Prof. Albert Rouzie

Dept. of English

Rhetoric and Composition Program

Ohio University/Athens

Wiring the Classroom: A Workshop in Computer-Aided English Pedagogy

Computer-Aided Pedagogy

Theoretical Foundations

Advice and Ideas

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I. What does networked computer technology have to offer college English instructors and students?

A. New modes of communication between instructors and students and students and students through asynchronous and synchronous conferencing

 

a. e-mail access among everyone--Compile class e-mail addresses and send out to all in email and as a paper handout.

 

b. course e-mail listservs--can send a message to everyone at once

 

c. course newsgroups--can post messages to the newsgroup, but requires use of newsreading software or a WWW browser.

 

d. World Wide Web forums (similar to newsgroups). Look at an example.

 

e. MOOs: text-only "virtual reality" environments for synchronous conferencing. See a transcript of a MOO session.

 

f. synchronous conferencing software such as the InterChange module of the Daedalus Integrated Writing Environment. Go to an InterChange discussion session transcript.

 

B. New media and venues for student composition

 

a. course and internet e-mail listservs--Course listservs can be used instead of journal writing; professional listservs expose students to real debate in the disciplines.

 

b. course and internet newsgroups--can function similarly to listservs except not in e-mail. Newsgroups display messages in nested threads. Responses to posts are placed underneath and indented iin from messages responded to. See a popular newsgroup.

 

c. file sharing software (e.g. Norton Textra Connect) for collaborative revision of drafts

 

d. World Wide Web forums and "publishing" WWW home pages and web projects

 

e. hypertextually linked compositions on the WWW

 

f. multimedia--graphics, sound, animation, and film on the WWW

 

g. constructing simulated environments through text in a MOO

C. Access to new international research and writing resources --To Top

a. library databases and catalogues

 

b. professional sources on the WWW

 

Purdue Online Writing Resources University of Illinois Writer's Workshop Voice of the Shuttle Humanities Research Site The University of Victoria's Hypertext Writer's Guide Annotated List of links to Self-Guided Writing Sites Annotated List of links to Resources for Teachers of Writing Atlantic Monthly Computer Writing and Research Labs at the U. of Texas at Austin Kairos, a Journal for Teachers of Writing in Webbed Environments Instructor Resources: Teaching in the Computer Classroom

 

c. interactive forums for research queries (listservs, newsgroups, MOOs, and WWW forums)

 

d. amateur sources on the WWW (quality varies from excellent to excreble)

D. New venues for course information and learning materials

a. instructor and student-built course WWW sites--course sites can serve as texts for subsequent courses. Can include tutorials on how to use relevant software.

 

b. course listservs, newsgroups, and WWW forums

 

c. More writing done during class time on computers allows instructor to respond and intervene as composition occurs

II. Theoretical and practical foundations of online conversation and composition

A. Student-centered active learning begins to break out of teacher dominated lecture model. Some learning is accomplished through dialogic interchange and individual and collaborative projects, some through traditional or on-line presentation methods.

a. collaborative model of knowledge (Kenneth Bruffee)--socially constructed through conflict and negotiation in synchronous and asynchronous conferencing

 

b. expose students to active discourse communities on the Internet. Student roles emerge through interaction.

 

c. "writing to learn" philosophy--Students learn content through writing about it at the same time they learn about writing.

 

d. dialogism of Bakhtin--Language is most meaningful as utterances in a dialogic exchange in which utterances are written in anticipation of the feelings, ideas, and identity of another. Values discourse that is "polyphonic," "multivalent," layered with different "accents," "double-voiced," "heteroglossic," against discourse that is "self-same," "monophonic," "monological," and "totalizing." The interactive, intersubjective multiple discourse favored by Bakhtin is thought to be facilitated (at least potentially) in electronic discourse.

B. Model of role-playing and emergent student and instructor subject positions based on post-structuralist theories of language and subjectivity (Barthes, Derrida, Lyotard)

a. Electronic discourse removes some of the constraints typical of traditional classroom--power relations negotiated among students via agonistic and cooperative language games--play and humor used to mediate tensions. Does not eliminate inherited social constraints, roles, and contexts, but opens up a space for resistance. The play element arises meaningfully in a dialectical relationship with seriousness and goal-directed activity.

 

b. Students assert themselves in writing in a highly rhetorical situation with quick feedback. Writing combines elements of written and oral discourse.

 

c. Composition shifting to hypertext and simulations rather than strictly linear compositions--stresses the connections among and across ideas--can represent intertextuality through making electronic links between texts and ideas.

 

C. Rhetoric--To Top--

a. Burke's concept of language as symbolic action is more obviously manifest in the public spaces of the Internet

 

b. Internet discourse features a wide range of rhetorical purposes--informative, expressive, and persuasive.

 

c. Visual rhetoric of images and design becomes more important. Go to an example from a student group project on Zora N. Hurston WWW sites.

 

d. Writer credibility is expanded to include reliability of navigation in a WWW site, time it takes to download graphics, the relevance of the graphics to the written content, annotations on links, and general design qualities in addition to credibility earned through careful argument and use of reliable sources.

 

e. Emotional appeals can be heightened and complicated with graphics.

 

f. The use of logic and argument abounds in asychronous discussion venues may emerge over the course of a 'thread' in the discussion through point/counterpoint process. Interactive argument can be a powerful tool for invention stages of student composition.

 

g. 'Netiquette' used to prevent 'flaming'

 

h. Variable quality of sources on the Internet makes evaluation of sources paramount.

 

III. Some Practical Advice and Ideas

A. Some do's and don't's

a. Go slow--it's hard to teach with technology and software you are not familiar with.

 

b. Have a backup plan for when technology fails, as it sometimes does.

 

c. Enlist the help of the more experienced students. In group work, try to mix students who are more and less experienced. Don't set up or allow groups of all novices.

 

d. Keep your pedagogical purposes and goals in mind when planning computer-based activities and assignments.

 

e. Include specific step-by-step instructions on how to do the procedures in assignments that involve computers. (Doing this helps the instructor to firm up their knowledge of how to do it and helps to prevent them from assigning computer-related tasks too advanced for the class.)

 

f. Have the students learn the technology by using it in assignments. Assign a WWW scavenger hunt to teach how to use a WWW browser, the search tools, and making bookmark files. Assign a lab tutorial that yields a product to turn in. Assign a minimum number of message postings to a forum. Make the assignments count in evaluation of student performance.

 

g. Spend some time in class teaching the more difficult activities on the computers, but don't turn the course into how to use computers. If you are a writing instructor, teach writing.

 

h. Make sure your students understand the need to make backup copies for their documents.

 

i. Make sure that your students have access to computers outside of class time with the capabilities needed to complete the assignments.

 

j. Don't use on-line conferencing without some follow-up in assignments. Typically, students can be asked to analyze certain elements in the discussion.

 

k. Allow enough time for assignments and budget some time in the computer lab for assignments. Meet your pedagogical goals through the assignments involving computers. Don't add computer-based assignments on top of traditional ones (like a journal and a listserv), since students can get overwhelmed and so can instructors.

 

To Top

B. Ideas and assignments to try

a. An e-mail discussion listserv--it's the easiest to handle and it's supported by OU. Structure the activity on the list by posting discussion prompts (on the readings, e.g.) and then assign students to post their own prompts. Require a minimum number and quality of posts and responses to posts per week. Have the students turn in printed out selections of a number of their best messages, including the messages they are responding to. Grade them on some specific criteria and repeat at the end of the course.

 

Optional for experienced instructors: convert the weekly postings into documents for a course WWW site and update the posts weekly. Assign follow-up analysis and revision of the list discussion.

 

b. Web Site Comparison/Contrast and Effectiveness Analysis: Find two sites on the WWW focused on the same topic with contrasting approaches, qualities, styles, and so on. Assign the students to read them to analyze the differences and similarities, qualities of ethos, logos, and pathos, the arguments and sources. Ask them to claim that one is more effective than the other and to support their claim with reasons and examples.

 

Optional for experienced instructors: Put the assignment on the course WWW site with links to the two sites. Have the students work in groups to summarize their conclusions and put the summaries in a document connected to the assignment page.

 

c. A WWW Scavenger Hunt--assign a predetermined list of sites for them to find and bookmark using a few different search tools. Have them turn in the bookmark file to you on a disk or post the correct bookmark file and have students exchange and correct their files in class.

 

d. Assign students to go to a specific WWW forum or news group to read certain threads of messages discussing a topic (or author). Require that they post a message (you may want to write the prompt) and reply to an existing message.

Examples:

A WWW forum on Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper A WWW forum on Internet Communities and Interaction A WWW forum shared by an American and a Swedish class A WWW forum on the poetry of Robert Frost

 

e. For Web-composing instructors: Construct a course WWW site. Put up a page with links to materials and handouts for the students to read and refer to. For example, I built one for rhetoric materials that can be used in subsequent courses. Put up a syllabus, a statement of course policies, indexes to major course project assignments and to minor assignments, to the course schedule, an index of on-line readings, and perhaps an index of helpful sites. If students compose Web documents, such as personal home pages, you can include an index to those sites. If you build a site like this, be sure to include a contents page for the whole site. If you have a personal or professional home page, link to it. (See a contrasting example.) Optional: assign small groups of students to build certain parts of the course site, on rhetoric and writing help or other materials related to the course. Check out a cool Technical Writing course site.

 

f. Web Site Evaluation Assignment--form small groups to collaborate on choosing reading and evaluating the effectiveness of a WWW site. This assignment was started in class. Doing this assignment heightens the students' sense of the impact of design choices on the reader and is appropriate for composition.or technical writing courses. Check out one of the resulting evaluation pages. Read a more involved evaluation assignment by Tonya Browning and go to an example of a WWW site evaluation based on that assignment.

 

g. Assign a project in which students join an Internet community and write an analysis of the community (listserv, newsgroup, chat room, MOO). Elements to analyze can include: availability of information about the community; quantitative data on the frequency, length, and level of participation of members; demographic data such as participation by females and males, race, class, education, and ages of community members; social dynamics involving incidents and personalities, patterns of interaction, leaders, followers, listeners, and other roles; the types of language used, information shared, styles of argument, and standards of nettiquette. Note: if the papers are to be published on a course site, be sure 1) that the student has permission to participate, observe, and write about the community and 2) that the student get permissions for any quotes used in the paper. Names may have to be changed also. Check out an example of a WWW project based on this assignment.

 

h. Have the students start a WWW "zine." Structure the zine into different sections and make students responsible for a number of "articles" in a number of sections. Have them discuss the audience, issues of hypertext, language, graphics, and argument. Publish the zine and have subsequent course sections put out additional issues, perhaps focused on different topics.

 

i. Assign students to research an author or an issue in small groups and to build sections of a WWW site on that issue, author or text. Sections can include discussions of controversies, lists of study questions, summaries of major sources, annotated links to on-line sources, argument and debate pages, graphics galleries, and more. Check out an example of a site on Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God.

 

j. Invite a colleague or a well-known expert or author to participate in a listserv discussion with your class. Have the students read the collaeagues work and formulate questions and comments. Send these to the guest and mandate a level of participation by the students. Keep an archive of the postings and display them on the course WWW site (optional). Follow up on the week's discourse by assigning a paper related to the discussion topics.<