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Compared with the readings from last week, the authors this week seem more concerned with the affordances of computers and word-processing in the classroom than with the potential technical challenges students might face. Furthermore, they offer suggestions for how instructors might best utilize changing technologies, and take a slightly more critical view of <em>how</em> instructors might teach with computers than whether or not they should be. That said, these articles are still fairly vague in terms of theoretical foundations for teaching with computers and word-processors. But the discussions do look familiar, particularly Moran’s article, which discusses a networked writing classroom in which he tries to build a sense of virtual community, but in less explicit terms. Hult gets at this too by discussing ways instructors can adapt the way they approach teaching writing processes based on what emerging technologies facilitate. On the one hand, I’m tempted to claim that this type of scholarship is where Composition as a field begins to examine its relationship with writing technologies, specifically in terms of writing pedagogy (i.e. people began to recognize that writing doesn’t just happen with words on a page). But, I’m pretty sure Foucault, and anyone reading him, would challenge me on that and say it began earlier. Plus Moran cites Andrew Feenberg, so people were definitely aware. On the other hand though, Selfe and Selfe’s <em>The Politics of the Interface</em> wasn’t published until 1994. I’m curious to see what threads carry through to Thursday’s readings though, given that like Sherri, I’m still not sure exactly where to situate the readings for today.

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