In Remediation: Understanding New Media Bolter and Grusin write that,
“What is new about new media comes from the particular ways in which they
refashion older media and the ways in which older media refashion themselves to
answer the challenges of new media” (15).
Here, the authors suggest that remediation occurs in overlapping waves
that become increasingly visible over time.
While the authors focus primarily on the evolution of various digital
and electronic innovations, I plan to argue that the concept of technological
remediation has significant implications within composition pedagogy. Like technology, innovative “strategies”
regarding composition pedagogy remediate earlier strategies in a sort of
pedagogical evolution that can similarly be traced over time. Significantly, much of contemporary
composition pedagogy is impacted by or geared towards addressing the
integration of new media tools into the classroom, and the evolution of digital
student writing.
The CCCC address new media and
digital writing within the composition classroom, stating, “The focus of
writing instruction is expanding: the curriculum of composition is widening to
include not one but two literacies: a literacy of print and a literacy of the
screen. In addition, work in one medium is used to enhance learning in the
other” (CCCC 2009). This excerpt from
the CCCC statement highlights the increasingly reciprocal relationship that
composition and new media are developing within the classroom. I am interested in looking at the “overlaps”
between traditional composition pedagogy and new media in order to explore the
ways in which these innovations in media have entered into contemporary
pedagogy. Furthermore, I would like to
examine the potential for evolving our pedagogies (and technologies) further,
so as to expand our pedagogical practices and better aid our students, while
challenging our own concepts of writing and learning. I am most interested in discussing the
following new media tools and the unique characteristics associated with them:
- · Classroom Management Systems (Moodle, Blackboard Direct, etc.) → Dissemination of information (teacher), surveillance, establishing roles and boundaries within the classroom.
- · Virtual Classrooms (Second Life) à Dynamics of communication, spatial cognizance and interaction, literacy, performance, alternative solution to over crowding, massive spread of information.
- · E-Portfolios (Mahara, Weebly) à Writing assessment, new texts, hybridity, assessment, mass access, discourse exchange among instructors.
- · Blogs (Blogger, Tumblr, etc) à Hybridity, audience awareness, “real” feedback, real time, digital writing, information society, WWW, public and private spheres.
- · Social Networks (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) à New dynamics of social discourse/communication among students, highly mediated environment, social aspect, pros/cons.
I realize that this is an ambitious
list that I will probably have to condense, but for now, there are my
preliminary areas of interest. In addition
to looking at remediation within these areas, I would like to complicate my
examination of these tools by putting them in conversation with the concept of
the information society and/or the public and private sphere. Ultimately, I hope to challenge and
complicate existing definitions of composition pedagogy and student writing,
and suggest the ways in which new media may help in supporting students and
instructors alike to do the same.
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