so quaint, some of these old, monospaced articles seem. they were all eye-opening, in a way though. to imagine teaching all the ‘scary’ brand-new technologies these instructors were teaching… and to listen to the concerns they had and the observations they were making about what was useful, what wasn’t, what students liked or found easy, and what would likely be important/unimportant in the future of computers + writing pedagogy… it all adds more texture to my picture of our field’s development and its history during that time.

I kept thinking too about analogues for us in 2015. what are the ‘scary’ brand-new composition technologies that we aren’t yet sure how to incorporate into our classrooms? there are probably dozens. but we don’t often see students characterized as frightened, unfamiliar newbies anymore. we talk about digital natives and brave, self-taught explorers of new technological platforms. the Dinan et al. and the Moore pieces contradict each other a bit in this– Dinan et al. are careful to suggest gentle, “non-threatening” ways of teaching with computers in a writing class. Moore is more excited and positive. He notes, “They were not intimidated by the new technology, and little formal instruction was necessary. Most of the time, one student learned from another” (58). the latter perspective is much more like the kind I see instructors taking today. throw the students in, make them figure stuff out together. fun! maybe some balance between the two wouldn’t be so bad, though.

this line from Dinan et al. rang very familiar bells: “Although computer literacy is valuable to students, they do not need to know very much about computers to use word processing in developing their writing skills. Instructors should stick to what is essential” (38). it’s pretty common to make that sort of separation, and I know I’ve done it myself. writing is writing. gadgets are gadgets. they can overlap and interconnect, but they don’t have to. it’s as if writing transcends its materials, and it always will, and that it does is very important. this both rings true for me and it also seems very worth questioning. maybe that will be a theme for me this semester in this class…