Strickland, James. From Disk to Hard Copy: Teaching Writing with Computers. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1997.

Strickland's book is well titled. From Disk to Hard Copy suggests the realm of 5 1/4-inch floppy boot disks of the late 80s, and many of the suggestions in this book seem to originate there. Aimed at "all middle, secondary, and postseconday teachers," the goal of the book is "to help teachers use computers to support writers, offering strategies that would be impossible without the technology." And Strickland states clearly that "this is not a computer book; it is a writing book" (xv), though exactly what this taxonomy means in this day and age is unclear. While it is a commonplace to say that books about computers are outdated by the time they come off the press, this book seems especially dated. For example, another book that offers practical classroom activities to secondary education teachers, The English Classroom in the Computer Age: Thirty Lesson Plans, edited by William Wresch and published in 1991, is more current in the way it explores the possibilities of networked communication and the intersection of text and graphics. Indeed, Strickland's book has more in common with Linda Roehrig Knapp's 1986 text The Word Processor and the Writing Teacher. However, the book isn't merely a throwback to earlier texts. What sets is apart is its consistent application of expressivist and process theory to the computer equipped writing classroom. Those instructors comfortable with the expressivist rhetoric of Peter Elbow or Donald Murray will find much that is familiar in the pages of From Disk to Hard Copy. Teachers who are more interested in the communal construction of knowledge that the computer facilitates should take a close look at the book's title; the book's emphasis on producing hard copies leaves little room for some of the more dynamic functions of the computer, such as MOOs, Interchange programs, or website construction. But, as many teachers can attest, first stepping into that realm can be disorienting and intimidating, and the ideas Strickland offers can help ease that transition by allowing the process teacher who's just moving into the lab an opportunity to practice familiar techniques in an unfamiliar setting. This gives the teacher a chance to get comfortable in the new teaching environment--learning how to yell over the hum of 25 computers for instance--before attempting the more difficult process of pedagogical change.

The book is set up much like those creative writing how-to anthologies, where authors offer their favorite exercise for writing a poem (which usually instruct the would-be writer to engage in all sorts of verbal calisthenics, and then end with "Now write your poem"). Strickland avoids the flaws of those books by carefully covering the writing process. The book has chapters on invention, revision, collaboration, editing, and finally, the Internet. Except for the last, each chapter offers an array of writing activities, many of them quite familiar from non-computer settings, adapted to the computer.

Strickland's audience is elementary and secondary education writing teachers, teachers who don't often have access to state of the art computer labs. As a result, the ideas offered are simple to learn and implement, and they are derived from the process pedagogy that many of us are already using, so it offers teachers a way to move into the lab without confronting much of the disorientation of interchange software (CommonSpace, Daedalus) or sessions on the Internet. In preparing this book, Strickland has culled the literature for basic, easily implemented classroom practices that are based in mainstream process pedagogy. For example, Strickland describes how Peter Elbow's freewriting technique can be profitably adapted to the computer, because it is easy for students to go back and save what they like in the freewrite: "Freewriting with a computer encourages a free flow of words on the screen--words easily correctable, easily expendable, and easily rearranged" (14). Indeed, much of the book is an education in how to harness the dynamic opportunities of word process in the writing classroom.

One of the ideas I found most interesting was the idea of sentence separation. In this technique, students go through a text and hit the return key twice between each sentence. Students can then more easily see individual sentences, so local revision and editing become more manageable; instead of looking at a four page mass of words, the writer is only looking at one sentence at a time.

But, as I said, if you're looking for ideas to take advantage of some of the cutting-edge opportunities in the computer lab, this isn't the book. Strickland mentions technologies like MOOs, listservs, and interchange programs like CommonSpace and Daedalus only in passing, and his chapter on the Internet is somewhat paranoid; he prefaces a three page discussion of the opportunities of cyberwriting with five pages of cautions. For example, Strickland warns, "Students and their parents may not be aware that every one in the world--from convicted felons to prizewinning authors--is able to look at what is posted" on the Internet (89). While there is a basis of truth to this kind of worry, the problem is overstated. The fact is that students are highly unlikely to be contacted by prizewinning authors via the Internet. While, in fairness, Strickland's audience is people who teach younger students, most of his fears do seem to be based on a lack of familiarity with the issues. For example, he frets over the case of two students who turned in a project that was researched on the Internet and which contained errors: "When Don's students characterizes President Kennedy as one of America's most moral presidents, their citations pointed to Internet documents" (92). This kind of worrying ignores the fact that for years students have been quite capable of finding misinformation in print sources. I know that I was a master at it. Still am when I put my mind to it. The real issue here isn't the credibility of the sources, but rather the students skill in reading and judging texts. And the Internet, by making these issues more apparent, can make them easier for students to master. Where Strickland worries about the possibility of the student running across a white supremacist's web site, I would argue that once students are shown how easy it is to put something on the web, it is easier for them to recognize the differences between, say, a holocaust denial web site and the site for the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, than it is for them to differentiate between an article in The Nation and one in The National Review. However, once students have developed those skills while looking at the web, they can then transfer them to the (possibly) subtler situations that they may encounter in the library.

So while From Disk to Hard Copy may not offer a lot in the way of groundbreaking thinking on computers and writing, it fills an important void in computers and writing literature by offering practical, familiar classroom practices that all teachers can employ without revamping their whole approach to teaching. As such, From Disk to Hard Copy could be a valuable resource to a teacher who wants to venture into that computer lab for the first time, or whose school has just been hit by the technology meteor, and whose dean wants to see some immediate gain from it. In fact, just about anyone using a process approach could find something useful in this book.

Andrew C. Higgins
ahiggin@american.edu
American University