Computers and the Teaching of Writing in American Higher Education, 1979-1994: A History

To Teach, Critique, and Compose: Representing Computers and Composition through the CIWIC/DMAC Institute

“…Although technology was central, the institute focused on teaching and learning, opening it to participants with varying levels of technical expertise but who shared interests in literacy and composing. As Gail E. Hawisher, Paul LeBlanc, Charles Moran, & Selfe (1996) explained, this period of the history of computers and composition was characterized by a shift toward more critical stances toward technology, informed by social and critical theories. At CIWIC, this new orientation translated into interrogating how computers related to composition pedagogy, problematizing technological utopianism, interrogating access inequalities, and working with institutional stakeholders to support writing labs.…”

How First-year Students Expressed Their Transition to College Experiences Differently Depending on the Affordances of Two Writing Contexts

“…Simultaneously, a parallel line of research explored the impact of the then new writing medium, the word-processor, on the way that narrators thought and wrote (Collier, 1983; Daiute, 1983, 1985; Daiute & Kruidenier, 1985; Scardamalia, Bereiter, McLean, Swallow, & Woodruff, 1989; Schwartz, 1982). Where previously computers had been the domain of the military and research universities, in the late 1970s and early 1980s there was great excitement surrounding the proliferation of microcomputers and the concurrent introduction of word processing to home and school contexts (Hawisher, Leblanc, Moran, & Selfe 1996; Kidder, 1981/1997). Much as technological innovations have increased the usability of blogs in the contemporary moment, these technical innovations expanded the usability of and access to word processors, and inspired researchers to explore the ways that writing programs influenced narrators to read and reflect on their writing (Burns & Culp, 1980; Daiute, 1985; Flinn, 1987).…”

Literacy and technology studies: Past, present, future

“…There are a number of useful overviews of the research, extending in their coverage, however, only to the mid-1990s (Bangert-Drowns 1993, Snyder 1993, Hawisher, LeBlanc, Moran & Selfe 1996, Snyder 1997a. As well as establishing what we already know about students, their literacy practices and the use of new technologies and suggesting what we still need to find out, they highlight the 1~ SNYDER difficulties of interpreting studies that reflect contrasting conceptual frameworks and differ in matters such as design, methods of data collection, variables examined and modes of analysis.…”

“…The research was in transition: some researchers were operating in the current-t/'aditional paradigm, concerned with quality, correctness and error; many were operating in the writing-process paradigm; and a few were beginning to adopt the social view (Hawisher, LeBlanc, Moran & Selfe 1996). Not surprisingly, the results of the quality-focused studies were equivocal.…”