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—George Landow My informant Mary related a little anecdote about hypertext and the Internet that might be construed as an example of Landow's prediction: I was working with another teacher about a month ago who said to me with horror, "My God, Mary, this is going to change the way I teach forever!" And I thought to myself, okay, it's taken awhile, but--uh--yes, it does; you'll never be the same again. Mary's friend expressed a realization that is dawning with varying degrees of rapidity and shock upon many teachers. Educators are being forced to re-examine long-held assumptions about literacy, creativity, and pedagogy in light of the Internet and hypertext. As Hawisher and Selfe observe, "writing, reading, listening, learning, teaching . . . in this late age of print seem blurred and overlapping as . . . technological innovations change what it means to be writers and readers, teachers and students" (Evolving Perspectives 3). The implications of how this paradigm shift will change the way we teach are phenomenal. This is especially true for the writing instructor. This section attempts to establish a bridge between theory and practice by speculating on some of the ways that the findings of this study might influence writing instruction.. Of course, the writing classroom is the focus in this discussion, but many of the implications are extendable to other pedagogical situations, particularly given that writing is a key way to think and learn. In fact, three of my principal respondents were teachers and one was a student in education with some teaching experience. These informants were all more interested than average in the pedagogical implications of hypertext, and so they shared a number of incisive insights that I include here. In addition to the experiences and insights of my seven major informants, this section draws heavily on data collected while teaching three writing courses (approximately ninety students in total) in which students worked in hypertext to compose and publish web sites. There are certainly concerns about the negative implications of hypertext, such as the death of the imagination, the fragmentation of thought, the demise of the book, and the determinism of technology (see Birkerts's The Gutenberg Elegies). There are also serious issues regarding the larger context of institutional literacy agendas and the inequities they create or perpetuate (see Cynthia L. Selfe, Technology and Literacy in the Twenty-First Century: The Importance of Paying Attention). There is, moreover, justifiable concern for how education will deal with the larger issues implied by the Internet, most notably, corporate intervention in education and the unimaginable information "glut" of a resource of such size (see Faigley "Beyond Imagination: The Internet and Global Digital Literacy"). While these larger issues are beyond the immediate scope of this study, they do constitute a reality within which all theorizing about hypertext and pedagogy must be contextualized. Finally, underlying any speculation about the potential of hypertext in the classroom is the assumption that students and teachers alike need special support to master the complexities of this technology and manage the time element required to learn its complexities. Unquestionably, most of my informants--major and minor--suffered "techno-angst" of varying degrees at some time or other as they struggled with a technology that made word processing seem like child's play by comparison. Furthermore, among my student informants--ninety spread over three courses--there were several students who really did not like hypertext. One in particular wrote in a journal, I do not like texts in which links are incorporated. I feel it is the style of our modern times where everything looks like a video clip--colourful, flashy, and "jumping in the eyes." So is hypertext. It invites you to go somewhere else, more interesting. And like a child, we all do. A writer ends up losing attention in an attempt to stimulate it too much. This student certainly articulates a valid concern. The overwhelming majority of my student informants, however, appeared to thrive on the challenge, novelty, and opportunities of hypertext, despite any perceived problems. As I have heard said by various observers on a number of occasions, "the genie is out of the bottle." To try and stop the inevitable, even though it may have negative implications, is fruitless. What we can do, however, is discover the unique and best ways in which hypertext supports the learning process, and develop a constructivist approach that optimizes the connection between writing and teaching in this medium. Post-behaviourist shifts from teacher-centered to learner-centered classroom, from product to process and, most recently, from discipline specific to multidisciplinary are, I believe, well-served by hypertext. In this section, I draw attention to what my research suggests to be the main ways in which hypertext supports effective pedagogy by uniting writing and pedagogy as never before. Although some of my observations would be applicable to stand alone hypertext, my assumption here is that hypertext connotes the Internet since that is how my informants perceived it and that is how it was treated in my classroom. While some of these points may seem relatively obvious to experienced and technologically savvy educators, especially given that many more of us have now become accustomed to web-assisted learning than we were even two or three years ago, it may be useful for future readers and those of a larger audience to have the pedagogical strands drawn together here as a practical reference that concretizes the theory presented throughout this study. Hypertext enhances contextualized learning because it makes visible connections to related knowledge at the click of a link. Furthermore, as hypertext allows readers to construct many different paths through a web of information, learners are able to be more than passive readers or receivers of knowledge. They become simultaneous writers of a sort, constructing and transforming their knowledge around unique purposes and perspectives as they proceed. In effect, learners are almost forced to become the kind of knowledge transformers Bereiter and Scardamalia describe. These learner-writers must work back and forth between the "two problem spaces" that Bereiter and Scardamalia identify as crucial to knowledge transforming; that is, the "content space" and the "rhetorical space." In a hypertextual medium, learners must actively construct content by relying on rhetorical heuristics (299) common to the writing process. They must continually set and revise goals in the hypertext through which they navigate, if they are to give the overall content any meaningful structuration. The sort of integrative cognitive activity envisioned by Bereiter and Scardamalia is described in the context of hypertext by Scott Lloyd DeWitt who surmises that, "by its intersection with the very nature of reading and writing connections and transactions, hypertext offers help to students in bringing together the acts of reading and writing, both cognitively and contextually" (70). My informant Lee, an Education student with teaching experience, expressed the kind of knowledge transforming connectivity that hypertext promotes from her perspective. I think that as generations grow up and start thinking in a much less linear fashion, they'll be thinking more globally. They'll be thinking on a much grander scale in terms of how everything connects together. Because we've been brought up thinking everything has its little category and little place and that there's very little crossover in between, we don't always think connectively. Instead of what category or what box can I put this in, future generations will think: What does this link to? What are the connections? What are the values of the connections? That will be very different. Hypertext may very well be an invaluable tool with both universal and discipline specific applications that teachers can use to help their students develop from knowledge tellers to knowledge transformers. An even more contextualized learning experience is envisioned by Jay Lemke who foresees the opportunity to emphasize the connectedness of a student's developing knowledge within the evaluation process. Lemke surmises that "it is even possible, and in my opinion highly desirable, that we will move away from the overt domination of detailed uniform educational criteria of assessment and evaluation and toward the logical implications of the 'portfolio' model. . . . [where] each student's electronic portfolio of accomplishments will be subject to many different evaluations for many different purposes" (139). Hypertext supports a variety of learning styles because it can present information in multimedia and, furthermore, likely optimizes interaction among the multiple intelligences that support different learning styles. Howard Gardner's extensive research on multiple intelligences clearly indicates that the kind of text-based learning that dominates the traditional classroom is not necessarily the best learning style for all students nor is text the best venue for all subjects. Mary mentioned, for example, how she has observed among her own design students how frustrated they were with textual language. Moreover, students in general today are perhaps even less disposed to text-based learning than were the students of a generation or two ago. Mary again provided some insight into this when she noted that the learning process for our students is very different from the learning process for us. I was brought up in a text rich environment. Students today are much more visual learners, and quite sophisticated at this. Teachers have to think in a different way. Decry the demise of text as we might, our role as educators is to guide learning in the best way possible. In the final analysis, hypertext as information technology (as opposed to entertainment) is still largely text-based anyway, but its great advantage is that hypertext is more than just text. The seamless digital discourse of multimedial hypertext may even allow us to use text to better advantage when we do not have to force information into a textual format that is more naturally suited to some other medium or, as my informant Jay put it, to retrofit information into taxonomies where it doesn't really belong. Rose's experience as a creative writer reinforces Jay's observation that no writing taxonomy is a one-size-fits-all model. And Rose's very different experience as a creative hyper-writer is moreover a particularly pointed reminder here that teachers must resist all impulses to generalize about the writing habits of learners in any prescriptive kind of way. Educators should welcome the opportunity that hypertext affords to expand the boundaries of literacy beyond the narrow confines of alphanumeric symbols to include multimedia--not as an exception but as part of the normal range embodied in a multi-semiotic literacy that draws logically and naturally on all five human senses. The ability to present material in a multimedial format with relative ease enhances a teacher's efforts to concretize concepts, and capitalizes on the likelihood that "our visual memory is much more durable than our textual memory" (Johnson 12). By composing in hypertext, writing students can now develop the skills to both compose and critically interpret the multi-semiotic texts that are coming to constitute "writing" on a more regular basis (see Fairclough Critical Discourse Analysis, and Faigley "Material Literacy and Visual Design"). However, the multimedial nature of hypertext also poses a tough challenge for writing instructors schooled principally in text-based writing. I think it is reasonable to suggest that writing teachers, as a minimum, should undertake some professional development in graphic design principles, especially if they are expected to teach hyper-writing. Hypertext forces externalization of the writing (and reading) process. Operations that were previously more or less tacit are now rendered more visible. As Catherine Smith observes, "a built hypertext . . . is a virtuality, a projection of the user's thinking as it progresses through various sources and moments of understanding" (269). This progression for the writer is also visible as never before largely because, as my informant Pat observed, digitalization will render finished unalterable text a thing of the past. Rose likewise remarked, although she didn't elaborate, that hypertext has forced some of the functions of my writing to a conscious level. It was apparent to me in the experiences of many of my informants, notably Lee and Pat in particular, that a newly found awareness and ability to consciously reflect on previously tacit elements of process such as purpose and audience was part of many informants' experiences writing in hypertext. Perhaps it was the visual element of hypertext which forced the writer to imagine--in a way simple text never could--the reader moving physically throughout the hypertext. Perhaps it was the novelty of the writing medium, or perhaps it was provoked by some other qualities inherent in hypertext. Whatever the reason, this externalization of process could be a decided advantage in the writing classroom where teachers strive, often unsuccessfully, to help developing writers recognize and act consciously with regard to rhetorical elements. Furthermore, the ability to recognize elements of rhetoric and to relate them to their own processes promotes in learners a metacognitive awareness of their own processes. Bereiter and Scardamalia have identified metcognitive awareness, which they term an "executive routine," as the crucial element of differentiation between inexperienced and experienced writers, the two "stages" of writing development that Bereiter and Scardamalia identify as analogous to the difference between "knowledge tellers" and "knowledge transformers" (see The Psychology of Written Composition). As it renders process visible and product obsolete, hypertext also foregrounds process as the integral component of learning, and provides a highly flexible environment where teachers and students can meet in what Vygotsky calls the "zone of proximal development"; that is, that optimal span or space in which students are most receptive to learning. This is normally when assignments and projects are still in process, and students could learn by reacting to teacher and peer feedback. Unfortunately, it is a zone most often neglected in traditional pedagogy when teacher feedback is given only once an assignment is "finished" and can no longer be revised. Furthermore, if we apply here Lanham's interpretation of chaos theory in the context of the "electronic word," we can see how this placement of process at the center of the learning experience reverberates on a fundamental level of experience. Lanham contends that the "chaos" inherent in electronic discourse "does not aim at stasis, as does the utopian tradition that descends from Plato, at finding an ideal pattern of life and then shutting the development process down. The developmental process is life [emphasis in original]" (252). Is this kind of ongoing development not the theoretical ideal upon which modern pedagogy is supposedly based? Should educators not, then, be exerting every effort to take advantage of hypertext as a new learning tool? Hypertext supports collaborative learning. Kenneth Bruffee, most notably, has argued for the value of "socially constructed" knowledge and a pedagogy that integrates the collaborative learning necessary to support it. Bruffee's research grows from the collective knowledge and polyvocality inherent in collaboration as the roots of its success. Two of my informants particularly noted this aspect of hyper-writing. Mary observed that there's a much deeper richer opportunity in the assignments for group learning than there was before. Mac related a very successful project she had facilitated where groups of high school students in the United States collaborated with groups of similar students in Peru to replicate Erastostenes's calculations of the earth's circumference. She described to me how in order to complete this project students had to communicate with each other to build a common web site that drew upon their own research written and structured around internal hyperlinks, and upon the resources of the World Wide Web in the form of external hyperlinks. Imagine what sort of interdisciplinary and intercultural knowledge transformation would take place in this collaborative endeavour. Mac's project is an excellent example of what Bruffee envisions, and what Landow cites as "active, constructionist learning" (220) of the kind which hypertext promotes because it is "an enabling technology, rather than a directive one" (233). Furthermore, hypertext may open the way for new kinds of collaboration that formal publishing has discouraged. Vielstimming, drawing on Ede and Lunsford, makes the point that the kind of true collaboration heretofore discouraged by "institutionalized resistance" may now become a reality thanks to the seamless digital fabric of electronic hypertext (96). In fact, as several of my informants noted in various ways, the complexity of technology means writers often can't execute alone what they envision individually so they are forced of necessity to seek collaboration with others who have complementary skills. On a larger collaborative scale, the World Wide Web allows teachers to build a virtual classroom where both instructors and students can collaborate in activities ranging from simple posting of relevant Internet resources, to highly interactive projects and classroom based discussion. Activities can take place either asynchronously or synchronously, and either as a supplement to in-class time or, if appropriate, in place of it. All of these activities involve "writing" of one sort or another, and because of the "plasticity" of the medium, updating materials is easier and more feasible than in hard copy, thus promoting ongoing curriculum development throughout an entire course. The virtual classroom also allows for self-paced learning with its added convenience and adaptability to different learners' natural rhythms. Keith Dorwick's doctoral research at the University of Illinois at Chicago studies Building the Virtual Department: A Case Study of Online Teaching and Research (http://www.uic.edu/depts/engl/projects/dissertations/kdorwick/). Because Dorwick's dissertation is a web site, it both tells about and shows an elaborate example of how hypertext melds writing and technology to serve pedagogy. An obvious complement to the collaboration that hypertext seems to encourage and support is the kind of "experience centered 'awareness' leading to personal development" that defines writing across the curriculum (Bazerman and Russell 11). Opportunities to collaborate both locally and universally allow learners to use writing as a way of learning in new and more comprehensive ways. According to Bazerman and Russell, writing across the curriculum in collaborative settings promotes a learner's integration into both the academic community and the world beyond by linking students' own experiences to larger contexts (12). Bazerman and Russell were theorizing in the context of print technology. The potential for students to link and learn across the curriculum now exists on a scale Bazerman and Russell could not have imagined. Hypertext provides a new and exciting writing space for scholarly research which in turn supports more effective pedagogy. It offers scholars a more powerful medium than linear text alone in which to present their ideas. The opportunity to write in associational as well as linear modes asks scholars to think in whole new ways and thus to find new forms of knowledge discovery and construction. Hypertext also facilitates easy collaboration and dissemination of research because it circumvents the often lengthy and arduous process of print-based publication. Admittedly, whole new models that address such concerns as archiving and copyrighting need to be devised, but the best way to devise them is to experiment with the medium, to learn by the necessary trial and error, and to modify accordingly. Scholars have a choice: they can either lead, as is the traditional role of the scholar, or follow. The danger in not taking the lead, as Mary so cogently pointed out, is that our failure to assume the leadership role will mean that companies such as Microsoft and whoever else will become the big players in this game. L.M. Dryden echoes Mary's concern when he worries that "the traditions that define literacy in strictly linguistic and logical terms may cause the schools to fall increasingly out of step with the abilities and interests of students and with developments in the broader culture" (302). Educators should be actively re-evaluating the role of different forms of discourse in light of scholarly aims. They should be weighing the relative merits of older and newer technologies in relation to what each makes possible, and probing questions such as Douglas Brent sets forth in "Rhetorics of the Web: Implications for Teachers of Literacy." Brent evaluates the potential of hypertext for traditional linear, or what he terms "propositional," argument. Brent comes to a conclusion similar to that of Paul Gilster who finds that a writer "can lay out an argument through the omission or addition of particular items that support the point being made" (130). Brent, however, is careful to qualify that the nature of argument on the Web--if we can or should still call it that--is likely to evolve into a new kind of rhetoric that relies on "associative reading" (http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/2.1/features/brent/wayin.htm). Brent and Gilster both take a very constructive approach to the potential of hypertext as a scholarly venue. Hypertexts of a scholarly nature, such as this article, should be regarded as a variation of what Landow dubs "laboratory-for-theory" webs; that is, "webs that exemplify that new form of discourse. . . . a border and genre-crossing mode of writing" (260). In fact, as Gilster points out, "the ability to archive both the article and its surrounding web of research materials brings a new category of supporting documentation into play" (98). Educational institutions should welcome experimentation with this dynamical new form of scholarly discourse, and teachers should likewise create opportunities for their classroom scholars to experiment in this mode. It is indeed a curious phenomenon why we are so committed to print and paper as opposed to other media in most scholarly endeavours. Gregory Ulmer remarks on this imbalance, noting that "we study the media on the margins of our curriculum, but we are not learning how to use them. We stick with the treatise and the essay," despite the fact that "the aims of critical thinking may be achieved in a variety of media and styles" (5). Would it not make better sense in an institution dedicated to learning to explore and exploit all media in the cause of knowledge? Perhaps the possibility that hypertext opens a new writing and therefore thinking space may be its most important contribution to pedagogy for both teachers and students. In "Hypertext as Subversive?" David Kolb, philosopher and academic, goes so far as to suggest that because hypertext does not impose any one rigid way of representing ideas, it has the power to subvert the canonical power of institutions such as the university (http://culturemachine.tees.ac.uk/Articles/art_kolb/Introduction_143.html). In a somewhat less radical vein, Jay Lemke, physicist and academic, speculates, "we have lived too long in a world where we communicate in only two or three modes, two or three squares in a vast grid of combinatorial possibilities" (Lemke email to xmca listserv May 5, 1998). This new writing space presents us with the potential to develop new and alternative ways of knowing and, by extension, acting. Both Catherine F. Smith and Sherry Turkle speculate on the new kinds of thinking that hypertext may encourage. Smith describes it as " 'thick' cognition" of the kind that "entails the thinker's multiple physical, social, cultural, and historical life worlds. . . . [as opposed to] the more selective 'thin' cognition of problem solving" (265). Thus, hypertextual thinking might be regarded as more constructivist in nature as it is naturally a "bottom up" kind of thinking that promotes interdisciplinary contextualized thinking. Drawing on Levi-Strauss, Turkle regards hypertext as supporting a "bricolage way to organize work." Pointing out that "bricolage" is a style of reasoning and not a stage that happens as part of an individual's progression to a superior form, Turkle notes that, "soft mastery" thinking has been validated by Carol Gilligan's work which "validated bricolage as mature, widespread, and useful" (57-58). Turkle argues that hypertext naturally encourages this "flexible, non-hierarchical" way of approaching knowledge and that, furthermore, this style of thinking may result in a more virtuous way of acting, as "soft mastery" thinkers tend towards negotiation and compromise as opposed to the less desirable forms of behaviour such as competition and dominance that are inherent in hierarchical thought (56). Hypertext asks writers to integrate into their writing (and thus thinking) process, "judgments about scale, a new icon/alphabet ratio in textual communication, nonlinear collage and juxtapositional reasoning" (Lanham 47). These new writing and thinking considerations must be integrated into our critical literacy. In light of this, it is also our responsibility to question:
It is surely within the province of pedagogy to facilitate the integration of electronic literacy at all levels of education, likely beginning at an elementary or pre-elementary level. Thus, one might, for example, speculate as to how an introduction to this kind of thinking in the formative elementary years might remove the unnecessary demarcation between linear and other forms of thought that seems to put older students at a disadvantage when dealing with new technology. During our discussions, Mac spoke about her experience with the next generation and their seeming ability to think in hypertext. She remarked on how her elementary school aged students amazed her with their ability to master hypertext in a fraction of the time that it took her older students. Kids just launch into it and talk afterwards. They do not look at the means; they look at the results. Adults need instructions, programs, formats, etcetera. Lee echoed Mac's observations when she remarked on the ability of children to think about everything at the same time. . . . this sort of thinking is more natural for them, and the possibilities are incredible. Some valuable insights into hypertext theory could likely be unearthed by researchers working with elementary school level hyper-writers. A long-term study might be construed around the question:
Writing teachers are in an ideal position to help both their colleagues and their students learn to conceive of writing and thinking anew, and to work with new models that move beyond linearity. It is within our pedagogical mandate as writing experts "to develop new genres that will serve educators in the electronic era as well as did the literary essay in the Gutenburg (sic) era" (Ulmer viii). The combination of alphanumeric and iconic, visual and audial, scholarly and common, linear and associational, and rational and imaginative gives new dimensions to Kenneth Burke's notion of language as symbolic action. As teachers of language, writing instructors have a particular responsibility to explore beyond the dominantly left-brain rigid educational paradigm from which most of us spring. In order to make that move, we probably need to re-evaluate some of our attitudes and assumptions. I do not mean to suggest that we should abandon all standards; however, we may need to reconsider what we value in a "piece of writing," and make some short term allowances for long term gain. Mary seemed to understand the enormous shift involved when she mused about the state of spelling and grammar in this "late age of print." Mary considered how in some ways there's a delightful freedom about it. Ideas are flowing as never before. But in some ways my English teacher, old Miss So-and-so, would turn in her grave. My colleagues and I all struggle with this. However, I observe what formerly would have been the quietest student in the class become quite vocal in online discussion, and I think I'm not going to look for that grammar and spelling. I'm going to treat it more as if it were a conversation. And so, if I can get the meaning, and the meaning moves ahead, and the learning is happening, maybe I shouldn't worry too much about this element. But then I say to myself, well, where do they ever get it? Mary's experience exemplifies the kind of conundrum we all face. As a teacher of university writing/ communication courses, my curriculum covers everything from email to online discussion to web design and publication. I have struggled to devise ways to help students "get it" (basics such as grammar and spelling) while still providing them with the opportunity to explore all this new medium can mean for them. What I've done so far is to establish a continuum that runs from the informal to the formal. At the informal end rests the exciting interaction of online discussion. In this environment, surface formalities such as spelling and grammar are accepted as less important and are less rigidly controlled. The aim is conversation and knowledge building. At the other end of the continuum are web sites destined for the World Wide Web. Editing should be paramount in this environment. In my relatively short experience teaching students web design, I find that the very fact that their web sites are destined for world wide publication makes students more acutely aware of the importance of editing. The opportunity to publish their work for a mass audience on an ongoing basis is a great motivator to produce clean copy. We can capitalize on this motivation and devise new ways to teach editing in this context that may transfer favourably to other writing contexts. Writing is thinking. It is a way of knowing. Writing therefore is at the heart of pedagogy in most disciplines. It is the "currency" of knowledge building and information transfer. The role of writing teachers is thus crucial to the educative process because writing teachers, above all, teach thinking. As Paul Gilster rightly points out, "hypertext is a mental process as well as a digital tool" (138). Mark Amerika, noted cyber-writer, calls it a "hypertextual consciousness" that "takes the science of writing and teleports it to cyberspace where language is then able to groove with the machine" (http://www.grammatron.com/htc/htc.html). " Hypertext, especially in the context of the Internet, is the cornerstone of a new digital literacy. Writing teachers are well-placed to lead the way in integrating this new literacy into pedagogy. At the heart of this new literacy is the interplay between content and technology which creates a seamless digital discourse that unites writing and pedagogy as never before. Writing teachers, therefore, are challenged with nothing less than the single most important role of re-casting the cornerstone of the learning process. Richard Lanham emphasizes this crucial role when he predicts of hypertext, "a different educational practice is suggested by this line of thinking, a different kind of core curriculum, in fact, dominated by a radically new rhetoric of the digital arts" (130). Hypertext establishes a unique connection between writing and teaching and between teaching and research, particularly in the powerful medium of the Internet. By virtue of their place in education, teachers of writing and rhetoric are the standard bearers as they are "educating students to be critically informed technology scholars rather than simply expert technology users" (Selfe in Hawisher and Selfe, Passions and Pedagogies 322).
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The words of my informants are in italics, whereas other secondary references are enclosed in quotation marks. 