Computers and Composition

The relationship between computers and composition has evolved from those first correspondence courses, starting with the word-processor. Today, a whole field of study has arisen to support the interest. Heim (1993) notes that the computer has been a

seismograph measuring ontological shifts, the changes in our contemporary reality. Seen philosophically, the word processor creates a new relationship to symbols, to language, and, by extension, to reality . . . . This electric language forms an instant feedback loop, the likes of which have never before existed. (p. xi-xii)

With the advent of the personal computers in the late 70s, the world of writing changed. Previously, a writer would laboriously pen her prose, scribbling out words, inserting words or paragraphs on separate papers. The end product was a conglomerate of pages that then had to be organized, then typed which in itself was a chore, especially for a poor typist. Then, the word processor arrived. The relationship between the writer and the page changed; this shift, at first as with any shift, caused a tremendous stir. "Real" writers distrusted word processors, fearing they would interfere with inspiration, fearing the artificiality of the machine (Zinsser, 1983). Businesses embraced the machine, using it to enhance and expedite their jobs. With a touch of a button, spelling could be checked, words erased, and whole sentences deleted. Still writers were some of the last to use the word processor. Zinsser (1983) explains it well:

I belong to a generation of writers and editors who think of paper and pencil as holy objects. I taught myself to type at the age of ten and ever since have been banging out words onto paper, and then crossing them out and penciling other words in, and then retyping what I had revised. The feel of paper is important to me. I have always thought that a writer should have physical contact with the material of his craft - that he should be able to spread out his notes and his early drafts and to work on them with his sacred pencil. (p. xii)

The movement from pencil to typewriter to word processor was gradual until the advent of the personal computer. Computers not only allowed writers to change words and sentences and check spelling, they also enabled the rearranging of text, the insertion and deletion of pages, and a final product all without leaving the keyboard. As with any new technology, people were apprehensive, but within a short time, they acclimated (Zinsser, 1983, p. 6). Composition teachers then began to see the benefit of using computers in the classroom. Here was a tool that would help students become better revisionists, thus, they hoped, helping them become better writers. However, as with all new tools, the more pragmatic educators set out to discover whether computers do indeed help the writing process.
The results were mixed. Students are more ready to revise when they do not have to retype and rewrite the same paper over and over (Shostak, 1984). Many inexperienced writers loathe to rewrite and feel it is punishment when they first learn the process (Schwartz, 1984).

Many studies offer inconclusive results about whether computers aid in the revision process. A project at the University of Minnesota with six writers indicates revision seemed easier (Bridwell, Nancarrow & Ross, 1984). Daiute (1983) and Schwartz (1984, 1993) claim writers are more willing to experiment when using word processing and that it encourages revision. Conversely, others found that without specific instruction from instructors, word processing added little or nothing to the revision process (Collier, 1983). However, Sommers (1985] explains,

But in spite of all the problems, I don't know a single teacher working with word processing who would give it up, and this includes me. Writers usually enjoy working with word processing and they often work harder. Adding microcomputers to the classroom decentralizes the classroom irrevocably, this is great. Another benefit I hadn't anticipated was the role reversal as my writers teach me how to use microcomputers to teach them. They enjoy being my teachers and new relationships emerge. (p. 426)

This relationship change, which happened with the advent of the personal computer, is even more noticeable with the shift to online instruction.
Selfe (1985), one of the pioneers in online instruction, began studying computer aided instruction, (CAI), at the Michigan Technological University in the early 80s. From her early study of the composing processes and computers of fifty-one students of various college grade levels, she established three points: (a) given the broad range of cognitive styles and strategies, some student will never use the computer as more than glorified typewriters; (b) teachers must invent new ways to teach revision since the medium is different; and (c) facilities must provide the tools and availability if students are to use them. Selfe (1992) later cautions that if

English teachers do not work to embrace technology, it would not
change the essential hegemony in our classrooms or encourage students to engage in classroom discourse that runs counter to the dominant mind set or world vision. Or we can try to develop computer-based strategies that offer students the opportunities to effect change, to see things from different perspectives. (p. 155)

Turkle (1995), however, sees the entry of computers into education in another way, "Computer don't just do things for us, they do things to us, including to our ways of thinking about ourselves and other people" (p. 26).

To compound the issue is the problem of reading online text. Hypertext was first introduced through MacIntosh computers, then on IBM personal computers in the form of compact discs. Hypertext is "text composed of blocks of words (or) images linked electronically by multiple paths, chains, or trails in an open-ended perpetually unfinished textually described by terms link, node, network, web and path" (Landow, 1992, p. 3). Just as educators were introducing and researching student writing and computers, this new medium of delivery became available.

The ability to embed within the screen images or words that students could click on with their cursors in order to go to another linked page with more information added another level of complexity to the teaching of composition. Previous to the advent of hypertext, Foucault (1972) pointed out, "The frontiers of a book are never clear-cut," because "it is caught up in a system of references to other books, other texts, other sentences: it is a node within a network . . . ." (p. 3). He continued, "What is a text? How is one to diversify the levels at which one may place oneself, each of which possesses its own divisions and form of analysis?" (p. 6). Hypertext compounds the issue, as reading online is an open-ended, non-linear form of textual and imagistic communication that educators now bring into the classroom.

Of course others have a healthy skepticism, "We often judge new approaches to pedagogy as simultaneously ineffective, even educationally useless, yet overpoweringly and dangerously influential" (Landow, 1992, p.177). Yet, hypertextual documents seem to provide some freedom not present in linear text.

1. Students can find their own ways through a hypertext document, checking and cross-checking depending upon the knowledge they already have.
2. A vast amount of information is available at one's fingertips which is delivered in a fairly expedient manner, depending of course on one's computer system.
3. Since most hypertext documents allow interaction, either by form or letter, students are empowered. They can argue, link or comment upon the discourse before them. (pp. 177-78)

Ong (1982) holds the notion that even writing is a technology, and it empowers people by enabling them to make sense of the world, to think on the page in ways not possible in an oral culture,

In an oral culture, to think through something in non-formulaic, non-patterned, non-mnemonic, terms even it if were possible, would be a waste of time, for such though, once worked through, could never be recovered with any effectiveness, as it could be with the aid of writing. It would not be abiding knowledge but simply a passing thought. (pp. 34-35)

He writes, "Technologies are not mere exterior aids but also interior transformations of consciousness" (p. 82). Here then is the impetus for educators. After all is that not what teachers seek for students, a transformation from being non-literate and non-thinking into being intelligent, critical thinkers?

Schaff (1973) tells us, too, that changes in social life, (which occur as we become more educated), require changes in thinking and an enriched vocabulary (p. 149). Thus, in order for educators to transform the student from the social class of limited or non-literacy to literate, she must be provided opportunities for the possibility of an enriched language. Electronic text and hypertext encourages that transformation. Yankelovich, Meyrowitz, and Van Dam (1985) remind us:

Authors and readers should have the same set of integrated tools that allow them to browse through other material during the document preparation process and to add annotations and original links as they progress through an information web. In effect the boundary between author and reader should largely disappear. (p. 31)

Thus, if the reader reading this dissertation, which is online (http://www.js.spokane.wa.us/dissertation), decides she wants to read more about hypertext or any of the other terms she may be unfamiliar with, she can click on the term, which of course will be highlighted for convenience. She then is transported to a site which is linked to the page to read more about the idea or concept.

Through this she gains a degree of mastery of the language and vocabulary. Or if she is unsure of a citation or source, she can, with the click of a button, visit the source's site to see if it were an accurate citation. Another boon, as she is reading, she can call up the mail program and jot a note to the author asking for more information or clarification, or even comment or argue the point under consideration. Then if she wants, she can use all of the links and sources and data I have provided to write her own article or treatise. She undergoes transformation, through the gaining of information which she negotiates in her own space and time.

Heidegger (1971) reinforces this idea:

If it is true that man finds the proper abode of his existence in language - whether he is aware of it or not - then an experience we undergo with language will touch the innermost nexus of our existence. We who speak language may thereupon become transformed by such experiences, from one day to the next or in the course of time. (p. 57)

Hypertext and online writing also create more variety of student interaction, thus enlarging upon a limited understanding which is necessary for intellectual and linguistic growth. Hayakawa (1939) writes that language is a social phenomenon, and

concepts arise, not in the course of this own individual, personal experience with this limited environment, but they have arisen out of the cumulative experience of many individuals within a presumable wider environment. When the individual learns a language, he acquires context which grew not out of his own experience alone but from those of others as well. (p. 40)

If the student has some control of the language in which the hypertext was written, she can negotiate the pages at her own speed within her own comfort zone. Weber (1963) reinforces this idea of the discursive nature of our knowledge,

We comprehend reality only through a chain of intellectual modifications . . . . Our imagination can often dispense with explicit conceptual formulations as a means of investigation. But as regards exposition, to the extent that it wishes to be unambiguous, the use of precise formulations . . . is in many cases absolutely necessary. (p. 30)

Here then is one way of looking at how we learn, a chain of intellectual modifications which each of us must make on our own. Schaff (1973) supports Weber's viewpoint.

Language then is the social point of departure for individual thinking. It is the intermediary between the social and the inherited, on the one hand, and the individual and creative on the other, in individual thinking . . . language, conveyed to the human individual by society, forms the necessary foundation for that individual's thinking. (p. 145)

Electronic text and hypertext help students build the foundations needed to acquire the language necessary as students and members of an educated society.
Thus, the pairing of hypertext and Internet seems a natural progression. "Many researchers claim that it (online education) holds great promise as a new medium for reading and writing" (Johnson, 1995, p. 22). Others will note that for ease and convenience it has no match. What could be better than learning at one's own pace, during one's own time frame? Spears and Lea (1994), two computer researchers, go so far to as to say that computer-mediated communication will revolutionize "social and structural changes in the way people communicate and relate to each other" (p. 427). However since the teaching of online, hypertextual, asynchronous online composition has only been in effect for a little over five years, little of significance has been written about it.

Subsections of Chapter II in Order of Apperance
[Distance Education] [Writing Educators Online] [Computers and Compostion] [Opposing Points of View] [Where Online Composition Fits] [The Need for the Study]

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Last Updated 10/20/01

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