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"Less is More: The One-Computer Classroom Writing Environment" Gary Ryan, Department of English, Christian Brothers College High School
At my high school the grammar book is still the sourcebook for writing, and the addition of a computer lab has done little to change this pedagogical premise. Ironically, the personal computer, the most process-adaptive tool ever created, is rarely being used at my high school to teach and facilitate the writing process; instead, the computer has been merely a tool to produce cosmetically-correct products and thus to promulgate a philosophy of composition that deals mainly with the structure of form only within the sentence, and not between and among sentences. Ultimately, our computer lab isn't user friendly, being inhabited by lone students, bent on typing, Grammatik-ing, spell-checking, and printing a draft. Classes across-the-curriculum struggle for up to two weeks each semester of lab time and thus must only participate in the most artificial application of the computer to the writing process. I'm sure my school is not alone. Beginning writers revise their compositions by checking for surface errors, substituting single words and checking for errors of spelling; experienced writers, on the other hand, tend to look for the kernel of what they have written, respond to it, and actually restructure it. Experienced writers know only so much information can be held in the their heads at one time; consequently, rewriting for them is largely an ongoing effort to encompass and control as much information as they can at one time by supporting and expanding their main clauses and developing unity through transitions and metaphors. Most of the problems occurring in the essays of inexperienced writers are not within sentences-grammar and usage and spelling problems-but between sentences-the lack of unity, or supporting evidence, or transitions. We must make a conscious effort to teach beginning writers how to make the types of revisions that experienced writers make. Rewriting is time-consuming, and therefore the teachers using the computer lab at my school often choose what they think is a pragmatic approach. They concentrate on the immediate elimination of perceived errors: grammar, spelling, and usage. The resulting writing may be cosmetically appealing, but it is usually superficial, poorly organized and inadequately developed. In this way the grammar book has made its way into the pedagogical infrastructure of our computer lab. With this new medium we have failed to change the message; we have failed to create behaviors that make quality writing possible. The writing process is not something students can be taught but something in which they must engage. Writing with the computer's virtual text provides a new kind of writing space in which the process of revision is dynamic and personal. Virtual text invites dialogue and breaks down the traditional barriers that separate the writer, the reader, and the text. I've come to realize through personal experience that the quality of student writing changes dramatically with the computer largely because I can directly intervene into the student's text. I can therefore deal more effectively with the writing problems that lie not only within sentences but in the arrangement of units larger than the sentence. Using the virtual text of students, I can show them how I revise. Using a single computer in my classroom with projection capabilities, I can build bridges to more challenging tasks by scaffolding writing sequences to produce a major paper and by consistently making new tasks familiar. Most importantly, I can get my students involved in the recursive nature of revision by making computer writing a constant element of our classroom life. I intend to demonstrate how a single computer with projection capabilities as a part of my classroom can help beginning writers experience and learn the writing process. A single computer will allow the classroom to become a true community of writers by motivating students through an increased involvement with writing; by varying audience, purpose, and mode; by personalizing reading; and by experimenting with language. With a single computer in my classroom I hope to change the nature of the present writing environment and to establish an intimate relationship between the students, the teacher, and the technology. Our computer lab, and its equivalent at many of the high schools I've
seen, is still product-oriented. Rather than a product, my students will
be introduced to the idea of a virtual landscape, in which students roam
and engage in an amorphous environment, and build and demolish their own
electronic encyclopedias and libraries, as well as their own collaborative
structures. Such a writing environment will replace status with flux, product
with inquiry. I expect to discover a place where the composition will have
no cause to leave the computer. |
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