Page 20 - Composition in Convergence The Impact of the New Media on Writing Assessment

INTRODUCTION xvii
xvii
status, family stability, gender, race, and geography—blend with in-
stitutional pressures and the move toward a more electronic me-
dia-based culture. These elements also contribute to shifts in literacy
and the notion of standards. Still, the computer does seem to shape
writing practices, habits, and outcomes, which can lead critics and
some supporters to overdetermine the effects computers have on
writing. Assessment often helps push these findings, because the
mediating qualities of writing assessment generally assume a clear,
objective understanding of what good writing is, and what the cor-
responding standards are, despite the context in which the writing is
produced. If the criteria for good writing are grounded in fixed,
print-based notions, then any mediation process will favor that po-
sition and will continue to promote both reactionary discourse and
oversimplified understandings of what computers can do for stu-
dent writing and for evaluation. However, when probed more
deeply, many of these contentious challenges wax nostalgic or moral
in substance. Little sound pedagogical information related to teach-
ing writing or studying the habitual practices of writers connects to
the discussion. Nonetheless, in these times of rabid and rampant de-
mands for accountability in education, nostalgic and moral argu-
ments frequently hold greater public and institutional sway than
one might expect.
For the last 15 or so years, though, the growth of communication
technologies, the emphasis on writing in the classroom, the begin-
nings of rearticulating writing assessment for the classroom, and
the works of several composition scholars, researchers, and
technorhetoricians have made significant inroads regarding moving
the field to the point where I can write that technological conver-
gence has created a crossroads in Composition. This point most ev-
eryone freely acknowledges, despite his or her pedagogical position.
Convergence—the blending of several technologies into a single
source—has affected the teaching of writing in ways that few could
have imagined 30, 60, or 100 years ago. The present vehicle for
convergence in Composition, the computer, speeds up the demand
and the production of text-based knowledge, and that old journal-
ism saw, "Get it fast, but get it right," which has been broadened to
"Get it fast, get it right, get it immediately," now extends to the ex-
pectations readers have for online texts. This is a major change
from the thoughtful, time-infused belles lettres understanding of
writing that shapes how many teachers were trained and the ideas