Hawisher.+The+Rhetoric+of+Technology+and+the+Electronic+Writing+Class


 * Hawisher and Selfe "The Rhetoric of Technology and the Electronic Writing Class"**

__ [|College Composition and Communication] __Vol. 42, No. 1 (Feb., 1991) (pp. 55-65)

**Abstract** Not Available.

**Argument** Gail E. Hawisher and Cynthia L. Selfe discuss the environmental changes in classrooms and their structures change through the introduction of technology and new media. Although technology in the classroom is helpful and effective, teachers need to take into account that technology may also prove detrimental to various students. Technology in the classroom can serve as an aid in numerous ways, but certain students who do not have the resources or technological literacy may fall short in classrooms. Furthermore the author’s explore the introduction of technology into classrooms in a negative notion. Students may have a negative reaction to the introduction of technology, which may affect not only their academics but psychological aspects as well. In addition, the author’s explore how the introduction of technology itself has changed the fundamentals in America’s education system today. Although there are numerous benefits to technology in classrooms and technological rhetoric there has not been a sufficient amount of testing with such classrooms nor with teachers educated in teaching technological rhetoric.

**Key Passages** Pros and cons of technological rhetoric:


 * "This rhetoric-one of hope, vision, and persuasion-is the primary voice present in most of the work we see coming out of computers-and-composition studies,2 and it is positive in the sense that it reflects the high expectations of instruc-tors committed to positive educational reform in their writing classes. This same rhetoric, however, may also be dangerous if we want to think critically about technology and its uses."

Description of American education structure:
 * "In many English composition classes, computer use simply reinforces those traditional notions of education that permeate our culture at its most basic level: teachers talk, students listen; teachers' contributions are privileged; students respond in predictable, teacher-pleasing ways."

**Selected Works Cited** Kiesler, Sara, Jane Siegel, and Timothy W. McGuire. "Social Psychological Aspects of Computer-Mediated Communication." AmericanP sychologist3 9 (Oct. 1984): 1123-34.

Kinkead, Joyce. "Wired: Computer Networks in the English Classroom." English Journal 77 (Nov. 1988): 39-41.

Kremers, Marshall. "Adams Sherman Hill Meets ENFI." Computersa nd Composition5 (Aug. 1988): 69-77.

Lunsford, Andrea A., and Cheryl Glenn. "Rhetorical Theory and the Teaching of Writing." On Literacy and Its Teaching: Issues in English Education. Ed. Gail E. Hawisher and Anna O. Soter. Albany: State U of New York, 1990. 174-89.

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