ways to prove them wrong.  I began to look more deliberately for ways that students could get something valuable and unique from being online as part of their writing instruction. I stumbled across a somewhat oversimplified "formula" for incorporating online technology into composition, and used this formula to put synchronous communication to work for me and my students.”


Communication as the Foundation for Distance Education
Robert F. Brooks
Kairos 7:2 2002
“My purpose in this chapter is to build a theoretical framework for designing web-based distance learning courses that goes beyond a simple transmission model of communication.  The goal is to provide a model to guide the development of online teaching and learning practices that will elevate students to becoming more interactive and thoughtful citizens in our democratic society.  By necessity, the construction of this model relies upon theoretical insights from communication, information studies, education, and psychology.  I approach the task by (a) providing an introduction to distance learning, (b) addressing the link between communication and information, (c) relating learning to interaction with material information and other people, and (d) building the framework for practical application of the model.  I close with a recommendation for building communities of learning.”


Private Literacies, Popular Culture, and Going Public: Teachers and Students as Authors of the Electronic Portfolio
Joe Wilferth
Kairos 7:2 2002

College English


What Happens When Machines Read Our Students Writing?
Anne Harrington, Charles Moran
College English Vol. 63.4 March 2001
Upholding the “teacher as reader,” Harrington and Moran provide a non-technophobic critique of emergent assessment technologies.  This article first provides a history of composition’s attitude toward assessment technologies and focuses on two particular ETS technologies: WritePlacer Plus and Intelligent Essay Assessor. 

Note: (Electronic dissertations?)

CCC


Conversation and Carrying-On: Play, Conflict, and Serio-Ludic Discourse in Synchronous Computer Conferencing
Albert Rouzie
College Composition and Communication Vol. 53.2 Dec. 2001

“This essay examines a series of interchange transcripts to demonstrate how discourse that combines serious and playful purposes works to provoke and mediate conflict. Students use serio-ludic discourse to critique and to negotiate power relations and gendered subject positions with both positive and negative results.”

Sunday, March 4, 2012

An endless journey and the pleasure therein

Today I participated in the American Lung Association Fight For Air Climb - this was my second year in a row participating in the event.  Each year the ALA raises money for a number of causes, including funding to provide free resources for those who are trying to quit smoking.  Those who know me know that I am a former smoker who never had much of a problem kicking the habit but who also believes in supporting (rather than judging) those who are having trouble.

But when it comes to cigarettes, to be honest I have a hard time believing that people still smoke.  It's an odd feeling when you quit - your sense of smell and taste are heightened sure, but it's almost as if you exist in another world where cigarettes are foreign and difficult to understand - a cultural anomaly.  And when I'm confronted with people who smoke, I want to support them but at the same time I want to ask them why in the hell they would choose to harm themselves in that way - even when I know all of the answers to that question! I smoked - I remember. So because I can go no further than support, I choose to lend a hand to an organization that can take it from there - I choose to raise money to help others quit or never start at all.

Four years ago I was a 210 lb smoker who had trouble making it up the stairs to my bedroom. Today, I am a 145lb non-smoker who climbed 70 flights of stairs in 11 minutes.  It's an amazing, rewarding experience to feel the power of my lungs and know that I re-claimed them - to know that they'll be strong and powerful when I need them most.  The money the ALA raised this year through this event will in part, hopefully, prove to others that they are worth that same experience.

I climb for those who cannot. I climb BECAUSE I CAN.

Research Bibliography #7

Computers and Composition 

Does the medium make the magic? The effects of cooperative learning and conferencing software
Hansel Burley
Computers and Composition Vol. 15.1 1998 Pp. 83-95

This article explores the effects of computer-assisted writing environments on composition students, focusing on the effects of cooperative learning and conferencing software. I found that word processing alone has little effect on writing behavior; however, conferencing software seems to help create a more authentic writing environment than found in the traditional classroom or in one that uses word processing alone. This conferencing environment became a catalyst for a distinctive learning ecology that interrelated prosocial student behaviors, learner-centered teaching, and assessment. The conferencing class did more than help students to apply critical thinking and problem-solving skills in interaction with others. It helped students identify and use varying learning styles of cooperative groups to successfully reach writing goals

Who owns the course? Online composition courses in an era of changing intellectual property policies
Susan Lang
Computers and Composition Vol. 15.2 1998 pp. 215-228

This article examines existing copyright law, the ambiguous case law concerning copyrightable material and educators, university policies toward patent and copyright law, and the changing nature of educational institutions in the 1990s to consider the question of who “owns” an online composition course, or any course for that matter, in the late twentieth century. I argue that composition instructors need to consider the following issues as they design and revise courses with a significant online component. Who has historically and contractually controlled course materials created by faculty members? Who owns course materials developed for particular courses? Why should the transition to networked computing environments change the nature of course materials ownership? Are there substantiative differences between materials created for a traditional composition course and an online course? The answers to these questions may fundamentally change the ways instructors create and use instructional materials.

Note: As part of a special issue on copyright and computers

What students see: Word processing and the perception of visual design
Mike Markel
Computers and Composition Vol. 15.3 1998 pp. 373-386

A study of students who have completed the first-year composition sequence shows that they are aware of, and understand the function of, some common design elements (boldface, italics, numbered lists) but are much less aware of other design elements (such as headers, indentation, and line spacing). These students' perceptions of design elements correlate strongly with their self-reported experience using word-processing packages and with their attitude concerning the design of a document and how that affects their ability to communicate, but not with other related demographics or attitudes. This study suggests that using a word-processing package can help writers learn to use and understand important elements of visual design. As more and more information is presented by dynamic, protean media such as the Internet, the ability to understand the codes of visual rhetoric will become more important for writers. Visual rhetoric should be addressed more directly in our teaching and research.
Note: Issue 16.1 1999 – special issue on feminism/feminist issues in hypertext, etc.

On the relationship between old and new technologies
Christina Haas
Computers and Composition Vol. 16.2 1999 pp. 209-228

The author argues for complicating current views of writing technology, specifically views of the relationship between old and new literacy technologies. Using a Vygotskian theory and a grounded theory methodology, the author explores the uses of old and new technologies of three contemporary work sites to ground claims that (a) competing visions of what technology is and what it can do are operative in contemporary workplaces, (b) multiple literacy technologies are copresent in the conduct of work, and (c) more advanced literacy technologies are not necessarily the most powerful within work cultures. The case studies are also interpreted through the lens of Bijker’s theory of sociotechnical change.
           
Reading between the code: the teaching of HTML and the displacement of writing instruction
Nicholas Mauriello, Gian S Pagnucci, Tammy Winner
Computers and Composition Vol. 16.3 1999 pp. 409-419

The introduction of hypertext markup language (HTML) into the composition classroom often complicates traditional text-bound assignments. The process of incorporating HTML codes into writing can be frustrating because HTML is difficult to learn. More time spent learning coding skills may mean less time spent learning other writing skills. In many ways, learning HTML is like learning a second language. Unlike other pedagogical tools, though, HTML seems to blur the lines of our discipline. It turns the traditional composition course into a hybrid language/writing/computer course. This reshaping displaces traditional writing activities with technology-based instruction, thus challenging the notion of what constitutes appropriate curricular content within the composition classroom. This curricular change necessitates political action on the part of technology-focused teachers, for instance the establishment of new types of teaching collaboratives and the rethinking of departmental policies.

The new frontier: conquering the World Wild Web by mule
Morgan Gresham
Computers and Composition Vol. 16.3 pp. 395-407

This article offers a close examination of the effects that teaching hypertext markup language (HTML) has on students’ perceptions of class goals in a networked composition classroom. A networked classroom that requires students to send documents using a file transfer protocol (FTP) by command line and view the World Wide Web with a textual browser shifts the emphasis of the class from writing to coding. Helping students identify a balance between computer technology and writing goals becomes essential to a successful classroom.

Note: Vol 17.1 2000 – Issues of computers/instructors who use computers and questions of tenure

The influence of word processing on English placement text results
Susanmarie Harrington, Mark D Shermis, Angela L Rollins
Computers and Composition Vol 17.2 2000 pp. 197-210

A study was conducted to consider two issues: (a) whether differences might emerge in writing quality when students wrote examinations by hand The influence of word processing on English placement test results or on a computer and (b) whether raters differed in their evaluation of essays written by hand, on a computer, or by hand and then transcribed to typed form before scoring. A total of 480 students from a large Midwestern university were randomly assigned into one of three essay groups: (a) those who composed their responses in a traditional bluebook, (b) those who wrote in a bluebook, then had their essays transcribed into a computer, and (c) those who wrote their essays on the computer. A one-way ANOVA revealed no statistically significant differences in ratings among the three groups [F(2,475) = 1.21, ns]. The discussion centers on the need for testing programs to examine the relationship between assessment and prior writing experiences, student preferences for testing medium, and rater training regarding the possible impact of technology on scores.

Computerized grammar checkers 2000: capabilities, limitations, and pedagogical possibilities
Alex Vernon
Computers and Composition Vol. 17.3 2000 pp. 329-349

Since commercial word-processing software integrated grammar checkers in the early 1990s, the composition community has scaled back its printed work on this technology to pursue more urgent issues of new technologies (new media, online composition, etc.) and their theoretical implications. Yet the functionality of grammar checkers has changed dramatically, and we should continue to explore the pedagogical possibilities of a tool now available whenever students compose on a computer. Grammar checkers remain troublesome and inaccurate—we should consider teaching students how to manage them and realize their potential despite their limitations. Grammar checkers allow us to discuss grammar at what called the most “teachable moment” (p. 46): the moment of direct application to student writing. We might also use them to discuss the problematic nature of standard, normative written language conventions and the authority behind such conventions. In the hope of re-engaging some scholarly and practical interest, this article a) reviews the literature of grammar checker technology in composition; b) analyzes the current grammar checking capability of the most popular word-processing programs in the United States, Microsoft Word 2000 and Corel WordPerfect 9.0 (2000); and c) concludes by suggesting uses of grammar checkers for composition teachers.

Written Communication

Disciplining Discourse: Discourse Practice in the Affiliated Professions of Software Engineering Design
Cheryl Geisler, Edwin H. Rogers, Cynthia R. Haller
Written Communication Vol. 15.1 1998

The authors report an investigation of the discourse practices of the “affiliated professions” of software engineering design. Lists of design issues generated by students in computer science and technical communication were compared to lists produced by experts affiliated with software engineering and by students entering an unaffiliated profession. The results suggest that (a) the affiliated experts addressed a more balanced set of issues, (b) the students in computer science looked more like the affiliated experts in their attention to technical issues and more like the unaffiliated students in their attention to human issues, and (c) the students in technical communication looked more like the affiliated experts in their attention to the human issues and more like the unaffiliated students in their attention to the technical issues. The results are discussed in terms of a landscape of highly clustered, fractured, and stratified affiliated professions over which students travel during their educational and professional careers.

TCQ

Webbased training: An overview of training tools for the technical writing industry
Margaret Discoll and John E. Reid Jr.
Technical Communication Quarterly Vol. 8.1 1999

This article provides technical training managers with an overview of the range of Webbased training solutions available to their organizations. The solutions range from individual drill and practice opportunities to live collaborative group learning. This article defines four broad categories and characterizes each. The most popular type, Web/computer based (W/CBT), is analyzed and four levels of W/CBT programs are presented. Included are tables summarizing considerations for selecting a development approach.

Note: 1999 saw special issues specifically related to web/distance learning/issues of internet

Technical Communication 

Testing Visual-Based Modules for Teaching Writing
Mike Markel
Technical Communication Vol. 45.1 1998 pp. 47-76

“A study of novice writers shows that instructional materials about writing that incorporate basic principles of visual design are more effective than those that are primarily verbal. Less-capable writers benefit most from materials that include the extra text-processing cues provided by the visual design. Narrative comments about the instructional materials show that writers are aware of the design elements and appreciate them. Technical communication practitioners, researchers, trainers, and instructors have a large role to play in improving the way writing is taught.”
 
Active Learning for Software Products
Michael A. Hughes
Technical Communication Vol. 45.3 1998 

“Shows how adult learning and situated learning principles can be applied to classroom-based software training. Argues that these techniques create instructional strategies that incorporate context-rich activities for work-oriented instruction.”

Hypermedia, multimedia, and reader cognition: An empirical study
David E Hailey Jr, Christine Hailey.
Technical Communication Vol. 45.3 1998

Distinguishes between digital multimedia, traditional multimedia, hypertext, and hypermedia/hypermediated.  Determines that readers learn best when presented with multimedia rather than hypermedia.

Note: Some interesting books being reviewed including Remediation / a lot of “usability” talk / looking specifically for work with software/about software / pretty sure Ken Jackson did a review on XML books o_O

Note: Issue 47.3 in 2000 has a lot of “guidelines for ____ “ in web-related areas

JAC

Reviewed: "Computers and the Teaching of Writing in American Higher Education, 1979–1994: A History by Gail E. Hawisher, Paul LeBlanc, Charles Moran, and Cynthia L. Selfe, eds." 

Making Room, Writing Hypertext
Collin Gifford Brooke
JAC Vol. 19.2 1999

Brooke argues that arrangement deserves a closer look while acknowledging that it makes sense that the cannon has been reduced due to the common linearity of writing practice.  Brooke uses hypertext and digital writing more generally as the basis for the claim that arrangement should be re-examined in our field. 

Reviewed: "Reality by Design: The Rhetoric and Technology of Authenticity in Education by Joseph Petraglia"

KAIROS

3.1 1998 : Copywrite, Plagiarism, and Intellectual Property 

Note: More models for distance learning / challenging the “order” or something that seems “disordered” 

Note: More on (re)constructing identities / questioning the “virtual”

http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/5.2/binder.html?coverweb/buckley/index.htm
Creating Software for a University Writing Course
Joanne Buckley
Kairos 5.1 2000

Work on software development and justification for use.  Buckley’s justifications range from the benefits of interactivity to the software’s ability to introduce students the terminology necessary for mastering grammar.

College English

Reviewed:
English and Emerging Technologies
Of Two Minds: Hypertext, Pedagogy, and Poetics by Michael Joyce; The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology, and the Arts by Richard A. Lanham; The Cultures of Computing by Susan Leigh Star
Review by: Charles Moran
College English Vol. 60.2 1998 

Teaching Writing in a Culture of Technology
Chris M. Anson
College English Vol. 61.3 1999

This article details two ways that the author perceives writing instruction to be “pressured” by technology: 1) the replacement of “face-to-face” interaction and 2) distance learning.  The author believes that while technology provides many affordances, it also contradicts some of the “basic principles” of the writing classroom. Ultimately there is a call for rejecting certain uses of technology that might lead to poor teaching and learning. 

Visualizing English: Recognizing the Hybrid Literacy of Visual and Verbal Authorship on the Web
Craig Stroupe
College English Vol. 62.5 2000

Focusing on what he calls “hybrid literacy,” the author proposes ways and methods of teaching English in a new environment that is both visual and verbal in nature.  The visual aspects are manifested through hypertext and various aspects of digital composition. A “specific approach” to teaching verbal and non-verbal features in coding is provided by Stroupe.

CCC

Joseph Cornell and the Artistry of Composing Persuasive Hypertexts
Joseph Janangelo
College Composition and Communication Vol. 49.1 1998

Janangelo gives an account of students using hypertext to form persuasive arguments about their writing.  While acknowledging particular constraints to this method of instruction/assignment, Janangelo states that “although it is true that, given financial constraints and the power of print culture, most writing teachers will not be receiving many persuasive hypertexts any time soon, it interests me that some students are beginning to compose beyond print paradigms-even if they must simulate hyper-textual format to do so.”

Technology and Literacy: A Story about the Perils of Not Paying Attention
Cynthia Selfe
College Composition and Communication Vol. 50.3 1999

Here, Selfe argues that we are allowing technology to disappear (and this is most certainly backed up by the recent years in composition journals). Selfe notes that “As a result, computers are rapidly becoming invisible, which is how we like our technology to be. When we don't have to pay at-tention to machines, we remain free to focus on the theory and practice of language, the stuff of real intellectual and social concern.” She suggests that allowing the technology to disappear is when it becomes “dangerous” and that we must keep technology a topic of discussion and analysis regardless of how we view ourselves as humanists