My Second Annotated Bibliography

Barrios, Barclay. “Reimaging writing program web sites as pedagogical tools” Computers and Composition v.12 i1, March 2004. 73-87

Barrios examines the Rutgers Writing Program web site as a model of a central pedagogical tool for writing programs in general. The web site was designed in the context of what Selfe identified as an “agenda of technological literacy.”

Brooks, Kevin. “Reading, Writing, and Teaching Creative Hypertext: A Genre-Based Pedagogy” Pedagogy v2 n3, 2002. 337-356

Brooks argues for a pedagogical approach to slowly integrating teachers and students into hypertext through a multi-genre approach.

Gresham, Morgan. “The new frontier: conquering the World Wide Web by mule” Computers and Composition v16 i3, 1999. 395-407

Gresham discusses how using html in the classroom can shift student priorities from writing to coding. She discusses ways to help students balance these priorities.

Harris, Pamela C.; Harris, Michael H.; Hannah, Stan A. “Confronting Hypertext: Exploring Divergent Responses to Digital Coursework” The Internet and Higher Education v1 n1, 1998. 45-57

This is a study of courses that are completely based on hypertext instruction delivered over the internet and how students react to it.

Johnson-Eilola, Johndan; Kimme Hea, Amy C. “After hypertext: Other ideas” Computers and Composition v20 i4, December 2003. 415-425

Johnson-Eilola and Kimme Hea discuss the history of hypertext in three tropes: hypertext as kinship, hypertext as battlefield, and hypertext as rhizome. They use these tropes to discuss hypertext practices. They call hypertext a “heuristic for thinking through our relationships to technology, literacy, and one another.”

Mauriello, Nicholas; Pagnucci, Gian S.; Winner, Tammy. “Reading between the code: the teaching of HTML and the displacement of writing instruction” Computers and Composition v16 i3, 1999. 409-419

These authors discuss the ways pedagogy in the composition classroom and policies in the department need to change as html is assimilated into the classroom. The reason is that writing is no longer the sole focus. HTML is like a new language and you also cannot assume students have all the necessary skills at using technology. So we no longer just teach writing; we teach writing, a second language, and technology skills.

Rea, Alan; White, Doug. “The changing nature of writing: prose or code in the classroom” Computers and Composition v16 i3, 1999. 421-436

Rea and White focus on how to evaluate the new styles of writing that come as a result of html and multimedia. They list several new issues that must be considered in evaluation, such as: contextualized hyperlinks, navigability, color schemes, and image, audio, and video integration.

Rice, Jeff. “Writing about cool: Teaching hypertext as juxtaposition” Computers and Composition v20 i3, September 2003. 221-236

Rice discusses how events in the fields of writing, technology and cultural studies provide a model for electronic research and influence writing in a networked writing classroom. Then he discusses how students using hypertext can learn to write about cool, as well as write cool themselves!

Watkins Jr., James Ray. “Hypertextual border crossing: students and teachers, texts and contexts” Computers and Composition v16 i3, 1999. 383-394

Watkins Jr. explores the actual creation of a collaborative hypertext in a first year composition course called E.A.R.

Wickliff, Greg; Yancey, Kathleen Blake. “The perils of creating a class Web site: it was the best of times, it was the…” Computers and Composition v18 i2, 2001. 177-186

The authors study junior-level undergrads who are skilled at printed academic writing as they are asked to author a web site. The study suggests that these skilled writers perform much like basic writers as they try to acquire the new visual and technological literacy skills of the web.

Progress report on my Hypertext project

Originally, I was assuming that this project would solely focus on pedagogy that incorporates the reading and discussion of hypertext in the writing classroom. I have found all kinds of information on that, as well as being inspired by some of our class discussions. But I have also been led to some information regarding class assignments that require students to develop hypertext of their own.

That was something I hadn't considered, which seems strange considering that we are allowed to create this project as a series of hypertextual links. Visual rhetoric is also being cited as integral to this type of study. That was put into greater context for me after Allison's book review.

I found this type of hypertextual assignment interesting because of the inevitableness that students must end up creating something that does not allow for one privileged interpretation. The assignments that I looked at took a possible topic/question, then asked students to create a hypertext with links to everything they could discover that related to the topic. Each web page had to deal with one idea. After all the raw data was collected, the students (a collaborative project) got together and discovered patterns in the information. Using those patterns, the students then used all the skills in visual rhetoric that they had learned in the class to create a complete hypertext linking these patterns into cohesive "arguments".

I haven't found a ton on this assignment usage of hypertext, so I'm not sure how much will be incorporated into my project. I wonder, though, how I might be able to use this knowledge even though I am not in a high-technology classroom. How much can I expect my students to already have in computer knowledge? How much can I expect them to do out of the classroom? How adept am I at the technology that I might create an appropriate assignment for my class? I'm thinking I should attempt the project myself before I ask any student to do it.

Right now, it is looking like my project will go into the reading and interpretation of hypertext, the use of hypertext assignments for students, the incorporation of visual rhetoric and how all this can fit into a pedagogy. I'm not sure if this is too much. Feel free to make your own comments and suggestions. I could use the advice!