Introduction: The Question of Teaching Composition Online

Online courses now command a prominent position in composition scholarship where we dream of democratized education and liberating literacies. However, despite warnings from Gail E. Hawisher and Cynthia L. Selfe against the rhetoric of technology, many of us have become carelessly enamored with online courses (constituting a billion-dollar industry) to the point of forgetting to “pay attention” to their possible defects and dangers. Furthermore, as online education proponents have begun to reflect on their programs in this year’s economic downturn, many have realized that they were too hasty to incorporate new (and expensive) technologies. For example, despite the initial hype, this year several major players in the race to put higher education online backed out, including New York University’s NYUonline, The University of Maryland University College, and Temple University's company, Virtual Temple (Hafner, 2002, p. G1). Even the highly-hyped Fathom.com based at Columbia University lost much of its funding this year and was forced to restructure its program toward non-degree-seeking professionals and to offer many courses for little cost or for free (Hafner, 2002, p. G1). As Lev S. Gonick, vice president for information services and chief information officer at Case Western Reserve University, put it, "We figured a quick wave of the magic wand and we'd reinvent how people learned after 900 years of a traditional university mode of instruction" (Hafner 2002, p. G1).

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