Page 75 - Composition in Convergence The Impact of the New Media on Writing Assessment

42 CHAPTER 2

ing. Each reading and rereading requires the instructor to decide
again how to grade the work in front of him or her.
This point leads to the problem of visuality that seeps into e-text,
particularly in mundane texts that have wide audience appeal. Pamela
Takayoshi (1996) rightly noted that Composition, as a field of study,
has not fared well in deliberating the visual impact of a text on a reader
in first-year composition classes; generally, visual rhetoric is addressed
in professional writing classes or in advanced composition classes. That
practice has to change as more first-year writing classes add inter-
networked writing activities to the classroom and more first-year col-
lege students come prepared to write in networked classes.
Therefore, the writing process in first-year comp, although seam-
less in networked environments, now needs to account for student
writers' visual rhetorical acumen as well as for their grasp of tradi-
tional rhetorical strategies. As we are all aware, graphics are central
in much of electronic communication as part of its interactivity.
Therefore, in internetworked writing, a writer's ability and skill to
comprehend and create effective visual structures reflect the level to
which a writer can recognize how the interplay of writing and image
exists in cyberspace. These graphical elements are just as important
to learn in first-year composition as the rhetorical modes in paper-
text writing. Yet, one only has to visit a few class assignment web
sites to realize that, in numerous locations throughout cyberspace,
student writers overlook visual rhetoric. Too many Flash, Java, or
Shockwave applets, gigantic images, busily colored backgrounds
featuring tiny fonts or ill-conceived color combinations between
fonts and backgrounds, or incomprehensible objects in MOOs or un-
intelligible content are just some of the common writing and image
errors that occur in e-texts. In many instances, the writers are not
thinking about their audience's reception of the e-text. Although the
printed content may be the work of a genius and could easily receive
an A if the information were in papertext form, if visitors have to
wait while four or five applets load (and stall or freeze the reader's
machine) or if readers have to squint to read the text because of poor
font sizing or mismatched color selections, then the writer's rhetori-
cal decisions are inappropriate. In some instances, if the lack of vi-
sual rhetorical knowledge is extreme, visitors may classify the
writer as being nonliterate.
So web page design is another transparent act that is in/visible.
Speaking as one who worked in graphic design for a few years, I