A Whole New World

I enjoyed this week’s book. I picked and read chapter 11 and 12 because both titles seemed appealing to me as I am preparing to make a switch from high school teaching to college instruction. I also read the foreword and preface to better acquaint myself with the overall theme of this book. The first item that really struck me was the opening quote found in the foreword which states: “As technology continues to alter societies and cultures, it has fostered and supported an unprecedented expansion of human communication. In 2005, 172,000 new books were published in the United States alone. One hundred million Websites now exist worldwide. One hundred and seventy-one billion e-mail messages are sent daily. To write in this world is to engage in a millennia-old act that is reinventing and regenerating itself in the modern age” (Herrington, Hodgson, and Moran vii). I was amazed at the figures and realized that we really are living in a whole new world. A world in which technology has become such a vital part of a person’s daily life. Yet, what is interesting is how many of these items are seen as personal activities and not educational. When e-mails and websites are utilized in the academic setting it is strictly limited to the communication of questions between students to their teachers and as a guide to important scholarly texts that one can use for a paper. In fact, schools spend time instructing students on what are appropriate internet resources. For example, I am always amazed that Youtube is constantly recognized as an appropriate site for personal entertainment but that it is not suitable for classrooms or academic purposes (even though many instructors and students utilize it. Hence making one question who creates or deems appropriateness, what is appropriate and how do academic communities define appropriate and inappropriate). Thus, this book’s authors believe that it is time for an educational overhaul so that technology can be better utilized and valued by both instructors and students alike. I was also intrigued to learn that “another group of educators and public representatives were hard at work on a new Writing Framework for the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP is ‘the Nation’s Report Card’”) so that “By 2011, mass assessment in writing would need to accommodate new digital tools” (Herrington, Hodgson, and Moran vii). I was wondering if anyone had any more information on this process. I will try and do some more research and see if I can find out any interesting points or important dates.

Chapter eleven is really an amazing chapter. The three authors “who collectively have 48 years of experience teaching writing to high school and college students” discuss how they have found different ways to incorporate various medias within their English classrooms and department requirements (Herrington, Hodgson and Moran 181). They write that “we have begun to understand, as Yancey (2004) articulates, that ‘never before has the proliferation of writings outside the academy so counterpointed the composition inside,’ and that ‘never before have the technologies of writing contributed so quickly to the creation of new genres’” (Herrington, Hodgson and Moran 181). In this chapter, the authors talk about a novel type of writing that they use in their classroom that facilitates the use of different medias. This new item is termed the hybrid essay because it is “an attempt to emphasize that these otherwise traditional essays should use word and image together with each playing an equal role in informing readers rather than rely on what Kress (1998) has identified as a less rhetorically effective use of illustration, in which ‘the written text carries all the information, and the image “repeats” that information’” (Herrington, Hodgson and Moran 186).

What is so important about this chapter’s whole point about utilizing different items and technologies and incorporating them in the classroom is that we need to remember that our students are “composing: and not “writing” (Herrington, Hodgson and Moran 182). The authors write that “moving away from the word writing allows us to stop privileging print and thus stop limiting our- and our students’-communicative abilities” and that composing allows them to “teach students… how to get their ideas across, to make meaning, to say what it is they want to say regardless of the medium they choose” (Herrington, Hodgson and Moran 182). Later in the chapter it becomes apparent that the difference in writing and composing also allows the student-teacher dynamic to be changed. The authors write that “Making a smack move like using the word compose instead of write can empower students to think of themselves as multimodal composers, as individuals who have a variety of rhetorical choices at their disposal” (Herrington, Hodgson and Moran 192). This terminology change allows the student to become the writer and author that we are always telling them that they are (or are suppose to be). Finally, the college curriculum is allowing for students to get passionate about their assignments (which are relevant to real life (and job) experiences). Not only are our students going to become interested in their project and hybrid essay but they are going to share this idea with others who will either accept or reject the idea. Either way, students are finally getting a chance to become authors and share their voice and vision with an increasingly global audience. In chapter twelve, which ended up being a conclusion and summary of the whole book, Herrington, Hodgson and Moran write that “our understanding of writing as the production of linear text is expanded to include the writing (or composing, or designing) of texts that might include words, images, sounds and hyperlinks that connect any and all of the above to other words, images, sounds and hyperlinks” which is “accessible to peers for editing- and now the term peers is not geographically constrained”(Herrington, Hodgson and Moran 199, 202). Thus, by broadening our traditional writing limits through the use of technological advances, like blogs, our student-writers will have their voices and opinions heard not only among their fellow classmates but also by others around the world who can offer different perspectives which will aid in their education and writing. Herrington, Hodgson and Moran agree stating “What the new technologies make possible, however, is freezing the discussion so that the participants can reflect and comment on it, keeping the composition in the moment” (Herrington, Hodgson and Moran 201-202).

After reading this week’s readings, I felt that the term writing is restrictive and outdated since it keeps the student-writer as a student who writes perfect or imperfect five paragraph essays for only one person, the teacher, who will provide the student with a grade and freely edit a paper that will never be seen or read again. On the other hand, I felt that the term composing allows the student to become the student-writer who works on creating a unique perspective on how an illustration and sound or illustration and texts work together. The student-writer then will present this idea in various demonstrations, like blogs, website, movie, song, and hybrid essay, that will be frequently seen and freely commented on by various audience members. In other words, writing stops discussion, while composing thrives on discussion.

Really enjoyed this chapter. I think I might have a modern day example of this book’s message. Basically, a blogger held a contest and he selected other writers to work on a book that focus on simple stories which now are published. I will bring the article to class on Tuesday so that we can try to discuss it since my blog is already long and the article is interesting.