The Second Wave
During the second wave of computers-and-writing
as a nascent specialization within English/writing departments, the potential
of technology (and especially computers) to "enact—among other things—the
gestures and deeds of colonialism, continuously and with a great deal of success"
(Selfe and Selfe) was an important focus of
consideration, both for those who promoted the use of technologies in the classroom
and for those who didn't. An interesting side effect of this was that many
of those who opposed the use of technology in the writing classroom thus felt
justified in their opposition. However, as Cynthia L. Selfe and Richard
J. Selfe, Jr., continue in "The Politics of the Interface: Power and Its Exercise
in Electronic Contact Zones":
This is not to
claim, of course, that the only educational effects computers have is one
of re-producing oppression or colonial mentalities. Indeed, from the work
of computers and composition specialists, it is clear that computers, like
other complex technologies, are articulated in many ways with a range of
existing cultural forces and with a variety of projects in our educational
system, projects that run the gamut from liberatory to oppressive. However,
because recent scholarship on computers has tended to focus in overoptimistic
ways on the positive contributions that technology can make to English
composition classrooms, our goal in this piece is to sketch the outlines
of an alternative vision for teachers, one that might encourage them to
adopt a more critical and reflective approach to their use of computers.
I mark the end of the second wave
with the publication of Computers and the
Teaching of Writing in American Higher Education, 1979-1994: A History (Hawisher,
et al.). While, of course, the important work of considering technologies
and their use in the writing classroom critically is far from over—indeed,
it is still a primary focus of much computers-and-writing work—nonetheless,
by warranting a "history," Computers and Writing (with capital letters) had become
a recognized (and recognizable) area of specialization within composition studies.
The Third Wave