Context: (counter) Narrative of deficiency in the Composition Class
The swift production of new technologies has placed a recognizable strain on writing programs. Administrators, instructors, and students alike are being pressured to work with digital technologies to maintain a competitive edge among institutions within and beyond the academy. Teachers are faced with the challenges accompanying the emergence of new technologies: gaining proficiency with the technology and re-vamping their pedagogy to include the new technology. As Mary Hocks states, the advances of computer technologies have changed the way writing teachers teach composition (2004). Despite such challenges, scholars within the field continue to call compositionists and writing programs to action. Andrea Lunsford beckons composition instructors in her article “Writing Technologies and the Fifth Canon” to acknowledge writing as multi-mediated and multimodal (2006). Lunsford regards the definition of writing as existing beyond the alpha-numeric. Similar voices echo Lunsford’s sentiment and pointedly propagate the conceptualization of writing programs as technologically “deficient.”
Composition Studies has been perceived as a field in a constant state of “catch up” in comparison to other disciplines. In the article “Computers and Composition 20/20: A Conversation Piece, or What Some Very Smart People Have to Say about the Future” there has been considerable mention for the need to incorporate more technologies (e.g. robots and coding) into the writing curriculum and into the training curriculum for new composition instructors (Walker et al.,2011). While Walker et al. encourages writing programs to think proactively about the curriculum choices they make in the future, other scholars are beckoning writing programs to integrate technologies immediately. Carrie Leverenz denotes the necessity for writing programs to remediate themselves: “I am calling a remediation of writing program administration in both senses of the word: a correcting of a deficiency and a recasting of a prior message in a new medium” (2008). Leverenz’s depiction of the technologically “deficient” writing program is a salient narrative within the field. The implications of this narrative manifest with some of the frustrations students and teachers face with the integration of technology.
The pressure to incorporate technology in the classroom may position instructors to include technology for “technology’s sake.” In other words, instructors may include technology in the curriculum as a means alleviate the demand placed onto them. As a result, technologies may be used in a superficial fashion causing much confusion among the student and teacher regarding expectations and the assessment of multimodal assignments. Chris Anson remarks on the implications that new technologies have on teachers’ responses to student writing (1999). Blog sites, for example, are a popular means of composing multimodally; however, it has become a site of contention because instructors are not pleased with the informality of the writing that the student engages (Freedman 1994). Technologies should be thoughtfully integrated in the curriculum with the understanding that they themselves are comprised of genres, albeit digital, equipped with the same expectations that a text based genre maintains (Devitt 2004). The narrative of the composition classroom trailing behind impacts the writing curriculum from different angles. The narrative of constant deficiency is a prominent theme framing the writing program, but it does not need to be the only defining one. There are instances where the field is not trailing behind—it is just a matter of recognition. Changing the purview from the rapid production of technologies to the very structures that compose those technologies can offer a different perspective on the perceived “deficiency.”
Composition Studies has been perceived as a field in a constant state of “catch up” in comparison to other disciplines. In the article “Computers and Composition 20/20: A Conversation Piece, or What Some Very Smart People Have to Say about the Future” there has been considerable mention for the need to incorporate more technologies (e.g. robots and coding) into the writing curriculum and into the training curriculum for new composition instructors (Walker et al.,2011). While Walker et al. encourages writing programs to think proactively about the curriculum choices they make in the future, other scholars are beckoning writing programs to integrate technologies immediately. Carrie Leverenz denotes the necessity for writing programs to remediate themselves: “I am calling a remediation of writing program administration in both senses of the word: a correcting of a deficiency and a recasting of a prior message in a new medium” (2008). Leverenz’s depiction of the technologically “deficient” writing program is a salient narrative within the field. The implications of this narrative manifest with some of the frustrations students and teachers face with the integration of technology.
The pressure to incorporate technology in the classroom may position instructors to include technology for “technology’s sake.” In other words, instructors may include technology in the curriculum as a means alleviate the demand placed onto them. As a result, technologies may be used in a superficial fashion causing much confusion among the student and teacher regarding expectations and the assessment of multimodal assignments. Chris Anson remarks on the implications that new technologies have on teachers’ responses to student writing (1999). Blog sites, for example, are a popular means of composing multimodally; however, it has become a site of contention because instructors are not pleased with the informality of the writing that the student engages (Freedman 1994). Technologies should be thoughtfully integrated in the curriculum with the understanding that they themselves are comprised of genres, albeit digital, equipped with the same expectations that a text based genre maintains (Devitt 2004). The narrative of the composition classroom trailing behind impacts the writing curriculum from different angles. The narrative of constant deficiency is a prominent theme framing the writing program, but it does not need to be the only defining one. There are instances where the field is not trailing behind—it is just a matter of recognition. Changing the purview from the rapid production of technologies to the very structures that compose those technologies can offer a different perspective on the perceived “deficiency.”