Topic Free Write

I want to explore the topic of digital composition in my final project for 303. Specifically, I want to learn more about how students are being asked to compose digitally, how students feel about digital composition (do they feel ready? Confident? Underprepared? Concerned?), how and why teachers are requiring more digital composition than ever before, and finally, synthesize all of that into a discussion of what we as consultants need to know about digital composition to help students. Phew. 

Something I’ve noticed in my own classroom experience is the prevalence of “digital composition” (which I know has a sticky definition). Even in the 6 years (sheesh) that I’ve been in college, the changes in technology have been drastic. I have very few classes today that don’t have an element of digital composition (be it a blog, a collaborative website, a web page, etc.) And yet, only a few classes I’ve been in have had any kind of instruction on the affordances and constraints of digital composition. For instance, in one of my first BSU classes, the teacher explained that we were to do a PowerPoint presentation for one of our projects. Why? Because the professor wanted to incorporate more “digital composition” into the classroom. Leaving aside the point that a PowerPoint presentation hardly fits the bill for including “digital composition” in the classroom, there was no instruction on the rhetorical effects of using a PPT presentation. We received no rubric and read no instructions on the genre. What ended up happening were many hard-to-read presentations with 25 slides FULL of texts, which were then read out loud by students. 

All of this leads me to my ultimate point: I want to write about what we need to know as consultants about the rhetoric of digital composition, so that when students bring digital composition in to the writing center--which will, no doubt, be more often over the next few years--we’ll know how to help them. Although I don’t think I’ll go into detail about the rhetoric of digital composition (I don’t want this to turn into a “how-to” article), I do want to point out the dangers of assuming that the same rules apply to traditional composition and digital composition. Ultimately I want to give writing center folks tools to think about digital composition, and ideas for responding to students’ digital writing. 

A possible outline: 

1. Introduce the situation
1. Define digital composition
2. Discuss prevalence of digital composition (statistics of assignments) 
3. Introduce problem for writing center consultants
2. Discuss typical digital composition assignments that assume the “same rules apply” as with traditional composition
3. Discuss pitfalls of tutoring in digital composition without understanding the genre
4. Introduce solution(s) -- discuss resources and ideas