Computers and the Teaching of Writing in American Higher Education, 1979-1994


Book Description

This book is a history composed of histories. Its particular focus is the way in which computers entered and changed the field of composition studies, a field that defines itself both as a research community and as a community of teachers. This may have a somewhat sinister suggestion that technology alone has agency, but this history (made of histories) is not principally about computers. It is about people-the teachers and scholars who have adapted the computer to their personal and professional purposes. From the authors' perspectives, change in technology drives changes in the ways we live and work, and we, agents to a degree in control of our own lives, use technology to achieve our human purposes. REVIEW: . . . This book reminds those of us now using computers to teach writing where we have been, and it brings those who are just entering the field up to date. More important, it will inform administrators, curriculum specialists, and others responsible for implementing the future uses of technology in writing instruction. - Computers and Composition




Computers and Writing


Book Description

In this book, James A. Inman explores the landscape of the contemporary computers and writing community. Its six chapters engage critical issues, including redefining the community's generally accepted history, connecting its contemporary innovators with its long-standing spirit of innovation, advocating for increased access and diversity, and more. Between chapters, readers will find "Community Voices" sections, which provide a snapshot of the contemporary computers and writing community and introduce, in a non-hierarchical form, more than 100 of its members from around the world, in their own voices. Computers and Writing: The Cyborg Era features a simultaneous emphasis on individuals, communities, and contexts they share; a creative rethinking of the character and values of the computers and writing community; a holistic exploration of meaning-making; and an activist approach to pedagogy. It is a must-read book for anyone interested in rhetoric, technology, and pedagogy, including faculty, graduate students, and colleagues in professions outside the academy.




A Short History of Writing Instruction


Book Description

A Short History of Writing Instruction preserves the legacy of writing instruction from antiquity to contemporary times with a unique focus on the material, educational, and institutional context of the Western rhetorical tradition.




A Short History of Writing Instruction


Book Description

Short enough to be synoptic, yet long enough to be usefully detailed, A Short History of Writing Instruction is the ideal text for undergraduate courses and graduate seminars in rhetoric and composition. It preserves the legacy of writing instruction from antiquity to contemporary times with a unique focus on the material, educational, and institutional context of the Western rhetorical tradition. Its longitudinal approach enables students to track the recurrence over time of not only specific teaching methods, but also major issues such as social purpose, writing as power, the effect of technologies, the rise of vernaculars, and writing as a force for democratization. The collection is rich in scholarship and critical perspectives, which is made accessible through the robust list of pedagogical tools included, such as the Key Concepts listed at the beginning of each chapter, and the Glossary of Key Terms and Bibliography for Further Study provided at the end of the text. Further additions include increased attention to orthography, or the physical aspects of the writing process, new material on high school instruction, sections on writing in the electronic age, and increased coverage of women rhetoricians and writing instruction of women. A new chapter on writing instruction in Late Medieval Europe was also added to augment coverage of the Middle Ages, fill the gap in students’ knowledge of the period, and present instructional methods that can be easily reproduced in the modern classroom.




Dialogue on Writing


Book Description

This primary textbook for courses on theories & methods of teaching at the college writing level brings together seminal articles, followed by questions for reflection, writing, and discussion.




Technology and Literacy in the 21st Century


Book Description

Selfe tries to identify the effects of this new literacy agenda, focusing specifically on what she calls "serious and shameful" inequities it fosters in our culture and in the public education system: among them, the continuing presence of racism, poverty, and illiteracy."--BOOK JACKET.




Composition and Big Data


Book Description

In a data-driven world, anything can be data. As the techniques and scale of data analysis advance, the need for a response from rhetoric and composition grows ever more pronounced. It is increasingly possible to examine thousands of documents and peer-review comments, labor-hours, and citation networks in composition courses and beyond. Composition and Big Data brings together a range of scholars, teachers, and administrators already working with big-data methods and datasets to kickstart a collective reckoning with the role that algorithmic and computational approaches can, or should, play in research and teaching in the field. Their work takes place in various contexts, including programmatic assessment, first-year pedagogy, stylistics, and learning transfer across the curriculum. From ethical reflections to database design, from corpus linguistics to quantitative autoethnography, these chapters implement and interpret the drive toward data in diverse ways.




Page to Screen


Book Description

Hypertext, e-mail, word processing: electronic technologies have revolutionized textual practices. How does language on screen work differently from language on the page? What new literacy skills are needed and how do we teach them? Page to Screen collects some of the best contemporary thinkers in the field of technology and literacy. They analyze the potential of the new forms of text, the increased emphasis on visual communication, new forms of rhetoric, learning in the age of global communication networks and new approaches to storytelling. Page to Screen is compelling reading for anyone interested in Literacy Education, Language Studies, English, Library Studies, Multimedia and Communication Studies. International contributors include Gunther Kress, Cynthia Selfe, Gail E. Hawisher and Colin Lankshear.




Introduction to Scholarship in Modern Languages and Literatures


Book Description

The third edition of the MLA's widely used Introduction to Scholarship in Modern Languages and Literatures features sixteen new essays by leading scholars. Designed to highlight relations among languages and forms of discourse, the volume is organized into three sections. "Understanding Language" provides an overview of the field of linguistics, with special attention to language acquisition and the social life of languages. "Forming Texts" offers tools for understanding how speakers and writers shape language; it examines scholarship in the distinct but interrelated fields of rhetoric, composition, and poetics. "Reading Literature and Culture" continues the work of the first two sections by introducing major areas of critical study. The nine essays in this section cover textual and historical scholarship; interpretation; comparative, cultural, and translation studies; and the interdisciplinary topics of gender, sexuality, race, and migrations (among others). As in previous volumes, an epilogue examines the role of the scholar in contemporary society. Each essay discusses the significance, underlying assumptions, and limits of an important field of inquiry; traces the historical development of its subject; introduces key terms; outlines modes of research now being pursued; postulates future developments; and provides a list of suggestions for further reading. This book will interest any member of the academic community seeking a review of recent scholarship, while it provides an indispensable resource for undergraduate and graduate students of modern languages and literatures.




Lost Texts in Rhetoric and Composition


Book Description

A project of recovery and reanimation, Lost Texts in Rhetoric and Composition foregrounds a broad range of publications that deserve renewed attention. Contributors to this volume reclaim these lost texts to reenvision the rhetorical tradition itself. Authors discussed include not only twentieth-century American compositionists but also a linguist, a poet, a philosopher, a painter, a Renaissance rhetorician, and a nineteenth-century pioneer of comics; the collection also features some less-studied works by authors who remain well known. These texts will give rise to new conversations about current ideas in rhetoric and composition. This volume contains discussion of the following authors and titles: Judah Messer Leon, The Book of the Honeycomb's Flow, Angel DeCora, Sterling Andrus Leonard, English Composition as a Social Problem, Rodolphe Töpffer, William James, Kenneth Burke, Adrienne Rich, Ann E. Berthoff, John Mohawk, "Western Peoples, Natural Peoples," William Vande Kopple, William Irmscher, Beat Not the Poor Desk, Walter J. Ong, Geneva Smitherman, Thomas Zebroski, Linda Brodkey, Craig S. Womack, Deborah Cameron, James Slevin, Marilyn Sternglass, and William E. Coles, Jr.