A couple of weeks ago the WPA Outcome Statement for Technology was posted and emails were sent to multiple listservs requesting feedback. And boy has the feedback been coming. I have to say that when I read the statement I was totally underwhelmed. I think my first reaction was “That’s it?” Followed by, “Didn’t I read something like this in 1985?” I’ve spent the morning reading several strands about the OS in the blogosphere, and I have to agree with Jeff, Collin, and others: in it’s current format this OS does nothing to move the field forward–nor does it do anything to push college administrators to rethink GE and FYC requirements in terms of computer literacy (which I realize is a problematic term, but use here for lack of a better one right now).
Rather than rearticulate the arguments here, I’ll simply direct you to several that I’ve found particularly useful:
Outcomes, Technology, and a Blog on Yellow Dog. Jeff points out 3 basic problems with the OS.
Party like it’s 1996 on Collin vs. Blog. I found the discussion between Jeff Rice and Kathleen Yancey in the comments very interesting.
The Unbearable Confusion Over Technology on Yellow Dog. Jeff discusses what he calls the “instrumentality” (“…a belief that the technology itself must always be foregrounded.”) of the OS.
Why I haughtta… on Collin vs. Blog. Colling responds (in part) to Ed White’s snarky comments on the WPA-L.
More on Technology, Outcomes, Walking Planks, Being an Outsider… on Yellow Dog. Jeff goes “meta.”
To me, one of the most unsettling themes I’ve picked up from these different discussions is the notion that younger scholars in the field are seen as “outsiders” to this discussion. I know this veiw is not held by all of the long “established” scholars in our field, but when Collin Brooke is termed an “outsider,” I get a little bit worried about what I and some of my fellow grads or recent PhDs are considered. Upstarts? Wet-behind-the-ears-know-nothings? I didn’t think the idea that technology and writing are symbiotic and unseparable was so revolutionary (Pencils to Pixels, anyone?).
While, as Jeff so correctly states in his “Unbearable” post, we can “teach a technology-oriented pedagogy without computers” and vice versa, the technology of writing should still be part of the discussion. In a recent Writing Technologies course I had my students write reading responses using five types of writing technologies: a pencil, a pen, a typwriter, a word processor, and the course discussion list. When they had written a response in each medium, they then had to go back and read their responses and write a critique discussing how the technology used effected their writing. (Amusingly to me, since I completed my BA in pre- personal computer days, several of them digressed for quite a while on the difficulty of first finding a typewriter and then writing on one–especially their inability to correct mistakes or figure out when the page was coming to an end.) The course discussion around this issue lasted much longer than I suspected it would and kept cropping up during subsequent discussions throughout the semester. It was truly the first time that the technology of writing became visible to the majority of my students. So as far as I’m concerned, whether I’m teaching with a computer or not, technology is central to my pedagogy.
To me, whether or not computer literacy belongs in an FYC classroom is a moot point. Most of our students compose on computers so they will in fact gain some kind of literacy while using that tool. My concern is how well they understand the rhetorical choices available to them while using that tool. To me the bigger question is what is FYC? Is the Arnoldian version of composition (see Crowley) still a vaild approach over a hundred years later? My answer is no, and this OS does nothing but reinforce an outdated and, IMHO, ineffectual model.
