Page 150 - Composition in Convergence The Impact of the New Media on Writing Assessment

HOT AND COOL TECHNOLOGIES 117

As I investigated the notion of hot and cool technologies through
theorists like Jean Baudrillard, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, and
Paul Virilio, a revolution occurred in my teaching. What was once
hot and cool became inverted for me, and a greater understanding of
how these technologies function in writing instruction emerged. A
complete change of pedagogical methods and the conditions I want
to teach under came forward through my process of engaging with
students, theory, and these two technologies.

COMING TO TERMS WITH HOT AND COOL TECHNOLOGIES

I have come to understand the conventional technology found in
writing assessment as being a hot technology. Postmodern theo-
rist Jean Baudrillard (1990) described this type of technology us-
ing Marshall McLuhan's term hot—a context that depends on
influence, challenge, mise en scene, and spectacle. A hot technology
is fraught with both direct emotional charge and high stakes, and
it draws attention to vernacular use in print (McLuhan, 1964). As
it is usually enacted in writing programs, assessment qualifies as
a hot technological form because of the politics and economics in-
herent in language use that are regularly tied to evaluation and to
the direct connections that assessment maintains with instruc-
tion. Frequently, there is a level of spectacle connected to high-
stakes assessment situations that drive emotional reactions from
teachers and students.
Borrowing from Baudrillard (1990), in a hot assessment envi-
ronment, writing is generally defined in terms of the coherence and
use of correct structural and mechanical forms, grammatical func-
tions as well as rhetorical ones, and models instead of vernacular
usage. Regarding the particulars of writing classroom practices and
assessment, a hot technology imposes on the writer a reason to
communicate. For example, two such areas where the imposition
occurs in writing assessment are instructors providing rigid class-
room assignments or exam prompts and teaching rhetorical tech-
niques that match up with the exit test or portfolio. In these
instances, students are not expected to think or develop ideas out-
side of the dictated formats. These students are not given the re-
sponsibilities of becoming a writer.
The spectacle arises at the end of each semester or quarter, when
compositionists across the nation administer various types of