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Digital Writing Across the
Curriculum l Implications of
Technology for the Shape of a College Education
A traditional paper has a
beginning, a middle and an end. It usually starts with a
thesis or problem statement, produces evidence, and marches
step by step toward a singular conclusion.
But multimedia authoring on
the Web is not limited to linear forms. Writing can have
several points of entry (e.g., for readers with different
initial interests or preparation), several equal pathways
through the material, and multiple endings (or no endings).
Writing can also be layered so that readers can for example
dip down into more detail or examples when needed. Prof.
Mark Kann of the University of Southern
California developed
this web site several years ago to illustrate some of
these possibilities for multimedia authoring in disciplinary
courses. Some of the structures that digital writing makes
available to the student:
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The Web and the
Sequence: Imagine an undergraduate from suburbia
reading a translation of Beowulf or studying a
novel of Appalachia. How can the student develop
a deeper understanding of another culture where familiar
words may not have familiar meanings? Prof. Patricia
O’Connor of Georgetown University has asked her students
to create web sites that annotate a short passage from
their readings in two different courses: one on
Appalachian literature and the other on
monsters in literature. Students link each selected
word and phrase from the passage to illustrated
commentary about their meaning in context; terms used in
the commentary are themselves linked to other such
commentaries, creating a web of description of that
culture. Their writings are a web of interlinked
narratives rather than a single sequential argument that
runs from thesis to evidence to conclusion.
For example, Andrew Owen, one of O’Connor’s students,
analyzed a brief passage from River of Earth,
a novel by James Still set in Appalachia. Dozens of
phrases and terms “patriarchy,” “God’s green earth,” and
“homeplace” were analyzed and illustrated with archival
images. Owen’s analysis, like the culture it depicts,
has no beginning or end – each narrative annotation
stands partly on its own but it is interlinked with, and
given further meaning by, several other such
annotations.
To support other forms of intellectual argument (and
development), a web project can have multiple points of
entry, multiple pathways through its materials and
argument, and multiple endings. In O'Connor's course
each project begins with a very short passage (a
paragraph, usually) and then, the student illustrates a
process of close reading of the text by writing a short,
photo-illustrated essay on the meanings of words and
phrases in that passage. And each of these essays is
typically illustrated by links to other essays: a web of
discussion.
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Although the main purpose
of this web site is to test the proposition that
advanced courses in disciplines would benefit from
entering students who could already create web projects
and other forms of digital writing, I'd also like to
point to
this project in a high school arts course, in which
students created hypermedia projects (hypertext with
pictures). Pamela Taylor, now an associate professor of
art education at Virginia Commonwealth,
has some interesting assignments and rubrics to support
her effort to develop deeper forms of thinking by using
hypertext as a framework for learning.
Have other examples to suggest? Please send
them to Steve Ehrmann (ehrmann at tltgroup.org), editor of
this page!
Digital Writing Across the
Curriculum l Implications of
Technology for the Shape of a College Education
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Phone:
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