Page 142 - Composition in Convergence The Impact of the New Media on Writing Assessment

VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY 109

across different geographical spaces and time zones; accommo-
dates multiple topics, users, and sources; and fragments into
short bursts with the addition of graphical images and
hyperlinks. What has happened to writing with the cross-im-
pact of technological convergence is a process of deterritorial-
izing words from their preestablished orders. Electronic forms
of writing now mirror what theorists Gilles Deleuze and Felix
Guattari (1987) called a rhizomatic linguistic structure. That is,
writing no longer maintains a distinct, three-part split among
the world, the text, and the author. Instead, different aspects of
perception allow different connections to be made; however,
there is no genuine start or finish to the writing. In Composi-
tion's technological convergence, writing is multidimensional
because it is always placed in the middle of things, positioned
between visual images and sound or between the actions of the
writer and the reader.
Writing is an observable process. What specifically triggers writ-
ing is unknowable; also, explaining how a student writer
achieved a particular outcome from examining a single sample
or a series of written products outside of the classroom context
is equally unknowable. However, technological convergence
makes a student author's processes observable even though the
product is seamless. Therefore, instructors in computer-en-
hanced courses can conduct nonintrusive evaluation beginning
with the students' first forays in networked writing. The as-
sessment becomes increasingly more authentic, because stu-
dents are expected to contribute to the evaluation process
through a series of analytical activities based on their own
work. Thus, teachers' online archives become a rich, longitudi-
nal source of metacognition and metawriting as well as a data-
base for students' technical competence and writing
effectiveness. Although writing specialists are still unable to
know what exactly initiates the sequence a writer takes in the
composing process, through a rich archival database, instruc-
tors can observe the stages that online composition takes once
the spark occurs.
Writing is one form of many situated discourses. Instead of privi-
leging alphabetic literacy and papertexts, technological conver-
gence provides strong evidence that writing is just one
discursive activity and knowledge maker among others. Albeit