Rhetoric and Technology – ENC 6421

In his retrospective narrative of the FYC writing program, Joe Moxley gives us the Writing Program Administrator’s view of the technologies USF professors, adjuncts and graduate assistants are trying to master. The intention behind these commons-based peer production tools such as Sharepoint and the collegewriting website is to develop a shared, standardized curriculum while still respecting academic freedom and the personalities, talents and interests of individual instructors.

The greatest change in how writing programs are administered, he says, is decentralization– moving away from top-down, hierarchical structures to collaboration. These new structures emphasize community and reflect what seems to be a global trend “to democratize the academy and the construction of knowledge” (3). Sharepoint and the various Wikis used in the FYC program use features of social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, where interaction is the operative word. We can freely share resources, ideas, rubrics, syllabi, articles and student papers to facilitate teaching our courses. Since most composition classes are now taught in hybrid classrooms, these resources are readily available for use or reference while teaching a class. While many faculty members resisted technology when the initiative began in 2003, most now find it routine, and are even unhappy if not assigned a hybrid classroom (5).

Moxley describes himself as an optimist who believed that composition teachers would embrace this technology of collaboration, particularly because there is an increasing awareness in the field of “the social nature of composing and meaning making” (8). He found a paradox in that empowering instructors to contribute to the curriculum required taking away their power to construct their own syllabi and course materials. Another problem was that teachers needed to be trained in these technologies, yet there was no funding for training. He found himself imposing his values and his interpretation of composition pedagogies on the department, even while his intention was to empower USF’s community of scholars. Yet, overall, this new model is designed to incorporate criticism, dialogue, and continual revision, giving all participants a voice in its construction and implementation.

In reviewing the various instructor responses to using these collaborative technologies, Moxley found eleven categories that individuals sort themselves into, subsets of the traditional five categories introduced in 1995 by Everett Rogers: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards (14). Moxley found that two relatively small groups, which he calls Authors and Advocates & Technicians, embrace the technology wholeheartedly and are responsible for a large part of curriculum content. Everyone else participates tentatively, and a few, the Terrorists, actually destroy content, either intentionally or due to error.

Moxley concludes by wondering if he is perhaps too optimistic. His hope and belief is that technology will afford teachers the ability “to work collaboratively to develop a curriculum that is wiser than the curriculum an individual writing program administrator could develop.” At this point, it is still too early to tell.

 Kate Zephyrhawke