Page 77 - Composition in Convergence The Impact of New Media On

46 CHAPTER 2

discuss an economic or societal problem. This genre boundary blurs
even further when a student writing in hypertext links to both or ei-
ther of these artifacts in her webbed research report as supporting
evidence. Consequently, the result of this type of writing is a much
different form of literacy and language use than what many compo-
sition specialists are used to in that now we have a hybrid genre
grounded in traditional information-based forms and more contem-
porary visual literacy being used in academic settings. Writing that
was once salient or belletristic has evolved into communicative acts.
Through technological convergence in Composition, then, writing
as a form of communication rather than as an academic activity be-
comes what Kress called "multisemiotic." In a multisemiotic context,
written language combines with visual imagery to transfer informa-
tion—some information will be better communicated through writ-
ten language, whereas other information will be best served if
exchanged in a visual format (Kress, 1998, pp. 61-65). We can refine
our understanding of this transformation by suggesting, pace Kress,
"information that displays what the world is like is carried by the im-
age; information that orients the reader to that information is carried
by language" (1998, p. 65).
All this leads compositionists to revisit our theories and expecta-
tions of what writing does, what the text does, and what literacy is
in convergence. Until the last decade, college writing generally
served the purpose of educating students in the ways of discovering
and researching a knowledge base or of pursuing some unattain-
able truth. Once that information was amassed, students then
learned how to pass on the material to as wide and as general (or as
discipline specific, depending on the writing class's level) an audi-
ence as possible. Texts had fixed meaning because every individual
text was another step toward reaching the unobtainable truth. Lit-
eracy in this model functions on a deficit approach, because no one
discovers sufficient knowledge. Or if someone does present suffi-
cient knowledge, the possibility is great for not having the ability to
express it in appropriate ways. As Kathleen Tyner noted, with
preconvergence literacy, "the focus is on exploring weaknesses and
contradictions in the body of knowledge; students are responsible
for making sense of the information; and all students are not ex-
pected to do equally well" (1997, p. 46).
Comparably, current writing assessment models also function on
a deficit approach to literacy. Whether indirect or direct assessment