Electronic Communities in Writing Instruction:
A Beginners Guide

Intro

Teachers

Students

History

Texts

Issues and Rationales for E-Communication in Classes

In the late 80’s and 90’s, attention turned more toward class dymanics and larger issues in society that surround the technology and the teaching of writing. Issues discussed in the 1990 Computers and Composition journal focused on inclusion/exclusion— considering questions such as “In an online environment, who gets to ‘speak’? Who is silent? Who is silenced?” (197) Caroline Handa’s 1990 Computers and Community and Deborah Holdstein and Cynthia Selfe's Computers and Writing : Theory, Research, Practice (1990) contain essays that speak to a variety of issues involving authority, race, gender, technical theory, ideology, politics and classroom dynamics. (Hawisher, Blanc, Moran, and Selfe).

Some of the common arguments in support of computer collaboration through synchronous (“real-time”) and asynchronous (email) communication boasted about active learning, increased participation from students typically silent or silenced in class meetings, and how introverted or shy students, who generally require more “processing time,” could benefit from having more time to reflect on the written conversation before responding (Selfe 1990). Perhaps the most significant advantage was that every student would have a voice— It is not possible to “talk over” or “interrupt” what gets written electronically. It is also not insignificant that these class interactions take place in writing, thus giving students additional opportunity to write for an immediate audience and purpose where immediate feedback can occur.

In the past decade or so, computers and writing scholars have continued to theorize and problematize the benefits and inherent difficulties with technology. For example, even though electronic communication may seem to create an ideal forum for student voices to be heard, "being heard" consists of more than just having one's words flashed across the screen. Messages can be overlooked or lost in the shuffle of messages competing for responses. Only a portion of what gets written actually gets taken up by others for discussion, and negative responses, often leading to flame wars (verbal attacks), are possible too.

Other recent issues not directly related to Electronic Communities include Web Rhetoric, the relationship between visual images and text, gender representations and dynamics online, virtual environments such as MOOs, new genres or genre-blendling, the history of technology, and professional issues.

For more recent information about the rapidly proliferating work in computers and writing, check out the Computers and Composition Comprehensive Bibliography.


References