Douglas Hesse: "Saving a Place for Essayistic Literacy" (2)
Douglas Hesse addresses his concerns that the essay in its purest form is being lost in the shuffle of research papers and academic writings, citing Lester Faigley and Susan Romano's recent work as an example of how essayistic literacy's definition is morphing under the pressure of the academy. Hesse examines the history of the essay, buttressing his argument for the inclusion of the essay as a sub-category of the prose genre. In the last part of his chapter, Hesse brings essayistic literacy into the digital realm, examining the idea of hypertexts and home pages as fulfilling the role of the essay in what he calls "network literacy." At the center of his argument lies his observation that in web-based documents, little explanation is offered for the links that lead to and from hypertextual documents, unlike the many footnotes, endnotes, and glosses common to essays. No longer is it the author's responsibility to explain his or her reasons for these included links--it is up to the user/reader to deduce the author's meaning behind the links. To illustrate his attempt to save a place for essayistic literacy in an electronic world, Hesse examines the essay-ism of both home pages and listservs, analyzing the electronic documents in light of the traditional essay defined earlier in his chapter. His analysis reveals that true essayistic literacy lies in the interpretation of the essayist, whether he or she writes on paper or on the Web. The essayist has the ability to finish what he or she has started, instead of letting a discussion thread flap in the virtual wind. But, Hesse argues, we need to include both traditional essays and web texts in the undergraduate curriculum and in culture as a whole in order to give students a more complete essayistic education.
By suggesting that essayistic literacy be incorporated into the digital world, Hesse seems to be calling not only for the education of the reader of these texts but also for the education of the essayistic writer. Most undergraduate curricula do not include courses or even sections of courses on writing for the Web; instead, it is left up to the student to translate what he or she learned in a traditional writing classroom into a style for Web authoring. But with the freedom of the Web, is it fair to try to teach someone how to write hypertextually? Is it even possible? Just by attempting to teach a student how to write "in hypertext," we take away from the student's own creativity by placing boundaries or rules on him or her. But total freedom of expression is rather scary and, truth be told, not very realistic, at least not in a structured English classroom. A certain level of propriety is expected and usually delivered. Then again, I doubt that Hesse would consider a freshman composition paper about "My Date with Marilyn Manson" to be "essayistic."
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