Manovich, Moffett and Porter... O My!

My apologies for the huge block quotes and the screwy format-- I tried to fix them but they wanted to spead out a little despite my effort to contain them.

In my Theories of Rhetoric and Composition class this week we are reading Moffett’s article “Kinds and Orders of Discourse” where (to generalize as quickly as I can for a very long dense article) the main point boils down to this: the teacher must look at the learner first, or “move” with the student’s developmental process in order to teach him/ her about writing. So, this idea got me thinking about Digital Rhetoric and how it might apply to students at BSU. If today our children and students are writing (and thinking) in a digital media, then it seems important that we find out how to bring those ideas out into the open and use them to teach students about their writing and the processes behind their discourse community.

So, I had finished reading the Moffett article and I was anxious about how I might turn this 23 page theoretical piece about the developmental process of learning and writing into something both accessible and practical for the rest of my peers. Then, I thought about the possibility of forwarding the ideas Moffett discusses to the use of digital rhetoric. Specifically, I thought it might be interesting to discuss something like Wikipedia as an example of how our society/ students are using media in different— and varying ways—to develop rhetorical and compositional ideas, as well as meaning. However, when I mentioned this to my presentation partner she seemed a little (familiarly) skeptical about using digital media to apply Moffett’s ideas. I cannot speak for her, but I thought that her response further spoke to the resistance of digital media by academia that I have mentioned several times already.

With all of this in mind, today I picked up Manovich and recognized that the skepticism and fear that we are dealing with today is the same as what Manovich articulated in 2000: if we fully incorporate new media into our lives we will “carry our prisons with us…always to be “in touch”, always connected, always “plugged-in.” The retina and the screen will merge” (114). Just like the resistance that Porter discusses from from pencil to type, we are afraid we will lose our essence. But, is this really what our society will become? Or are we cheating our students out of a meaningful and relevant learning experience as thinkers and writers in modern America? Maybe the concern should be how might we find a balance in incorporating what society— according to Manovich— has been doing for generations?

So, when I read through Porter’s article on his personal evolution in writing, I started to wonder if I should push the idea a little more—since as he acknowledges people who specialize in computers and composition do not need to be convinced that it is important—maybe it might be best to bring these ideas into the graduate writing classroom to start the discussion and see what people think about using new media. Perhaps in doing this I can find some clues to answer the question of why— if many of our students are writing in a digital form regularly and with more comfortability than us—can’t we make the shift?

I started to wonder if Porter’s gradual progression from the written form to the digital form is indicative of the incoming freshmen at BSU. I know many of them are familiar and pretty fluent in new media. So, I have to wonder what rich and beneficial processes are developing from their digital compositions that they (or us) are not aware of. If this is the case then, how might we as instructor’s help to highlight those processes and move them further in their writing development?

Perhaps some of the solution may be found in Porter’s realization about his own success. He attributes much of his fluency and academic success to the encouragement of others and tells us much of it stems from

The importance of social networks and personal help, as well as the value of having access to public labs. Whenever I pushed to another level of technology use, somebody was there to help give me a boost to that next level or that next set of skills. I have been lucky to have good colleagues, friends, and family, who encouraged me to use new technologies and helped me negotiate new terrain. Once I had the boost to a new level or new set of skills, I could expand my skills and learn on my own. But that initial personal help and/or motivation made the difference. Sometimes this was one-on-one help, but often the help occurred in a community of practice, a group of people who were learning and theorizing and teaching each other about new writing technologies.

Maybe this is us and part of the benefits of working together in a class like this one (Digital Rhetoric). Since I am a part of this class with others who are working through much of the same skepticism and asking a lot of the same questions related to teaching new media as I, we have the luxury of being able to stumble through the process of incorporating and becoming comfortable with the possibility and necessity of making the switch to digital media in a more meaningful and serious way.

It seems like the problem much of the problem originates with looking so hard for what might bite us, that we have fallen behind in really taking hold of new media in a commanding and powerful way to help students learn about writing. However, I am not sure what this looks like yet, but I have a feeling much of what Porter calls for is essential for us an practitioners to consider, in that,

We need to develop a rhetorical theory for this moment in technology—a theory that understands where and how the revolution is happening, that moves beyond the misdirected focus on instrumental tools (the computer, functions, applications). We need a theory that isn’t tied formalistically to genre considerations…but that looks closely at the socialized writing dynamic and the conglomerate rhetorical dynamic of readers, writers, and users and their impact on society. The revolution, if there is one, is the social one of interconnectivity.

Maybe this is what is so attractive to students. That they can be (inter)connected in a way that they find meaningful and relevant. It is a discourse community that they want to be a part of. If we can find ways to both ask questions and answer them productively, we can find ways to use what Manovich outlines and Weinburger got so (very) excited about. But, do we believe this is a possibility for today? If not, what academic progressions, do you think, are we missing by constantly looking behind us?