21st century composing

Tech Camp #2 response

Kathleen Yancey argues in "Writing in the 21st Century: A Report from NCTE" that the three challenges we face for 21st century composition/literacy are:

"Developing new model of composing, Designing a new curriculum supporting these models, ad creating new pedagogies enacting that curriculum" (8).

I think this report is a very good assessment of the challenges we face with 21st century composition. I sent this report out a few years ago when it first came out to the program listserv hoping we could spark some conversation about it. So it's good to have the opportunity to blog about this and see us engage the piece (again) in Tech Camp.

This piece was actually one an inspiration point for me to start up Tech Camp. I feel and still feel our models of composing in the program are engaging some aspects of the elements Yancey describes, but not all and not nearly enough. I think we can do more (and I can as well) to harness the power of self-sponsored writing that is so prevalent with social media. Where I think we have made quite a bit of progress in the program is around work with visuals and images. We have a number of assignments, readings, textbooks, and resources that engage the notion of visual rhetoric. But I sometimes wonder if we are doing enough to address students as "producers" of images as opposed to "consumers." It's a classic cultural studies move to analyze visual texts--how do we move beyond that to image production and construction and understanding what images do and can be.

Also, how can we harness the networked nature of so much of that writing and the understanding of audience. Yancey discusses the role of public writing (6, citing Hesse), and I am very interested in that, especially with respect to our WRT 205 course. How can we produce researched writing for various publics that want it and need it? In my 255 course that I mentioned in my previous posting, I think that I made some strides toward students addressing various publics.

Finally, the work on video is a reminder of ways production-oriented composition can take place across media. I like the idea of "writing with" that Lovett et al describe on p. 3. The course that George took on this past spring "Writing with Video" is based on this course model. I hope we'll have a chance to discuss how that course worked and what some of the products are.

More later....