Aging Literacies:
Training and Development Challenges for Faculty
Angela Crow
Cresskill, New Jersey: Hampton Press, Inc., 2006
ISBN 1-57273-643-7/$17.95 (paperback)/161 pages
Reviewed by Geoffrey C. Middlebrook
University of Southern California
Webtext design by John M. Bonham
University of Southern California
Context
There is little question that the landscape of composition theory and pedagogy is changing. Equally understood is that much of the change arises from expanded notions of literacy and the emergence of media forms, phenomena that can be observed, for instance, in texts such as Stuart Selber’s Multiliteracies for a Digital Age (2004) and Writing New Media (2004) by Anne Francis Wysocki and her colleagues. Less well recognized, or at least less thoroughly studied, is the impact of these developments on the composition professoriate, more specifically as it relates to some of the myriad issues associated with aging. That void in the literature has now been partially filled by Angela Crow, an associate professor in the Department of Writing and Linguistics at Georgia Southern University, with her book Aging Literacies: Training and Development Challenges for Faculty (2006). From where I stand, a “digital immigrant” who strives to remain current with relevant instructional technologies and often trains others in the use thereof, Crow has produced a valuable contribution to the profession. While the book is not without shortcomings, it is worth reading by those interested in certain salient issues at the junction of rhetoric, technology, and pedagogy.