| Taking Cynthia L. Selfe's 1999 call to "pay attention" to the intersection of technology and literacy, and Kathleen Blake Yancey's 2004 cue that "we have a moment" to do so, I ask what we know and what we need to know about the teaching of writing in a computer-mediated world. I analyze composition scholarship from 2000-2006, focusing on three key sites---publications of the National Council of Teachers of English, Computers and Composition , and publications on writing center theory and practice to ask four key questions: (1) How does a course's ecology, real or virtual, affect pedagogy in that space?; (2) How has technology changed the ethics of teaching composition?; (3) Will technology amplify or recuperate the rift between English studies and composition studies?; and (4) How can understanding pedagogy as performance help us address the issues raised by computer-mediated communication (CMC)? Historical analysis reveals how these sites themselves pay attention to CMC in the twenty-first century.;In part, my analysis shows that while scholars consistently mention "performance," particularly when discussing the performance of digital identities and texts, they often do so without the benefit of performance studies scholarship. In my final chapter, I use performance studies texts, such as J. L. Austin's articulation of "performative" words that constitute action, Judith Butler's argument that identity is constituted performatively through action, and Marvin Carlson's definition of performance as consciousness of actions, for example, as a critical frame for understanding the performance of pedagogy in face-to-face and online writing centers. I suggest that we can analyze these environments more comprehensively by viewing environment multidimensionally as environments of materiality, multimodality, and intentionality, employing Walter Ong's emphasis on the powerful "circumambient actuality" of face-to-face communication (10) and Geoffrey Sire's understanding of text as "charged (hopefully) with the contingency of a momentary ambiance (achieved through the transitory formations of technology)" in CMC ("Virtual" 17). As composition teachers and writing center administrators increasingly sponsor CMC as a supplement to or replacement of face-to-face communication, I argue, we must continue to articulate and assess what it means to mediate and be mediated by the technologies of CMC. |
