The Third Wave: Yes, But Can They Write?

Turn off the TV and Open a Book

At our first faculty meeting of the year, my department chair began by asserting that, if we could get students to turn off the TV and open a book, we would be doing our jobs successfully. One strange byproduct of this view of technology as a barrier to literacy is our approach to technology in the computer writing classroom. For instance, the other day the "techies" made the rounds of my department's five computer labs (unfortunately dubbed as "English Department Word Processing Labs" according to the plaques beside each door) and disabled AOL Instant Messenger. It seems some of the teachers were complaining that their students were off-task. Imagine: they were communicating in writing with a real audience during a writing class. The nerve of some kids!

Our students may use word processors or Web editors to create or deliver their projects, but many people still do not consider the technology itself as important. Indeed, to many it is an impediment. Long live the pencil!

(But, of course the pencil is itself a technology . . .)

In this project, therefore, I take a brief look at the history of the computers-and-writing field and suggest ways in which we might think further about how the technology we use to read/write impacts the messages we send and receive in (sometimes) transparent ways. In so doing, what I hope to accomplish is to make readers aware that this very transparency, which many have argued is, if not a desirable goal, at least an expected one (that is, we don't talk about "pencils and writing" as a field), is something that we may need to guard against. By focusing on how various technologies impact the forms we use (and hence the messages we send and receive) rather than allowing the technology to become transparent, we can help ensure that our students will be able to make informed choices that depend on the requirements of a given communicative situation rather than on the constraints of any given technology, past, present, or future.

—>Riding the Waves

The First Wave The first wave of computers and writing studies involved a sometimes unquestioning faith in the ability of computers to help our students learn to write traditional texts, using drill-and-(s)kill technologies, heuristics programs of varying levels of sophistication, and careful instruction in cut-and-paste techniques, modeling reading, writing, and thinking skills as they are facilitated or moderated by the computer. [more]
	The Second Wave The second wave took a more critical approach to the use of computers both in and out of the classroom. Seminal work such as Selfe and Selfe's "The Politics of the Interface" brought attention to the negative potentials of technology as well as paying close if cautious heed to its possibilities. [more]
		The Third Wave The third wave brings us to where we are now. Technology is ubiquitous in our classrooms, for better or worse. And yet.... Little has changed. We have yet to determine what it is that we are--or should be--teaching in light of changing definitions of literacy in the digital age. [more]

Where We Are Now....

Janice R. Walker
jwalker@gasou.edu
Georgia Southern University

Turn off the TV and Open a Book

—>Riding the Waves

The First Wave

The Second Wave

The Third Wave