Technology in the Writing Classroom

by Kelly Satterwhite

Many writing instructors are against using any computers in the writing classroom.  They believe that the use of computers in their classrooms will cause the focus of their classes to be more on computer training rather than on the teaching of writing.  In their opinion, this will have a negative effect on students, who have chosen their writing classes to learn writing, and not to learn how to operate a computer.  Other writing instructors believe that technology is our future; thus, they try to integrate as much computer use as possible into their writing classrooms.  Problems may arise, however, when these writing instructors do not have adequate training in teaching writing with the aid of computers.  Finally, there are instructors who believe that it is beneficial to teach writing entirely online.  These instructors believe that online writing courses save time, money, and produce a better means for communication among students and instructors.  Many students and instructors who learn and teach writing online argue that they communicate better and more often through online courses than they do in traditional face-to-face courses.  Other causes of conflicts in the electronic writing classroom include:  funding, appropriate teacher training, teachers' fears of technology, classroom aesthetics, and whether or not the teaching of writing changes when taught online.  However, no matter what our inhibitions are about using computers to teach writing, we must come to terms with the fact that computers are in our lives and our classrooms to stay.  The use of technology will only continue to grow, with or without English departments.  If English departments decide not to use computers in their writing classrooms, they will be leaving millions of students lacking in the skills that society demands from them.  Also, English departments that choose not to use computers will not be regarded as highly as the other departments who do use computers in their classrooms, which would ruin English departments' reputations.  Can we afford to do this to ourselves and our students?  

THE NEED FOR COMPUTERS IN THE WRITING CLASSROOM 
In their article, Network Theory:  A Postmodern Pedagogy for the Writing Classroom, Thomas Barker and Fred Kemp state that we need a new writing pedagogy that "represents a structured attempt to combine the realities of current social and economic conditions with instruction that emphasizes the communal aspect of knowledge making" (2).  They call this pedagogy the "postmodern writing pedagogy."  Barker an Kemp explain that modern students are much different than the students of the past.  To many current students, "the instructor is seldom revered as a font of wisdom, but is seen as a functionary dispensing the necessary tools for material success" (3).  Because of this, Barker and Kemp believe that a postmodern pedagogy of writing should be "oriented toward advancement in business and industry" (5).  They also believe that today's students are concerned with convenience; therefore, "a new pedagogy of writing should be efficient.  It should use faculty labor more productively than in the past, and it should use technology, in the form of computers, for instance, to make teaching more effective" (5).  Finally, Barker and Kemp believe that the new pedagogy should allow students and teachers to join together to create knowledge (6).  
  
In the traditional writing classroom, the teacher is the sole source of knowledge; however, the latest view of the teacher is that he or she should be the "guide on the side," rather than "the sage on the stage." This means that a teacher does less lecturing and more guiding of actual student knowledge.  The goal is to allow students the opportunity to think creatively, rather than to simply restate memorized knowledge.  In addition, this new belief helps prevent students from only saying what the teacher wants to hear.  In the traditional writing classroom, the teacher is usually the audience for student essays.  This means that only the teacher can evaluate the effectiveness of student papers.  Barker and Kemp explain that "in the current-traditional classroom, writing is not so much to be read as to be evaluated; the effectiveness of any text lies not in the power of persuasion and description, but in its ability to trigger highly conventionalized responses from professional graders" (6-7).  The problem with this traditional writing classroom is that students do not write for themselves;  they write only to please the teacher.  Therefore, this tradition may actually hinder a student's writing  because he or she is only writing down memorized knowledge, instead of actually coming up with his or her own  ideas.  

Barker and Kemp further add that in the traditional writing class "students are expected to write frequently with little sense of what it means to be on the receiving end of all their writing"(6).  Because of this, students often cannot make sense of an instructor's comments and grades.  Barker and Kemp argue that a student, who only writes for his or her instructors, and a student, who plays no role in the evaluation process of his or her paper, will feel a "sense of distance from one's own text"(6).  This distance seems inevitable because, as already stated, the student is writing for the teacher and not his or her self.  

A current solution to the problem of the instructor as audience is peer critiquing.  "The operating concept behind peer critiquing is that students should write papers not for the instructor but for each other, and that criticism should therefore come from other students, not the instructor"(13).  Peer critiquing allows students to receive a variety of comments about their papers, and it allows students to learn from reading other students' papers.  Barker and Kemp also explain that Peer critiquing "more closely models the demands of the 'real world' than does the highly artificial nature of instructor grading"(13-14).  The problem with peer critiquing is that it is time consuming, and sometimes difficult to do.  Often, students do not have much room to write comments on another student's paper; therefore, they abbreviate their written comments, which makes it difficult for the writer to understand what is meant by the comments.  Also, there simply is not enough space on one essay for multiple students to add their comments.  

Computers can be a great help to the peer critiquing process.  Peer critiquing on the computer allows students to e-mail other students copies of their essays, and in return, the students who receive the essays simply need to write down their comments about the papers and e-mail them back to the papers' owners.  Using the computer for peer critiquing is better than the traditional method for peer critiquing because it allows students the convenience of critiquing the papers on their own time, and where they are most comfortable - either at school or at home.  In addition, peer critiquing by computer offers student evaluators more space to write down their comments.  Traditionally, students had to abbreviate and try to squeeze their comments into the margins of the essays.  With peer critiquing through the computer, students are more likely to write their comments in complete sentences.  They are also more likely to write more comments on students' papers simple because they have more space to write down the comments.  Thus, the computer becomes an effective tool in the writing classroom because it not only conveniently allows students to learn from each other, but it also allows students to write more - which is exactly what writing teachers want. 
  
Besides peer critiquing, another way to focus the writing class on the students, rather than the teacher, is to actually hold the writing class entirely online.  Charles Moran, the author of "Computers and the Writing classroom:  A Look to the Future" argues that the traditional writing classroom design does not complement the "student-centered" classroom.  He explains,  

facing the classroom teacher-desk, there are student desks, not often, these days, bolted to the floor, but still set in rows.  These desks, like the teacher's classroom desk, are 'unreal' work-spaces.  They are also poor writing spaces.  The writing surface is often irregular, often small, and, for those who are left-handed, awkwardly places.  And if one wants to set up small groups, these pieces of furniture suddenly become awkward and heavy, for they have been built of metal and laminated, woodgrained plastic--to last. (8)

Our current-traditional writing classroom, therefore, promotes teacher power simply by the physical structure of the classroom.  Moran further says that messages that should be saved on classroom chalkboards are erased, and classroom bulletin boards are only used for advertisements.  In addition, few writing classrooms contain writing tools, such as dictionaries and thesauruses.  In his opinion, a writing classroom is "as impersonal as a room in a motel"(8).  Computers, while some may argue are even more impersonal than the traditional writing classroom, actually may be a better writing environment for the writer.  Students, who write on the computer, are able to check classroom messages in folders that cannot be erased, unlike the classroom chalkboard.  Also, students will not see advertisements on computer bulletin boards.  Instead, everything that they see will be class related.  Furthermore, students will have easy access to dictionaries, thesauruses, and online information to aid in their writing.  Most importantly, with online writing courses, the student is the center of the classroom, not the teacher.  This is because the teacher is not sitting separately from the students in the front of a classroom, but is sitting at a computer- the same as the students.  The teacher, then, is more apt to promote student thinking by guiding students through the computer, rather than trying to impose his or her thoughts on the students through class lecturing.  

Because many people now agree that the students should be the center of the classroom, rather than the teacher, and because the traditional writing methodologies have not changed with today's students, educators now need to come up with a writing pedagogy that reflects our students' current needs.  Due to the popularity of using computers in our society, it seems likely that the current writing classroom can somehow benefit from a writing class that utilizes this recent technology.  

CONCERNS WITH USING COMPUTERS IN THE WRITING CLASSROOM 
Many English instructors are concerned that if they teach writing classes through a computer, they will become more of a technology instructor, than a writing instructor.  While this is a legitimate concern, it seems that these teachers may be more comfortable with teaching writing through the computer if they were given more training.  

Experienced computers and composition scholars realize, of course, that current-traditional teaching methods won't work in computer-supported writing classrooms any more than they work in other writing classrooms.  But resistance to teacher training is a chronic problem in English departments. (qtd. in Sommers 47)

"When computer -supported literacy enters the picture, the situation becomes even more complex, often stirring resistance or fear among literature faculty" (47).  Schools need to provide both computer and writing pedagogy training for their instructors, otherwise the instructors and the students will suffer.  It may even be helpful for high school instructors and college instructors to combine their computer teaching strategies.  If high schools and colleges could agree on some affective teaching strategies for teaching writing through the computer, then high school students would be better prepared to take writing classes through the computer in college.  Obviously, the problem with this is that not all high schools and colleges are equally funded; thus, not every school can afford expensive computers and software.  This funding gap is especially noticeable in high schools.  Currently, the wealthy high schools can afford to give their students more computer-oriented training in writing than the poor schools can.  This means that right now English instructors cannot expect every college student to be equally knowledgeable in using computers in their writing classes.  Eventually computers will become cheaper to purchase, although not every school will be able to purchase the same quality of computers and programs. 

Another solution for writing instructors, who fear that they will be teaching technology rather than writing, is for them to take a stand in the type of software that their schools are planning to use for writing classes.  Most writing classes do not need all of the extra, fancy equipment that computer companies try to sell to them.  In the article, "Minimalist Populism, and Attitude Transformation:  Approaches to Teaching Writing in Computer Classrooms," Eric Schroeder and John Boe explain, 

Our approach toward technology is minimalist:  We believe classroom goals should dictate hardware and software purchases.  In other words, writing programs that want to use computers as word processors and nothing else don't need Mac II's or IBM O/S 2's. ... Above all, pedagogical goals - not budget or belief in the ultimate virtue of technology - should shape hardware and software decisions. (28)

Instructors need to find software that fits their classroom needs and that they feel comfortable with.  In deciding upon software, educators should also take into consideration the needs of their students.  Yes, writing teachers may not need the most expensive programs to teach writing, but they also do not want to shortchange their students by using out-of-date programs that will be of no use to the students after they complete the class.  Although writing should be the main focus of a writing class, educators have to keep in mind that they are teaching students who have different needs than the students of the past.  As Barker and Kemp said, students are more success oriented, and a majority of them only want to learn what will help them succeed in today's society.  

The other most common fear of writing teachers is that students will lose something in the transition from the traditional face-to-face writing class to the online writing class.  These teachers believe that students will not be able to communicate as effectively in the online writing class as they can in the traditional writing class.  This may be because students cannot witness each others' gestures, facial expressions, and voice tones.  Yes, these things do help people to better understand one another, but how much difference do they make in the writing classroom?  Will students take each other out of context simply because they are not physically present to see the person, whom they are communicating with, frown?  Online writing classes, with teacher interaction, force students to do more of what they should be doing in the writing class: writing. Because students in online writing classes are not always physically close- they cannot rely upon gestures, facial expressions, and voice tones- they must work even harder at conveying their expressions through writing.  This means that they get more experience in writing, rather than in  talking, and they also may write more descriptively in order to take the place of talking.  

Students also benefit from online writing classes because they have the opportunity to communicate more frequently with each other.  These students are able to e-mail and hold online conferencing during all hours of the day, unlike the traditional classroom where students only see and communicate with each other a few times a week.  The e-mails and conferencing allow students to quickly get answers to writing questions, as well as to quickly get peer responses on their essays.  

CONCLUSION 
Although there are some genuine concerns about using computers in the writing classroom, there are many good reasons for using them.  Today's students have changed; they have different goals for the writing classroom.  Most of today's students are taking classes to better prepare them for jobs in society, and most of the jobs in our society demand that students be computer literate.  If English departments choose to ignore students' current needs, they are shortchanging their students and themselves.  In addition, today's writing classrooms seem to be student oriented, rather than classroom oriented.  The traditional writing classroom is not physically set up to be student oriented.  Most writing classrooms have rows of student desks that face a teacher, who sits in a desk at the front of the room.  This traditional classroom structure only lends itself to a teacher oriented classroom.  Computer writing classes are actually more suitable for a student's writing needs; for, they allow the student to conveniently use writing tools as he or she writes.  Also, The electronic writing classroom allows the students to be the center of the class, rather than the teacher; for, the teacher is simply guiding the students online through a computer, and not standing in the front of the classroom lecturing.  Students, who are enrolled in an online writing class, have more opportunity to write because their writing must take the place of their talking and physical gestures.  Computer use in our lives can only increase; therefore, English departments in high schools and colleges must unite in order to evaluate the writing and computer needs of their students and their departments.  Eventually, every writing class may be conducted through computer.

Works Cited

Barker, Thomas T. and Fred O. Kemp. "Network Theory:  A Postmodern Pedagogy for the Writing Classroom." Computers and Community:  Teaching Composition in the  Twenty-First Century. Ed. Carolyn Handa. Portsmouth, New Hampshire:  Boynton Cook, 1990. 
Moran, Charles. "Computers and the Writing Classroom:  A Look to the Future." Re-Imagining Computers and Composition:  Teaching and Research in the Virtual Age. Ed. Gail E. Hawisher and Paul LeBlanc. Portsmouth, New hampshire, 1992. 
Schroeder, Eric, and John Boe.  "Minimalism, Populism, and Attitude Transformation: Approaches to Teaching Writing in Computer Classrooms." Computers and Community: Teaching Composition in the Twenty-First Century. Ed. Carolyn Handa. Portsmouth, New Hampshire:  Boynton Cook, 1990. 
Sommers, Elizabeth. "Political Impediments to Virtual Reality." Re-Imagining Computers and Composition:  Teaching and Research in the Virtual Age. Ed. Gail E. Hawisher and Paul LeBlanc. Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 1992. 

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