Week 3 - September 4th Post

Today’s (Sept. 4^th) Readings:

Lanham, Richard. "The Electric Word: Literary Study and the Digital Revolution." New Literary History. Vol. 20, No. 2, Technology, Models, and Literary Study (Winter, 1989), pp. 265-290.

Slatin, John. "Reading Hypertext: Order and Coherence in a New Medium." College English. Vol. 52, No. 8 (Dec., 1990), pp. 870-883.

Cooper, Marilyn M. and Cynthia L. Selfe. "Computer Conferences and Learning: Authority, Resistance, and Internally Persuasive Discourse." College English, Vol. 52, No. 8 (Dec., 1990), pp. 847-869.

Hawisher, Gail E. and Cynthia L. Selfe. "The Rhetoric of Technology and the Electronic Writing Class." College Composition and Communication, Vol. 42, No. 1 (Feb., 1991), pp. 55-65.

I very much enjoyed the connections between Lanham and Slatin in this week’s readings. Although both of these texts are relatively old in terms of technology, many of the issues that these authors bring up are still legitimate concerns for today’s digital scholars. Both Lanham and Slatin discuss the “responsive reader” (Lanham 268) and the concerns for the reader rather than the author in digital texts. The authors go on to explain how hypertext allows readers to explore the text in a variety of ways to best experience the text on their terms. Slatin goes into great depth in his discussion about hypertext publication, while Lanham explores the more playful side of multimedia publishing and asks, “wouldn’t you begin to play games with it [malleable hypertext or digital media)?” (p.269). For me, the answer is yes. I find myself taking notes on the very PDF files that we’re reading now with a series of personalized stamps, colors, and images to make the readings more enjoyable, applicable, and memorable for my reading pleasure.

Cooper and Selfe and Hawisher and Selfe also have a number of interesting connections. Both readings call into question the use of technology for technology’s sake in addition to offering general pedagogical caution to the status quo of teaching. Both sets of authors dislike the more traditional, lecture-type modes of teaching in addition to the skill-and-drill methods. For them, using technology in such ways simply reinforces the traditional hegemonic issues within the classroom that students and teachers have always faced. In fact, Hawisher and Selfe make a really nice connection between their words of caution and Foucault’s panopticon as they analyze the dangers of technical assignments like discussion forums and online conferences since they often “inhibit open exchanges, reduce active learning, and limit the opportunities for honest intellectual engagement” (p. 62) with the teacher watching and grading their actions.

As a whole, these readings made me consider my own views and actions as a scholar and as a teacher. Lanham asks the question: “What business are we really in?” (p.285) and, for me, this is a central question to all of us who teach FYC. Are we in the business of creating texts, are these texts books and only books? Are we in the business of preparing students for writing in the university? Elsewhere? What does writing look like anyway? He further calls into question our practices in publication which, I thought, was sort of eerily accurate. He mentions that conversations may become the norm in scholarly publications and that they may be in media other than books and traditional print media. Kairos (the journal) anyone? As a relatively new scholar to these conversations, I find myself asking these questions almost daily as I try to find my place.

Additionally, the Hawisher and Selfe and the Cooper and Selfe texts bring teacher power to the forefront of the discussion. Obviously, teachers always have power in the classroom since “our culture has imbued us with considerable power within the confines of the classroom; we are the architects of the spaces in which our students learn” (p. 64). But, even through my efforts to provide a student-centered classroom, I find myself acutely aware of the instances where I impose my power on students (sometimes inadvertently). I tend to beat myself up about the issues of hegemony since, the more I read and study about it, the more I realize that I do it and that I don’t really know how to stop “oppressing” my students. I suppose what is really valuable from these sorts of discussions, though, is that we are THINKING about these issues and becoming more aware of them. For me, I often have to be content with just working towards creating a more open, diverse, and inviting classroom for new ideas.

Finally, I was struck by Cooper and Selfe’s discussion of the forced assimilation into academic discourse that FYC students endure. They rail against this assimilation (and bring up Bartholomae in the process) and, to a point, I agree. To bring this full circle, though, “What business are we really in?” (Lanham, p.285). I find myself torn between the definition of FYC as a service course and FYC as a place to help students to communicate in more non-traditional means. If I don’t treat the course as a service course, though, will my students be prepared for the requirements of the university and for the rhetorical expectations of their future professors? One of my major frustrations with comp is that none of us can, with any certainty, really define what business we are all in.