Chapter I

Chapter I: Introduction

The theory about online first-year composition is rich although the field of teaching writing through web-based instruction is a new method of composition delivery. Many colleges are offering these types of courses, as well as others like them, as part of their curriculum. Moreover, millions of dollars are being spent in training instructors to develop and teach online classes. While theory may abound, little is mentioned about the stakeholders in this enterprise. Courses are being designed with seemingly slight regard for the user, as insufficient research exists on the experience of the online student. Thus, one essential piece is missing when educators build and design entire curriculum that will do what it is supposed to: teach students what they need to learn for a particular class. This is especially true when addressing the needs of the first-year college composition student.

Why This Topic?

Five years ago, when I was offered the opportunity to teach an Online English 101 composition class through the local community college, I was probably as well prepared as anyone in our local area at that time. Since the class was the first of its type offered in our district, teachers, staff, and administrators were all unclear about the dynamics involved. Questions included: How should it be listed in the class bulletin? Where should it meet? How would students be notified? Not one question addressed how do we best prepare our students for this type of delivery.
I had been using computers in the classroom for a few years. After researching the work of others, I started using computers to aid in instruction. My first ventures were tentative. I began using electronic communication as a way for students to send their weekly journal entries to me in the early 90s. Since I am primarily a writing teacher, I did not want computer learning to detract from the meager time I have to teach rhetorical strategies. I learned much in those first few classes: invariably the first day in the computer lab is hectic; glitches will surface; and in every class one student will balk, sometimes quite vocally.

Next I led a group of non-native students from Oman, who were studying hydrology here in the U.S., through a totally electronic technical writing class. Although all of their assignments were sent to them through email, we still met together in the computer lab during the appointed class time. As they worked on various projects, I would sit with individuals, ensuring that they understood the expectations of the assignment. I have found no better way to teach students the clarity and precision needed in technical writing than to have them follow written instructions. One of those students went on to win a cash prize from a local writing contest for one of the reports he had written in class. Soon after that class, I paired two of my writing classes with classes from other schools located in distant cities to give my students the advantage of working with "real" audiences.

Then John Bowers and Jane Butcher, friends who I had met on the Internet, researched, wrote, and published an informative article about MUDs and MOOs, computer programs that allow many users to converse real-time with one another. My students read the article, and John agreed to meet with us in a synchronous discussion about the article. To say the least, the visit was a success.

Challenges of Going Online

My first ventures were tentative. I began using electronic communication as a way for students to send their weekly journal entries to me in the early 90s. Since I am primarily a writing teacher, I did not want computer learning to detract from the meager time I have to teach rhetorical strategies. I learned much in those first few classes: invariably the first day in the computer lab is hectic; glitches will surface; and in every class one student will balk, sometimes quite vocally.

Next I led a group of non-native students from Oman, who were studying hydrology here in the U.S., through a totally electronic technical writing class. Although all of their assignments were sent to them through email, we still met together in the computer lab during the appointed class time. As they worked on various projects, I would sit with individuals, ensuring that they understood the expectations of the assignment. I have found no better way to teach students the clarity and precision needed in technical writing than to have them follow written instructions. One of those students has since won a cash prize from a local writing contest for one of the reports he had written in class.

Soon after that class, I virtually paired two of my writing classes with classes from other schools located in distant cities to give my students the advantage of working with "real" audiences. Then John Bowers and Jane Butcher, friends who I had met on the Internet, researched, wrote, and published an informative article about MUDs and MOOs, computer programs that allow many users to converse real-time with one another. My students read the article, and John agreed to meet with us in a synchronous discussion about the article. To say the least, the visit met with success.

What’s Known About Online Courses

Most colleges offer English composition to incoming first-year students. Previous to the 1950s, students in writing classes were recently out of high school mixed with a small number of non-traditional students. The non-traditional students of that era were those who needed to enhance their writing skills to help ensure their success in their other classes because somehow they had missed learning the basics of composition. However, the modern college classroom in America is no longer comprised of such a homogenous blend.

More and more people are returning to school because they want to change or upgrade their skills for their careers. Some return for personal growth. Others arrive here from Mexico, Japan, U.A.E., Korea, and other countries; these second-language learners enter our universities to learn skills in the fields of business, engineering, or nursing (Gappe, 1984). Many students are unwilling to be limited by time and space once imposed because of one's location, age, and physical form. These changes in populace and purpose have driven composition educators across the nation to recognize the need to provide alternatives for their traditional composition courses. Internet and the World Wide Web offer new methods of delivery for these learners.

One such method is the offering of first-year composition through the Internet. This type of class utilizes the Internet, email, the World Wide Web (WWW), and asynchronous communication. Asynchronous discourse allows freedom to both student and teacher, as a message can be delivered at one time, but does not need to be answered until the respondent is available. Teachers can "post" their hypertext lectures on the WWW, and students, when they are finished with their jobs or taking care of their families, can access the information at will. In hypertext, a professor can embed a "link" which will take the student from the lecture page to another document which explains concepts or ideas in depth.

These digressions of sort, much like those that occur in the traditional classroom, enliven the printed lecture and add a wealth of knowledge for the student's perusal. With a click of mouse button, a student can read the biography of Sylvia Plath; with another click, she can read the entire collection of poetry, and another will lead her to the latest critical analysis. These new methodologies in using technology in the composition class are rapidly gaining popularity.

Johnson (1995) states, "Many researchers claim that it [specifically hypertext] holds great promise as a new medium for reading and writing" (p. 11). Other educators, Hitlz and Turoff (1978/1992) and Sproull and Kiesler (1991) propose this type of computer-mediated communication as a means to revolutionize "social and structural changes in the ways people communicate and relate to each other" (Spears & Lea, 1994, p. 427).

The Importance of the Core Writing Course

Given that most colleges throughout the country require a basic composition class, one can assume students need to be able to write academic discourse if they are to be successful in their college careers (Elbow, 1988). While many students learn some writing skills while in high school, the vast majority must take at least one college composition course when entering college. Since WWII when colleges began to "open" their doors to more non-traditional and non-standard students (Gappe, 1984), most university have established composition departments to meet the needs of those students, by either helping students brush up the writing skills they already have or teaching skills students may lack (Shaughnessy, 1977).

In addition, secondary education is also facing phenomenal change. In order to meet the needs of their students various programs are being offered. "Running Start" is one such program offered here in Spokane; students enrolled in high schools, junior standing or above, who meet certain criteria are allowed to enroll in college classes; often these students look towards the online class as an alternative to the traditional class. Most of them are motivated but look at school as a means to an end (e.g., J. Tortenelli, February 20, 1996). They believe they do not have to leave their houses to "learn" the subject; they just have to check their email occasionally and turn in an occasional paper or assignment (Reynolds, 1997). Each of these limited viewpoints fail to envision the online writing class as anything more than teaching the skill of writing; they do not attend to the notion of socialization and teacher involvement as components of the class.

McCroskey and Richmond (1983) in a series of studies have shown that "teachers' behavioral alteration techniques function in student perceptions of the classroom environment . . . indicating teachers are in a pivotal position to facilitate or inhibit student learning" (West, 1994, p. 109). Yet, Walther, Anderson, and Park (1994) report, "experimental findings emphasized communicators' greater task orientation, impersonality, hostility and participation using computer-mediated communication" (p. 460-461). Other researchers suggest, "Computer-mediated communication qualitatively limits the nature of communication by reducing the amount of social context information available in or around the message" (Spear & Lea, 1994, p. 429). Thus, computer-mediated communication, in this case, teaching a class entirely asynchronous, would seem to interfere with the teacher/student relationship and the socialization that occurs in the "real-time" college classroom.

Distance Education versus Online Education

Some people have compared online instruction to distance learning and have drawn upon distance education models to aid in online teaching. However, distance education courses have their own problems.

Too often, instructional designers and curriculum developers have become enamored of the latest technologies without dealing with the underlying issues of learner characteristics and needs, the influence of media upon the instructional process, equity of access to interactive delivery systems, the new roles of teacher, site-facilitator and student in the distance learning process. (Sherry, 1996, p. 5)

Distance learning (distance education), as the name suggests, entails a distance between teacher and learner in space and/or time, mediated by some form of technology with asynchronous and sometimes increasing synchronous communication between student and teacher (Keegan, 1986; Sherry, 1996). Usually the distance learner reads assignments, watches lectures through the TV monitor and takes tests at an agreed upon site with facilitators who aid in proctoring the situation. Distance learning then is composed of a triad of teacher, student, and facilitator. While this does seem an apt description for online instruction as well as distance learning, one factor is different, that of the relationship between the student and teacher.

In distance learning, the usual direct relationship between student and teacher is minimal; the students, more often than not, see and communicate with the facilitator; thus, the teacher when she is present is a resource, rather than as an integral part of the class.

Ideally in online classes, the student and teacher are continually in contact. The relationship leans toward informality, as virtual conversation often lacks forethought, and focuses on getting the task done which replaces reflection or deliberation. Baron (1984), citing Kiesler, Sielgel, and McGuire (1984), suggests, "The lack of visual and non-linguistic cues puts added pressure upon the participants to use any means possible (such as haranguing) to ensure they are being understood" (p. 130). Thus the instructor and students join together, sometimes in a fairly messy manner, to make meaning of the texts and assignments. Both, students and teachers, are integral to the online class.

The Study

Many writing practitioners have embraced teaching first-year composition online. Yet Johnson-Eilola (1994) purported that hypertext, the primary means of instruction in online composition classes, has its own dangers. He states,

As researchers in both theory and pedagogy are demonstrating, there is much excitement about the possibilities for this new type of text in an electronic medium. At the same time, however, there is little evidence that this excitement is being tempered by a sensible approach to the use of hypertext — as a text to be used in either educational or workplace environments. In short there seems to be a romantic "love affair" with hypertext that is in some ways blind to the uses of these text. (p. 12)

Internet and the WWW increase the distance we can travel and the variety of students we can have in one class, but whether Internet instruction gives first-year composition students what they need, in terms of pedagogy and socialization, is another question altogether.

The focus of this research is on descriptions of "what people experience and how it is that they experience what they experience" (Patton, 1990, p. 69). In other words, what is the structure and essence of the first-year composition student's experience? This is the thrust I pursued during the course of this study. A review of relevant literature, presented in chapter two, in the fields of distance education, composition, the Internet, and WWW informed and directed the research methodology presented in chapter three. To describe this process of reading and researching, I draw upon the words of another. In the poem, "Diving Into the Wreck," by Rich (1973), the woman narrator dons,

the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
She prepares for a journey of discovery. She tells us,
I come to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail. (p. 23)

Qualitative inquiry is more than just a way to study and produce results; it seems, indeed, a way of life while submerged in the project. Purposeful selection of participants and careful gathering of data are ways that promote the trade of words and experiences between researcher and participants. The product is the map drawn from the meaning of those voices and visions, which when interpreted through rigorous methodology, we can share with others. Chapter three, then, is the representation of how the words will be gathered and how the meaning is made. But of course, we must begin with, as Rich states,

          the thing I came for:
          the wreck and not the story of wreck
          the thing itself and not the myth.

Understanding the how and why of the online experience from a theoretical perspective will enable us to better understand the phenomena students experience in the online class. To help with that understanding, the three of the more commonly used terms throughout this document are presented here; others less commonly used are presented in Appendix A.

Online classes. As opposed to the traditional class, these are classes delivered through the medium of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Information is dynamic. Materials such as lectures, syllabi, and handouts are posted on web pages. Information is exchanged through email. Students are expected to check in, as they would in a traditional class, on a discussion board, a public bulletin board so-to-speak. The length, duration and expectations are the same as that of a "real-time" classroom.

Synchronous, "real-time" communication. Teachers and students agree to meet at a mutually acceptable time to exchange class information. Synchronous meetings can take place on the phone, through a "chat" client, or in the traditional classroom. These can be weekly or tri-quarterly.

Asynchronous meetings. This common type of online communication occurs when students leave messages, respond to assignments, or interact with the instructor and classmates through email or a discussion board in an attempt to model the day-to-day contact of the traditional class.

Because of the nature of my research, I looked to the Internet for timely material pertinent to my topic. According to the latest APA documentation report, citations from sources need no pagination, as documents on the Internet do not contain page numbers (http://www.apa.org/journals/webref.html#WEB Site, April 9, 2000). Thus, when an Internet source is cited, only the name and date are noted. In Chapter four, I introduce the setting and the participants, and present the data. Chapter five discusses the implications for further research.

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