Page 19 - Composition in Convergence The Impact of New Media On

INTRODUCTION
xviii INTRODUCTION
they pass on to their students. Reflection and insight may be critical
components for academic writing, but for most networked writing
situations, information and content are central. Students have to
write quickly and well in this brave new world.
Other pedagogical changes have occurred as well. No longer does
strict process theory hold for writing instruction in a Composition
affected by technology. Today's faculty face teaching writing in a
"postprocess" mode, a place where computers make written work
public and situate one's language in various uncontrollable contexts
and discourse settings. Computers also allow for the production of
seamless texts. In these contexts, writing becomes highly collabora-
tive, as writers rapidly share ideas across their screens, and so the
communicative acts of writing often surpass the strictly academic
performances expected under traditional forms of assessment. In re-
turn, each of these influences places pressure on what students and
their instructors view as information and knowledge—as well as
what "good writing" is—in the classroom and how student achieve-
ment is measured when a class is asked to construct new informa-
tion and knowledge in an electronically rich environment.
Given our culture's experiences with technology, Composition
must grapple with technology's effects on writing and writing in-
struction. Americans will not slow their demand for quick informa-
tion and knowledge. If anything, writing faculty should anticipate
the public's increased expectations for electronic texts to become
more available and the standards for quality raised higher while in-
creasing the speed with which the information is transferred. These
demands are not just for the academic or student writer, either. The
use of electronic texts and increased electronic textual production
will occur for the nonacademic writer as well, especially as more
middle and lower income American families gain affordable access to
smaller, powerful computers and peripherals, Internet services, and
text messaging services (Alter, 1999; Rheingold, 2002). Our students
face a present and a future where careers depend heavily on both
strong writing skills and rapid information transfer.
Compared to 10, 15, or 20 years ago, greater numbers of writing
specialists understand the advantages that exist when students com-
pose in networked spaces, and even more now recognize the ad-
vances that digital technologies have made in writing instruction
and pedagogical theory that benefit critical thinking in a complex so-
ciety. Some teachers realize the incredible creativity, imagination,