I would like to think that the kinds of texts that we're beginning to ask
students to create in online environments (and those we are beginning to create
ourselves) are not limited only to conventional genres, and certainly not
limited only to conventional conceptions of "writing." One of the most
interesting areas of work that I can see in our field has to do with an
expanded notion of both composition and text that goes way beyond our
current-traditional understanding of those terms to include the use of still
and moving images, video, animation, sound, and other elements that are
composed to create a text.
Where do I see such composition work happening? I can mention three kinds of
examples--the WWW work that Geofff Sirc has students do at the University of
Minnesota in the tradition of the artist Marcel Duchamp, the work that Anne
Wysocki has students do in composing multimedia texts at Michigan Tech, and the
work that students around the country are doing in creating their personal
homepages.
To me, these texts are much richer, much more robust and engaging--both to
create as an author/designer and to re-create as a reader/viewer/listener--than
are text-only documents. Indeed, text-only documents--what we generally call
writing--are looking a bit pale and anemic these days.
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