Computers and writing

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Computers and writing is a sub-field of college English studies about how computers and digital technologies affect literacy and the writing process. The range of inquiry in this field is broad including discussions on ethics when using computers in writing programs, how discourse can be produced through technologies, software development, and computer-aided literacy instruction. [1] Some topics include hypertext theory, visual rhetoric, multimedia authoring, distance learning, digital rhetoric, usability studies, the patterns of online communities, how various media change reading and writing practices, textual conventions, and genres. [2] Other topics examine social or critical issues in computer technology and literacy, such as the issues of the "digital divide", equitable access to computer-writing resources, and critical technological literacies. Many studies by scientists have shown that writing on computer is better than writing in a book [3]

Contents

"Computers and Writing" is also the name of an academic conference (see § Conference and Conference History below). [4]

The Field

This interdisciplinary field has grown out of rhetoric and composition studies. Members do scholarly work and teach in allied and diverse areas as technical and professional communication, linguistics, sociology, and law. Important journals supporting this field are Computers & Composition, Computers & Composition Online, [5] and Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy . [6] The professional organization Conference on College Composition and Communication [7] has a committee, known as the 7Cs committee (CCCC Committee on Computers in Composition and Communication), that selects onsite and online hosts for the Computers & Writing conference [4] and coordinates the "Technology Innovator Award" [8] presented at that annual conference. [9]

Conference and Conference History

The conference "Computers and Writing" was established in 1982 in Minneapolis, Minnesota by Donald Ross and Lillian Bridwell. [10] The conference was informal at first, but has grown from a grassroots organized conference to an established, mainstream conference that examines the ways in which computers change writing practice and pedagogy. [11] In earlier conferences, the scholarship presented often explored how computers influenced individual writers, but during the late 1980s and 1990s, scholarship shifted to hypertext and hypermedia, and the social nature of computer mediated writing. [10] [11] The conference initially presented original or "homemade" software design associated with word processing and editing, but eventually switched to commercial software as commercial software became more common for both individual students and educational institutions. [10]

The conference has a history of technological optimism, and the scholarship presented is optimistic regarding technology's influence on writing. The conference also examines and voices fears and concerns related to computer technology. Some of these fears are related to institutional policies and control as well as the fear of being overwhelmed by the constant march of technological innovation. [11] The conference has also explored how computer-mediated writing can be used in socially responsible ways, as is evident by the feminist roots of the conference and subfield. [12] The conference's feminist roots are evident in its support of minority scholars and scholarship. Awards such as the Hawisher and Selfe Caring for the Future Scholarship provide opportunities for new presenters in Computers and Writing related fields to attend the conference. This scholarship is preferably awarded to minority scholars who are involved in the field. [13] [14]

While the conference was originally more focused on software and hardware decisions and use, the conference has become more concerned with the theoretical application of computers in writing pedagogy and practice. [10] This attention to theory mirrors a shift to embrace multimodal compositions as texts and interdisciplinary growth as the conference became more mainstream and established in the 1990s and early 2000s. [11]

The conference has been held annually since 1988, which is the year that the CCCC Committee on Computers established a subcommittee to support the Computers and Writing Conference. While the journal Computers and Composition, [15] founded by Cynthia Selfe and Kate Kiefer in 1983, [10] is not officially connected to the Computers and Writing Conference, both began around the same time and explore the subfield within the larger fields of composition studies and rhetoric. [12]

Conferences dates and places

2003 Purdue University, Indiana

2013 University of Findlay, Ohio

2022 East Carolina University, North Carolina

Computers and Writing Conference 2022

Computers and Writing Conference "Practicing Digital Activisms" was held in East Carolina University, Greenville, NC in May 19-22, 2022. The hashtag for the conference was #CWCon22.

Keynote Address:

Charlton Mcllwain, author of the book Black Software: The Internet & Racial Justice, From the Afronet to Black lives Matter.

Emerging Voices:

Antonio Byrd, an assistant professor of English at the University of Missouri-Kansas City;

Wilfredo Flores, a PhD Candidate in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures at Michigan State University and a co-founder of Queering Medicine;

Constance Haywood, a fourth-year PhD candidate at Michigan State University;

Jo Hsu, an assistant professor of Rhetoric and Writing at the University of Texas at Austin;

Cana Itchuaqiyaq, tribal member of the Noorvik Native Community in NW Alaska and an assistant professor of professional and technical writing at Virginia Tech;

McKinley Green, an assistant professor of English at George Mason University.

Presenters:

Pedagogy

Computers and writing pedagogy teach students practical applications and implications of writing by exploring complex concepts such as visual rhetoric, issues of access, and the social implications of online writing. [4] Scholars analyze how the computer becomes an environment for facilitated writing and communication. The production and consumption of digital, multimodal, and new media texts advances the field's range of study and research. The majority of computers and writing scholars agree that engaging students in the production of such multimodal/digital texts is crucial to the learning process in our digitally infused moment.

During the 1960s and 1970s, which was also known as the "Birth of Composition," computer-assisted instruction was used to observe students and provided instant positive, negative, or constructive feedback. [16] How computers and digital technologies would impact writers' efficiency and quality of work was being determined. [17] Initial debate came from how best to balance creativity and technical construction in writing. Many teachers thought that the technology programs offered needed improvement because they did not allow for the creative expression of the students, acting only as an evaluator, reader, and feedback agent. [16] Now the programs require multimodality, creativity, and technical complexity. [18] The problems the students face in these programs now require much more comprehensive thinking and creativity to the point that it is difficult to still call the subject "writing" because the students are required to know much more. [18]

Computers and writing pedagogies must be dynamic and adaptable to how technology, media, and the sociopolitical spaces operate in a constant state of flux. Emerging forms of pedagogies address "Digital Activism" and the use of social media on political communication and advocacy. [3] Computers and digital media offer innovative ways to engage rhetorically with one another. Studying how students develop their digital literacy through their connecting their previous interactions with technologies to new forms by means of metaphors and mental models. [19] Teaching theoretical composing concepts through scaffolding can build students' digital literacy both with current and future technologies and programs. [20] These skills advance critical media awareness when working with digital media. [20]

Writing in the Age of Communication Technology

In the age of communication technology, amateurs and experts collaborate to create, sustain and develop virtual communities based on what James Paul Gee and Elisabeth Hayes have called "passionate affinity spaces", or communities organized around "a shared endeavor, interest, or passion". [21] Technology, specifically blogs, can be a way to build learning communities and help students learn to write authentically for and respond to various audiences by making their writing public. On the virtual playing field, knowledge and talent matter more than degrees and professional memberships, so these spaces offer students a new learning environment and space to collaborate on the production and distribution of knowledge. [21]

Aligning with the notion of "affinity space", composition scholars have coined the term "cultural ecology" to examine the complex social and cultural contexts that shape the development of technological literacy. Drawing from the literacy narratives of two participants, Hawisher, Selfe, Moraski, and Pearson theorized five themes emergent from the cultural ecology of literacy, namely the "cultural, material, educational, and familial contexts" that shape and are shaped by literacy development. [22] The five themes of cultural ecology emphasize that technological literacy goes through life spans, that literacy provides the medium for people to exert their agency, that literacy occurs and develops both within and outside of school contexts, that the conditions of access influence people's literacy development, and that literacy practices and values transmit via family units. Kristine Blair pointed to the positive impacts of cultural conflicts in constructing online discourses and political discussions, while at the same time warning that students may not transform exposure to the conflicts. [23] Also looming behind the issue of culture in computer and writing is the digital divide. Cynthia Selfe showed that unequal access to technological literacy is situated in unequal social, cultural, economic, and political situations. [24] As Selfe wrote, "computers continue to be distributed along the related axes of race and socioeconomic status and this distribution continues to ongoing patterns of racism and to the continuation of poverty." To address the digital divide, Selfe called upon educators and compositionists to rethink computer literacy as a political act that requires paying critical attention to inequality issues and acting politically in specific disciplinary contexts. [24]

See also

Related Research Articles

The Conference on College Composition and Communication is a national professional association of college and university writing instructors in the United States. The CCCC formed in 1949 as an organization within the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). CCCC is the largest organization dedicated to writing research, theory, and teaching worldwide.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Composition studies</span>

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Commonly called new media theory or media-centered theory of composition, stems from the rise of computers as word processing tools. Media theorists now also examine the rhetorical strengths and weakness of different media, and the implications these have for literacy, author, and reader.

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Storyspace is a software program for creating, editing, and reading hypertext fiction. It can also be used for writing and organizing fiction and non-fiction intended for print. Maintained and distributed by Eastgate Systems, the software is available both for Windows and Mac.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Visual rhetoric and composition</span>

The study and practice of visual rhetoric took a more prominent role in the field of composition studies towards the end of the twentieth century and onward. Proponents of its inclusion in composition typically point to the increasingly visual nature of society, and the increasing presence of visual texts. Literacy, they argue, can no longer be limited only to written text and must also include an understanding of the visual.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital studio</span>

A digital studio provides both a technology-equipped space and technological/rhetorical support to students working individually or in groups on a variety of digital projects, such as designing a website, developing an electronic portfolio for a class, creating a blog, making edits, selecting images for a visual essay, or writing a script for a podcast.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital Writing and Research Lab</span> American research lab

The Digital Writing and Research Lab (DWRL) is a research lab at The University of Texas at Austin, United States, dedicated to the identification and promotion of twenty-first-century literacies. These literacies range from navigating online newsfeeds and participating in social networking sites to composing multimedia texts that require producing, sampling, and/or remixing media content.

LSU Communication across the Curriculum is a program at Louisiana State University (LSU) that works to improve the communications skills of students. This includes writing, public speaking, visual and technological communication skills. The program is a successor to the Writing across the Curriculum and Writing in the Disciplines programs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Multimodality</span> Phenomenon of human communication having different forms that combine

Multimodality is the application of multiple literacies within one medium. Multiple literacies or "modes" contribute to an audience's understanding of a composition. Everything from the placement of images to the organization of the content to the method of delivery creates meaning. This is the result of a shift from isolated text being relied on as the primary source of communication, to the image being utilized more frequently in the digital age. Multimodality describes communication practices in terms of the textual, aural, linguistic, spatial, and visual resources used to compose messages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kathleen Blake Yancey</span>

Kathleen Blake Yancey is the Kellogg W. Hunt Professor of English at Florida State University in the rhetoric and composition program. Her research interests include composition studies, writing knowledge, creative non-fiction, and writing assessment.

Jonathan Alexander is an American rhetorician and memoirist. He is Chancellor's Professor of English, Informatics, Education, and Gender & Sexuality Studies at the University of California, Irvine. His scholarly and creative work is situated at the intersections of digital culture, sexuality, and composition studies. For his work in cultural journalism and memoir, Tom Lutz, founding editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books, has called him "one of our finest essayists."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cynthia Selfe</span> American academic

Cynthia "Cindy" Selfe is an author, editor, scholar, and teacher in the field of Writing Studies, with a speciality in the subfield of computers and composition. She is Humanities Distinguished Professor Emerita in the English Department at the Ohio State University where she taught from 2006 until her retirement in 2016. Prior to that, she taught at Michigan Technological University. Selfe was the first woman and the first scholar from an English department to win the EDUCOM Medal for innovative computer use in higher education.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Victor Villanueva</span> American educator and scholar (born 1948)

Victor Villanueva is an American academic and scholar in rhetoric and composition studies, serving the role of Regents Professor Emeritus at Washington State University. Villanueva was awarded NCTE's David Russell Award for Distinguished Research in the Teaching of English for his groundbreaking book Bootstraps, From an American Academic of Color. In 2009, Villanueva was the recipient of the Conference on College Composition and Communication Exemplar's Award. Villanueva has written and edited a number of significant works on the topic of race, rhetoric, basic writing, and the social and political contexts of literacy education.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cheryl E. Ball</span> American educator and scholar (born 1948)

Cheryl Ball is an academic and scholar in rhetoric, composition, and publishing studies, and Director of the Digital Publishing Collaborative at Wayne State University. In the areas of scholarly and digital publishing, Ball is the executive director for the Council of Editors of Learned Journals and the Editor-in-Chief for the Library Publishing Curriculum. Ball also serves as co-editor of Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy, an open access, online journal dedicated to multimodal academic publishing, which she has edited since 2006. Ball's awards include Best Article on Pedagogy or Curriculum in Technical or Science Communication from the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), the Computers and Composition Charles Moran Award for Distinguished Service to the Field, and the Technology Innovator Award presented by the CCCC Committee on Computers in Composition and Communication (7Cs). Her book, The New Work of Composing was the winner of the 2012 Computers and Composition Distinguished Book Award. Her contributions to academic research span the areas of digital publishing, new media scholarship, and multimodal writing pedagogy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Multimodal pedagogy</span>

Multimodal pedagogy is an approach to the teaching of writing that implements different modes of communication. Multimodality refers to the use of visual, aural, linguistic, spatial, and gestural modes in differing pieces of media, each necessary to properly convey the information it presents.

The Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives (DALN) is an online public archive of personal literacy narratives. The DALN collects narratives ranging in formats and composition styles to include traditional and unconventional self-exploratory mediums such as video essays, drawings and written narratives. In 2005, Cynthia Selfe, H. Lewis Ulman, and Scott DeWitt at Ohio State University began development of the DALN with the purpose of creating and preserving a diverse and accessible collection of personal narratives. While most visitors to the site are from the United States, the DALN has developed a worldwide audience, and as of 2021, there were over 8,000 submissions from countries on six of seven continents.

Anne Ruggles Gere is an American scholar in the field of language education and literacy. She has published on topics such as the history of writing groups, best practices in literacy education, and integration of culturally responsive pedagogy.

M. Remi Yergeau is an American academic in the fields of rhetoric and writing studies, digital studies, queer rhetoric, disability studies, and theories of mind. As of 2024, Yergeau is an Arthur F. Thurnau associate professor of Digital Studies and English at the University of Michigan.

References

    1. ↑ Computers and Composition.
    2. ↑ "CFP | Cwcon 2019". candwcon.org. Retrieved 2021-05-04.
    3. 1 2 "Call for Interventions | 2020 Computers and Writing Conference". candwcon.org. Retrieved 2021-05-04.
    4. 1 2 3 "Computers and Writing 2020 Rescheduled for Spring 2022 | 2020 Computers and Writing Conference". candwcon.org. Retrieved 2021-05-04.
    5. ↑ "Computers and Composition Online". cconlinejournal.org. Retrieved 2017-12-08.
    6. ↑ Though there is no single professional organization covering this field, an information resource portal exists at https://web.archive.org/web/20160422020552/http://computersandwriting.org/.
    7. ↑ "Welcome to the CCCC website!". Conference on College Composition and Communication. Retrieved 2021-05-04.
    8. ↑ "CCCC Technical and Scientific Communication Awards". Conference on College Composition and Communication. 2018-06-06. Retrieved 2021-05-04.
    9. ↑ "About | Computers and Writing". candwcon.org. Retrieved 2021-05-04.
    10. 1 2 3 4 5 Gerrard, Lisa (1995). "The Evolution of the Computers and Writing Conference". Computers and Composition. 12 (3): 279–292. doi:10.1016/s8755-4615(05)80066-0.
    11. 1 2 3 4 Gerrard, Lisa (2006). "The evolution of the Computers and Writing Conference, the second decade". Computers and Composition. 23 (2): 211–227. doi:10.1016/j.compcom.2006.02.003.
    12. 1 2 Beck, Estee (2013). "Reflecting upon the Past, Sitting with the Present, and Charting our Future: Gail Hawisher and Cynthia Selfe Discussing the Community of Computers & Composition". Computers and Composition. 30 (4): 349–357. doi:10.1016/j.compcom.2013.10.007.
    13. ↑ "Caring for the Future Award". hawisherselfe.org. Retrieved 2017-12-01.
    14. ↑ Butler, Janine; Cirio, Joseph; Del Hierro, Victor; Gonzales, Laura; Robinson, Joy; Haas, Angela (Fall 2017). "Caring for the Future: Initiatives for Further Inclusion in Computers and Writing". Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy.
    15. ↑ "Computers and Composition". journals.elsevier.com.
    16. 1 2 Whithaus, Carl. "The Development of Early Computer-Assisted Writing Instruction (1960-1978): The Double Logic of Media and Tools". Computers & the Humanities, vol. 38, no. 2, May 2004, pp. 149-162.
    17. ↑ Haas, Christina (1989). "Does the Medium Make a Difference? Two Studies of Writing With Pen and Paper and With Computers". Human-Computer Interaction. 4 (2): 149–169. doi:10.1207/s15327051hci0402_3 – via EBSCO Publishing.
    18. 1 2 Edwards-Groves, Christine. "Interactive Creative Technologies: Changing Learning Practices and Pedagogies in the Writing Classroom". Australian Journal of Language & Literacy, vol. 35, no. 1, Feb. 2012, pp. 99-113.
    19. ↑ Tham, Jason Chew Kit; Burnham, Kenyan Degles; Hocutt, Daniel L.; Ranade, Nupoor; Misak, John; Duin, Ann Hill; Pedersen, Isabel; Campbell, Jessica Lynn (2021-03-01). "Metaphors, Mental Models, and Multiplicity: Understanding Student Perception of Digital Literacy". Computers and Composition. 59: 102628. doi:10.1016/j.compcom.2021.102628. ISSN   8755-4615.
    20. 1 2 Blevins, Brenta (2018-12-01). "Teaching Digital Literacy Composing Concepts: Focusing on the Layers of Augmented Reality in an Era of Changing Technology". Computers and Composition. 50: 21–38. doi:10.1016/j.compcom.2018.07.003. ISSN   8755-4615. S2CID   70093735.
    21. 1 2 Gee, James Paul; Hayes, Elisabeth R. (2011). Language and Learning in the Digital Age. London; New York: Routledge. pp. 69–71. ISBN   978-0-415-60277-8.
    22. ↑ Hawisher, Gail; Selfe, Cynthia; Moraski, Brittney; Pearson, Melissa (2004). "Becoming Literate in the Information Age: Cultural Ecologies and the Literacies of Technology". College Composition and Communication. 55 (4): 642–692. doi:10.2307/4140666. JSTOR   4140666. S2CID   142563906.
    23. ↑ Blair, Kristine (1998). "Literacy, dialogue, and difference in the 'electronic contact zone'". Computers and Composition. 15 (3): 317–329. doi:10.1016/S8755-4615(98)90004-4.
    24. 1 2 Selfe, Cynthia (1999). "Technology and Literacy: A Story about the Perils of Not Paying Attention". College Composition and Communication. 50 (3): 411–436. doi:10.2307/358859. JSTOR   358859.
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