| In this postmodern arts-based autoethnographic inquiry, I investigate the impact of the online computer on composing and teaching, penetrating to the core of the labyrinth of what it means to be a teacher of writing in this computer-mediated age. The online computer is my composing tool as I shape both my text and the appearance of my text in order to uncover and display the effects of this new technology on writing and on teaching writing.; I have composed narratives from my experiences as a writer and as a teacher of writing and reveal my understandings through a chorus of voices, all mine yet none with the "whole" story. While my Academic and Teacher voice provides a conventional "ground" for my thesis, my other voices each have their own stories of my writing experiences: (1) my Oracles Voice, my homage to the writers from whom I have learned; (2) my Writing Process voice reveals how I write using the online computer; (3) my Illuminal Voice with hermeneutical overtones, reveals my musings, my insights, and my significant memories; (4) my Published Voice reprints articles, and excerpts, written over a number of years, showing how I experienced my journey of discovery at different points in time; (5) my Living While Writing voice displays my quotidian existence while I write this thesis; (6) my Querulous Voice exposes my fears and resentments connected with learning and teaching writing; (7) my Artist's Voice includes the arational leaps of understanding I gain from my own and other's poetry; and (8) Ariadne's Voice speaks the thoughts of a rewritten Greek mythic character who seeks the core of the labyrinth and the secret of the Minotaur (one of my guiding metaphors)---an allegory about creativity mediated by technology.; I use the visual potentialities of word processing to provide different fonts, colours and borders for each voice in a bricologe structure that reveals meaning cumulatively through connections not argument. As well, I am guided by my second metaphor---this autoethnographic thesis is my home, and the reader, my guest. The online computer is both my tool and my subject. |
