Page 51 - Composition in Convergence The Impact of the New Media on Writing Assessment

18 CHAPTER 1

technology. When a student is writing in the public sphere of the sa-
lon, a student's innermost thoughts (his or her subjectivity) move
away from being exclusively "I centered" and move toward develop-
ing a greater sense of how others think about similar issues. This
process helps many students gain empathy and insight regarding a
topic that can be presented at the students' level. Through e-mail,
chat, or MOO exchanges, students offer private thoughts and ques-
tion not only their thoughts but the thoughts of others as well. In
this process, critical reflection occurs, and students shape their views
around the contexts and audiences available to them. Again, the
question becomes, how do writing teachers measure this type of
critical development with the current writing assessment tools
available to them?

THE EFFECTS OF TECHNOLOGICAL CONVERGENCE
ON THE WRITING CLASSROOM

Not only does convergence recast the presentation of course content
and classroom dynamics in a composition class, convergence also
changes what compositionists teach as part of the writing process.
Writing for web space, hypertexts, weblogs, or MOOs, for instance,
requires teaching faculty to include lessons on visual rhetoric and
design to complete specific tasks. Adding the dimension of visual
rhetoric generates another layer of competency and complexity to a
student's work. Aside from the more common understanding of
what writing is for most composition courses—clarity and coher-
ence, for example—instructors need to add the aspects of "creativity,
curiosity, consideration, and consistency" (Huntley & Latchaw,
1998, p. 108). As educational assessment specialists Joan Huntley
and Joan Latchaw noted, infusing the networked phases of the class-
room with consideration—defined by the authors as "collegial re-
spect" (1998, p. 108) for students—imparts a very different
classroom dynamic for assessment. Rather than construct an ad-
versarial professor-student relationship in the writing class, consid-
eration anticipates a cooperative, collaborative spirit of learning for
both the instructor and the students.
From my own experience over these last several years of teaching
writing in different computer-based class environments, it appears
that technology does reduce the antagonistic relationship between
instructor and student. This is in direct opposition to the rising an-