New Literacies
A common theme that pervaded the answers to two questions in the survey—the question about digital literacy's role in the composition curriculum and the question of how digital literacy is being implemented in programs—was that digital literacy should be a means to accomplish the standard goals of the writing classroom, particularly rhetorical awareness. As one respondent maintained, “digital literacies are a means to an end of engaging audiences.” Others identified digital literacy as helping students analyze their “writing context,” “consider purpose,” “evaluate information,” or “improve their writing skills.” Important in these understandings of digital literacy is that these WPAs typically did “not see digital literacy as a separate consideration,” as one phrased it, but as part of larger questions about understanding a writer’s rhetorical situation. It was common in both questions to see digital technologies discussed as tools to improve students’ writing but not necessarily as artifacts with their own rhetorics or unique affordances worthy of examination. In particular, it was not common to see WPAs discuss how technologies might transform composing processes or be a cause for moving beyond traditional rhetorical principles.
A number of the responses I received, similarly, tended to focus first on the outcomes (such as audience awareness) that technologies would achieve and second (if at all) on the technology itself. Carrie Leverenz critiqued this “writing outcomes first, technology second” perspective writing program administrators often take when approaching digital literacy. This perspective, she argued, focuses on how WPAs can meet their current goals instead of recognizing that digital literacy necessitates changes in outcomes and requires a redefinition of writing (p. 44).
A number of the responses I received, similarly, tended to focus first on the outcomes (such as audience awareness) that technologies would achieve and second (if at all) on the technology itself. Carrie Leverenz critiqued this “writing outcomes first, technology second” perspective writing program administrators often take when approaching digital literacy. This perspective, she argued, focuses on how WPAs can meet their current goals instead of recognizing that digital literacy necessitates changes in outcomes and requires a redefinition of writing (p. 44).
Curation, interactivity, and remix: Just a few literacies worth exploring
Selber (2004) warned about what may happen if we do fail to consider the technology itself or focus on alpha-centric discourse. He suggested that a common approach to computer literacy in an English course emphasizes rhetorical concerns but abandons considerations of the medium. If students are asked to create websites, for example, that demonstrate awareness of the canons of rhetoric, the elements of argument, and the rhetorical situation, and we borrow evaluation criteria from the expository essay because we are ignoring the technology, the resulting projects privilege alphabetic, print literacies (p. 137). While we may privilege alphabetic literacies in our courses overall, some standard writing outcomes do not translate well to digital composing. If WPAs' representations of digital literacy are biased towards alphabetic outcomes, this could lead to socially inattentive designs of technologies or technological artifacts created by students, or to acritical approaches to technologies employed by teachers in the program (Selber, 2004, p. 90).
There are certainly positive and practical reasons for WPAs to focus on standard outcomes. This can help them justify their practices to stakeholders and ensure that uses of digital technologies go beyond simply implementing them because they are shiny and fun for students, instead ensuring that they help students achieve important goals. At the same time, there are ways in which these constructions of digital literacy can be problematic, as Leverenz and Selber aptly described.
Therefore, I argue for a both/and approach here, as WPAs consider the place of digital literacies in their programs. Ensuring technologies meet the goals of the program is extremely important. At the same time, it can potentially mask the fact that digital technologies require new literacies and that writing needs to be reconceptualized in the context of our programs. Writing programs and instructors might consider, for example, curation, interactivity, non-linearity, juxtaposition or remix as integral to new media composing (or even analysis). If programs try to implement digital literacies without reconsidering their goals and outcomes, they may not engage instructors (and therefore students) in some of the key affordances of digital technologies. A WPA from my study who take this approach, as an example, shapes her program around concepts such as affordance, circulation, and remix. Rather than requesting a specific digital assignment, she asks that instructors engage students in these key concepts, teaching to their own strengths. This kind of approach can ensure students gain important literacies while potentially reducing instructors' concerns about assessment, skill, and time. The assignment sheet I shared (particularly Part II) also offers questions that might encourage students to think about how technologies affect their composing processes.
Traditional literacy parameters that need more attention
Related, there are a few literacy parameters in my study that did not receive as much attention as other parameters. I discuss the gaps in critical and functional digital literacies under the Tech as Tool section because they relate to the functional discourses I describe on that page.
Regarding rhetorical digital literacy, most of the WPAs in the study who invoked the importance of rhetorical literacy connected it, in the open-ended responses to the multiliteracies questions, to audience and persuasion but not typically to reflection or social action, two other important parameters emphasized by Selber. The current scholarship on reflection, according to Kathleen Blake Yancey (2016) in A Rhetoric of Reflection, is in its third generation. She argued, "Perhaps most important among the work of this third generation on reflection in writing studies is our increasing appreciation of the epistemological value of reflection, of its ability to help us make new meaning, of its rhetorical power" (p. 10). Connecting reflection to rhetorical literacy and the ability to build knowledge, she further emphasized reflection as a key component for transfer of writing knowledge (pp. 5-6). Extending this argument to digital literacies, injecting reflection into assignments could be an important skill to emphasize in administrative efforts toward digital literacy, since reflection has been linked to student engagement and retention (Yancey, 2016, p. 9), a key concern for many administrators, and enhanced rhetorical knowledge and transfer.
As a potential reflection activity, WPAs could ask instructors to work with students on creating their own rubrics--which requires metacognitive awareness of the genre. Similarly, some WPAs from my study ask instructors to assign a written reflection that accompanies their digital texts. These reflections invite students to reflect on their process and consider the choices they made for their audience as they composed. This helps students because they become more accountable for their rhetorical choices, and it also helps teachers write more informed feedback and more fairly assess students' work. The assignment sheet I share in the Tech as Tools section could also be considered an approach to reflection.
Social action could involve a service learning opportunity or another online project where students are encouraged to think about the implications of making their work public. In my own courses, students create digital projects such as promotional videos for local non-profits. Using digital storytelling, designing drag-and-drop websites, or creating infographics for social media promotion for community organizations are other examples. These kinds of projects can help students see that their compositions have consequences in the world (Selber, 2004), which could increase engagement.
While many of these activities take place in the classroom, WPAs can intervene by emphasizing social action and reflection in Student Learning Outcomes, sample syllabi, or other documents that instructors reference to create their courses. In doing so, they are ultimately helping instructors see digital literacy as rhetorical literacy.
With regard to ethical digital literacy, concerns about proper citation were commonly mentioned in the survey. However, Coley’s (2012) concerns about constructing safe environments for students and his concerns about the blurring of public and private that occurs online were not often mentioned. Again, the solution may go back to critical analysis of ‘tools.’ A WPA in my study has asked instructors to ensure students understand the Terms of Service (TOS) and privacy settings of any technologies they employ in their courses. A simple reminder in training can go a long way in encouraging teachers to think about certain ethical responsibilities.
Selber (2004) warned about what may happen if we do fail to consider the technology itself or focus on alpha-centric discourse. He suggested that a common approach to computer literacy in an English course emphasizes rhetorical concerns but abandons considerations of the medium. If students are asked to create websites, for example, that demonstrate awareness of the canons of rhetoric, the elements of argument, and the rhetorical situation, and we borrow evaluation criteria from the expository essay because we are ignoring the technology, the resulting projects privilege alphabetic, print literacies (p. 137). While we may privilege alphabetic literacies in our courses overall, some standard writing outcomes do not translate well to digital composing. If WPAs' representations of digital literacy are biased towards alphabetic outcomes, this could lead to socially inattentive designs of technologies or technological artifacts created by students, or to acritical approaches to technologies employed by teachers in the program (Selber, 2004, p. 90).
There are certainly positive and practical reasons for WPAs to focus on standard outcomes. This can help them justify their practices to stakeholders and ensure that uses of digital technologies go beyond simply implementing them because they are shiny and fun for students, instead ensuring that they help students achieve important goals. At the same time, there are ways in which these constructions of digital literacy can be problematic, as Leverenz and Selber aptly described.
Therefore, I argue for a both/and approach here, as WPAs consider the place of digital literacies in their programs. Ensuring technologies meet the goals of the program is extremely important. At the same time, it can potentially mask the fact that digital technologies require new literacies and that writing needs to be reconceptualized in the context of our programs. Writing programs and instructors might consider, for example, curation, interactivity, non-linearity, juxtaposition or remix as integral to new media composing (or even analysis). If programs try to implement digital literacies without reconsidering their goals and outcomes, they may not engage instructors (and therefore students) in some of the key affordances of digital technologies. A WPA from my study who take this approach, as an example, shapes her program around concepts such as affordance, circulation, and remix. Rather than requesting a specific digital assignment, she asks that instructors engage students in these key concepts, teaching to their own strengths. This kind of approach can ensure students gain important literacies while potentially reducing instructors' concerns about assessment, skill, and time. The assignment sheet I shared (particularly Part II) also offers questions that might encourage students to think about how technologies affect their composing processes.
Traditional literacy parameters that need more attention
Related, there are a few literacy parameters in my study that did not receive as much attention as other parameters. I discuss the gaps in critical and functional digital literacies under the Tech as Tool section because they relate to the functional discourses I describe on that page.
Regarding rhetorical digital literacy, most of the WPAs in the study who invoked the importance of rhetorical literacy connected it, in the open-ended responses to the multiliteracies questions, to audience and persuasion but not typically to reflection or social action, two other important parameters emphasized by Selber. The current scholarship on reflection, according to Kathleen Blake Yancey (2016) in A Rhetoric of Reflection, is in its third generation. She argued, "Perhaps most important among the work of this third generation on reflection in writing studies is our increasing appreciation of the epistemological value of reflection, of its ability to help us make new meaning, of its rhetorical power" (p. 10). Connecting reflection to rhetorical literacy and the ability to build knowledge, she further emphasized reflection as a key component for transfer of writing knowledge (pp. 5-6). Extending this argument to digital literacies, injecting reflection into assignments could be an important skill to emphasize in administrative efforts toward digital literacy, since reflection has been linked to student engagement and retention (Yancey, 2016, p. 9), a key concern for many administrators, and enhanced rhetorical knowledge and transfer.
As a potential reflection activity, WPAs could ask instructors to work with students on creating their own rubrics--which requires metacognitive awareness of the genre. Similarly, some WPAs from my study ask instructors to assign a written reflection that accompanies their digital texts. These reflections invite students to reflect on their process and consider the choices they made for their audience as they composed. This helps students because they become more accountable for their rhetorical choices, and it also helps teachers write more informed feedback and more fairly assess students' work. The assignment sheet I share in the Tech as Tools section could also be considered an approach to reflection.
Social action could involve a service learning opportunity or another online project where students are encouraged to think about the implications of making their work public. In my own courses, students create digital projects such as promotional videos for local non-profits. Using digital storytelling, designing drag-and-drop websites, or creating infographics for social media promotion for community organizations are other examples. These kinds of projects can help students see that their compositions have consequences in the world (Selber, 2004), which could increase engagement.
While many of these activities take place in the classroom, WPAs can intervene by emphasizing social action and reflection in Student Learning Outcomes, sample syllabi, or other documents that instructors reference to create their courses. In doing so, they are ultimately helping instructors see digital literacy as rhetorical literacy.
With regard to ethical digital literacy, concerns about proper citation were commonly mentioned in the survey. However, Coley’s (2012) concerns about constructing safe environments for students and his concerns about the blurring of public and private that occurs online were not often mentioned. Again, the solution may go back to critical analysis of ‘tools.’ A WPA in my study has asked instructors to ensure students understand the Terms of Service (TOS) and privacy settings of any technologies they employ in their courses. A simple reminder in training can go a long way in encouraging teachers to think about certain ethical responsibilities.
Why WPAs should support new literacies
Thus, in looking at how current discourses and practices do and do not align with the values in the field, a few areas for further development have been identified. Yet, why do any changes need to occur at the level of writing program administration? After all, some WPAs in my study indicated that while implementing digital literacy is “fine for individuals," they did not feel the need to implement curricular change. As the WPA literatures suggest, WPAs are spokespeople for their programs who are well-positioned and also responsible for making arguments about the importance of technology in composition classes to both upper administration as well as instructors and staff (Day, 2009; Leverenz, 2008; McAllister & Selfe, 2002; Palmquist, 2005; Taylor, 2002). Their arguments and decisions frame instructor choices and implementations, and their discourses reflect their programs’ commitments. They should defend uses of technology, specifically, because as Gunther Kress argued as early as 1999, for English to stay relevant “as the subject which provides access to participation in public forms of communication, as well as remaining capable of providing understandings of and the abilities to produce culturally valued texts,” solely emphasizing written communication will no longer do (p. 67). In order to change, we must think critically about technology and move beyond seeing it as an add-on to our curricula.
As Yancey (2004) declared, if we continue to represent technology as something “outside the parameters governing composing, or limit it to the screen of the course management system, or think of it in terms of the bells and whistles and templates of the PowerPoint screen,” then our students will only learn to “fill up those templates” (p. 320). They will not “compose and create, making use of all the means of persuasion and all the possible resources thereto; rather, they will complete someone else's software package; they will be the invention of that package” (p. 320). Understanding technology as an add-on to our already packed curricula, or failing to approach technology critically, may indeed invite these issues cited by Yancey. Our students might only learn to fill in the templates—not to create their own persuasive and critical compositions that potentially subvert the biases or socially inattentive designs that we can find in templates. While this study is focused on how WPAs can support digital literacies in this way, my claims here are not intended to assign all responsibility for digital literacy solely to the WPA but instead to suggest ways WPAs can intervene in and support digital literacy practices that embrace a more critical, rhetorical, and ethical approach. Also, while this study focuses on the beliefs and practices of the WPA, future research could pursue the voices of instructors, examining how programmatic decisions affect their digital practices. At the same time, the present study can also be useful to teachers who want more support in digital literacies, as they can use this data to learn how digital literacy is being instantiated in programs across the country, to argue for resources or share ideas within their own writing programs, or employ a multiliteracies perspective in their own courses.
Thus, in looking at how current discourses and practices do and do not align with the values in the field, a few areas for further development have been identified. Yet, why do any changes need to occur at the level of writing program administration? After all, some WPAs in my study indicated that while implementing digital literacy is “fine for individuals," they did not feel the need to implement curricular change. As the WPA literatures suggest, WPAs are spokespeople for their programs who are well-positioned and also responsible for making arguments about the importance of technology in composition classes to both upper administration as well as instructors and staff (Day, 2009; Leverenz, 2008; McAllister & Selfe, 2002; Palmquist, 2005; Taylor, 2002). Their arguments and decisions frame instructor choices and implementations, and their discourses reflect their programs’ commitments. They should defend uses of technology, specifically, because as Gunther Kress argued as early as 1999, for English to stay relevant “as the subject which provides access to participation in public forms of communication, as well as remaining capable of providing understandings of and the abilities to produce culturally valued texts,” solely emphasizing written communication will no longer do (p. 67). In order to change, we must think critically about technology and move beyond seeing it as an add-on to our curricula.
As Yancey (2004) declared, if we continue to represent technology as something “outside the parameters governing composing, or limit it to the screen of the course management system, or think of it in terms of the bells and whistles and templates of the PowerPoint screen,” then our students will only learn to “fill up those templates” (p. 320). They will not “compose and create, making use of all the means of persuasion and all the possible resources thereto; rather, they will complete someone else's software package; they will be the invention of that package” (p. 320). Understanding technology as an add-on to our already packed curricula, or failing to approach technology critically, may indeed invite these issues cited by Yancey. Our students might only learn to fill in the templates—not to create their own persuasive and critical compositions that potentially subvert the biases or socially inattentive designs that we can find in templates. While this study is focused on how WPAs can support digital literacies in this way, my claims here are not intended to assign all responsibility for digital literacy solely to the WPA but instead to suggest ways WPAs can intervene in and support digital literacy practices that embrace a more critical, rhetorical, and ethical approach. Also, while this study focuses on the beliefs and practices of the WPA, future research could pursue the voices of instructors, examining how programmatic decisions affect their digital practices. At the same time, the present study can also be useful to teachers who want more support in digital literacies, as they can use this data to learn how digital literacy is being instantiated in programs across the country, to argue for resources or share ideas within their own writing programs, or employ a multiliteracies perspective in their own courses.