In defense of digital writing

First of all, I’m pretty sure most people at this age (early adulthood…freshmen) have been called ‘lazy’ and ‘self-absorbed’ at least once, and therefore it’s not just the so-called ‘millennials’ that gain those labels. Instead of focusing on the lesson, some of my classmates in elementary, junior, and senior high school would read a magazine, write notes to friends, and chat with each other until the teacher noticed and let them have it. These things are essentially underlife activities, and I think that while they occur in each generation, the form they take may change. Notes to friends are now text messages, the magazine is a myspace or facebook page, and the chatting is still, well, chatting (but it could be a text or an IM).

Ground rules are therefore relevant here: make it a point that computers should be closed or open at appropriate times. If a student is seriously disruptive, discuss the issue with him or her after class.

Technology: let’s face it, it changes. The point is not to simply teach the technology, but to teach the students how to make significant and critical rhetorical choices that express ideas and arguments in meaningful ways, often utilizing various technologies to do so. As the WIDE Research Center Collective puts it:
“…the ability to compose documents with multiple media, to publish this writing quickly, to distribute it to mass audiences, and to allow audiences to interact with this writing (and with writers) challenges many of the traditional principles and practices of composition, which are based (implicitly) on a print view of writing. The changing nature and contexts of composing impacts meaning making at every turn” (“Changed context for writing”).
Rather than simply producing a textual artifact, digital writing allows our students to understand a range of writing activities. Publication and distribution (“Changed context for writing”) are not necessarily readily available to students in a traditional print text classroom. Access to a digital network (Internet) allows them to publish their work and perhaps receive feedback sooner than if they were to try to publish their work in a scholarly journal. It allows them to be public authors with an audience that is outside the classroom.

There are things that simply cannot be accomplished with a print text. Or if they can, the information may not be portrayed in the best possible way through print. Video, audio, print, etc. in various combinations can accomplish communication on many different levels. Since we have the ability to use these technologies and modes, and since our students will probably come in contact with them in their futures, we need to help prepare them to make effective rhetorical choices in multiple ways.

Check out these videos made by the Digital Ethnography program at Kansas State University: http://mediatedcultures.net/mediatedculture.htm
One of the videos looks at these millennials while others discuss technology and writing.