Writing in the Digital Age

& Composition Theory

Abstract proposal: Applying Theory to Your Hypertext Projects

Directions: During the course of this course, we will be designing, creating, and evaluating a prototype Hypertext project--a teacher webpage, a PowerPoint presentation, or any hypermedia project. You will be expected to research your project by looking at numerous hypertext created by scholars, educators and fiction writers. You must design and test a prototype hypertext. Finally you will present both a prototype and a pedagogical abstract (1 or 2 typed pages) for your project. Our project's design will be evaluated on the following: Based in Theory; Interactivity; Managed Complexity; Consistency; Modifiability; Versatility; Ease of Use; Support and Training. Your abstract should address: Hypertextual Composition Theory; Audience; Subject Matter; and Design

Below are a series of condensed statements tracing a writing teacher's theoretical retrospective of compositional history and the rise of the digital literacy. These statements can be used to “base-in-theory” your hypertext project. Examine the example abstracts from previous Teaching Writing with Technology participants to see how they have implemented compositional theory into the design of their hypertext.

A Writing Teacher's Theoretical Retrospective:

Number 1: Teachers can best influence student writing by commenting on drafts in process rather than by marking finished products.

Number 2: Research has established the good news that students tend to write more and show more positive attitudes toward their writing activities when they use word processing and other computer writing environments, including designing multi-media compositions and presentations.

Number 3: Increasingly, as the future of literacy moves into the digital environment the text must to include graphics, sound, interactivity, and communication.

"Literacy today depends on understanding the multiple media that make up our high-tech reality and developing the skills to use them effectively."
Jones-Kavalier. and Flannigan, Suzanne L. Connecting the Digital Dots: Literacy of the 21st Century.

Number 4: We need to do is use the skills we have for the teaching of writing and employ the computer when it can be helpful in all aspects of the writing process including pre-writing, drafting, revising, editing and publishing.

Number 5: Writing teachers introduce collaborative group assignments, to encourage students to experiment with ideas; think divergently; take risks; express opinions; speculate, hypothesize; and think metaphorically.

Number 6: We create and publish webpages, discussion boards, blogs, wikis, and hypermedia in order to get students into a larger language community, where their daily experience is with language.

Number 7: From our experiences at the university level with electronic conferencing, we believed computer-mediated collaborative learning and writing-to-learn on a computer networks could offer students an active, social learning environment as well as a way of using writing to share with peers their knowledge about history, art, culture, and other core curricular disciplines.

Number 8: Based on research literature suggesting that writing-to-learn practices could improve students' content knowledge as well as their writing skills, we wanted to add to the curriculum more frequent and varied writing tasks, ones with less emphasis on "school-writing" such a testing and academic essays.

Number 9: Computer games can also promote critical thinking by involving participants in problem solving situations and forcing them to be vigorously involved with a variety of language skills.

Number 10: When students both write their own stories and design their own texts, not only does it encourage multi-cultural voices in the classroom community, but it also encourages students to move toward a critical literacy.

Number 11: The computer represents a communications revolution.

Number 12: From the experiences of researchers at the university level with electronic conferencing, it has been shown that computer-mediated collaborative learning and writing-to-learn on a computer networks could offer students an active, social learning environment as well as a way of using writing to share with peers their knowledge about history, art, culture, and other core disciplines.

Number 13: For many teachers, student inquiry in a largely digital environments has replaced traditional textbooks as the course sourcebook. By employing a constructivist pedagogical approach, where students are motivated to collaborate, explore the ideas, and find solutions. These teachers are encouraging students to take more academic responsibility as both co-learners and researchers in the learning community.

Standards for Students in Grades 9-12:

Paper Literacy
	Students can summarize and paraphrase, and recognize the theme of a work of literature in its incidentals. Recognize allusions, metaphors, and irony. Students connect the text with personal experience. Students are both visually and verbally literate.
Digital Literacy
	Students can accesses, evaluate, and use information accurately and creatively. Students are independent learners who pursue academics and personal information while striving for excellence and seeking knowledge. Students can collaborate with peers, experts, and others to contribute to a content-related knowledge base by using technology to compile, synthesize, produce, and disseminate information, models, and other creative works.

New Types of Digital Writing

The New School and Teacher Web Pages:

Number 14: One reason for creating a teacher webpage is to extend literacy beyond the traditional classroom. For example, the Lemon Grove School District, in California, has embraced technology by digitally linking every home to the school and its databases:
.
"Students are able to access the Internet as well as resources at school from home. With increased access at home, children can complete homework assignments online and submit them via e-mail. Parents can easily communicate with teachers. Research is made easier. This connection extends literacy beyond the traditional classroom, not only for students but the rest of the family members and other subscribers in the community as well.” The Lemon Grove School District.

The New Classroom Environment
“The evolution of technology integration in the classroom environment has brought about changes in the structures of teaching and learning. With every computer on the network connected to the Internet, teachers are able to develop web-based instructional units and incorporate guided web-searching activities into daily classroom lessons."