Conclusions

Our electronic discussions have served as an intertextual forum, contributing to the new TAs and prospective English teachers’ thinking and writing. The electronic discussion is custom-made for reflection because the participants have an opportunity to share and read a variety of perspectives on a variety of issues. Bringing these issues to the electronic forum gives students a place to discuss the issues with other new TA’s and prospective teachers. We have found that the presence of several different threads of conversation going on simultaneously or in closely overlapping sequences opens rhetorical spaces to a greater range of reflections and ways of reflecting than individual teaching logs could.

We certainly don’t mean to suggest that all the interactions on the listserv are constructive and professional. Anyone who follows a listserv knows that conflict can erupt over apparently innocuous remarks, that attacks can occur unexpectedly, that messages not intended as attacks can be construed as such–in short, all of the potential foul-ups that occur in other forms of communication can also occur here. Although no one seemed to suffer anything more serious than severe irritation in our conflict over censorship, the incident forced us, as operators of the list, to intervene and to confront our roles as instructors and listserv participants. Again, while these confrontations may be uncomfortable, we believe they are a necessary part of the ongoing professionalization of teachers, both new and not-so-new.

In this experience, as in other discussions that unfold on the listserv, we see students reading written texts closely, sometimes too closely perhaps, but looking to language to find meaning and guidance in the process of developing a professional voice and identity. In doing so, they re-enact the instructional practices we have modeled and utilized with them, and they get an opportunity to reflect critically and collaboratively on those practices, contributing substantially to their potential for using technology productively with their own students and to their own professionalization as writing teachers.

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