How will hypertext change the pedagogy of the composition classroom?

Hypertext is an incredibly diverse medium that allows readers experience with text that cannot be accounted for with current composition pedagogy. Instead of students sitting down to read the same piece of literature, in the same format, sharing the same storyline, using the same words ;students can now sit down with hypertext and follow a completely different storyline connected to the same theme of a site (ie. Victory Garden).

Originally, I thought that a classroom analyzation and discussion of a hypertext experience might not diverge so greatly from a discussion of a printed literary experience. After all, though we all sit down with the same text, each of us carries our own experience and thought into the mix. Why would there be argument about text ownership if everyone's experience with the same text wasn't a unique one? How could the Nazi's, Nazi sympathisers, and French Resistance all believe that the French remake of Sophocles' Antigone was supporting their position over that of their enemy? It seemed to me that we would be dealing with the same disparity that we currently have- the disparity that delivers seven completely different interpretations from literary critics of Robert Frost's poem "In a Snowy Wood".

However, further research into the possibilities of hypertext has made me rethink this theory of hypertext. Hypertext changes the individual and group experience so drastically in some cases that it will take entirely new pedagogy and heuristics to find any type of common ground to discuss.

In hypertext, you completely change the individual experience of a text through interactivity. Each individual reader may connect to completely different links throughout the course of the text. These links have no established beginning or ending. It is more like a peek into the window of someone else's story for a short period of time, than the record of a specific event beginning here and ending there. In that case, you may have every student in your class having experienced a completely different story, different words, different visuals, different soundbites, though those stories may all align with the same theme (such as being set in Iraq during the current war.) One student may come into class ready to discuss a love story, while another may come expecting to discuss the experiences of a ten-year-old Iraqi that has recently been orphaned when his home was bombed.

In addition to these problems of common ground, hypertext also includes the ability to incorporate visual, multimedia into its presentation. Instead of written words telling the whole story, some links may lead to short movies that show, rather than tell, the story. A critical discussion of a movie or TV show already contains much different elements than a critical discussion of a book.

Hypertext is available. It's a fascinating form of literature. The question is, how can we create a common ground in our classroom to account for discussion of such an enormously varied experience? I think I'm going to find that there will have to be changes in our ideology, as well as our activities, to allow the use of this medium.