Volume 1, Number 1: (Spring 1994)
Computers, Writing, Rhetoric and Literature
Not Maimed but Malted, by Daniel Anderson
"Not Maimed but Malted" is an essay about the use of hypertexts in freshmen composition. It marks several points in recent discussions about the role of graphical elements in composition. It also counters initial questions about potential dangers of moving away from more purely verbal compositions by calling for composition instruction which incorporates the non-linear and visual potential of hypertexts into new forms of writing. In addition to recounting the critical debate over of the role of hypertexts in the classroom, this document illuminates that discussion by examining samples of student hypertexts.
InterChange and the Electronic Ghetto, by Albert Rouzie
In the networked computer classroom, students tend not to consider written "discussion" conducted on DIWE's InterChange utility as "real" writing. Student attitudes toward InterChange writing depend not only on what the technology enables, but also on how the instructor's narrative or metaphor for the course frames the discourse of Interchange. Integrating InterChange with traditional essay, hypertext and internet writing can expand student's conceptions of the boundaries of writing and inject needed change into our conceptions of writing assignments.
Aesthetic Approaches to the Design and Study of MUDs (Multi-User Domains) in English and Performance Studies: Interface, Realism and the Dialectic of Interacting, by Susan Warshauer
This text examines the aesthetic approaches of people who designed two MUDs at the University of Texas at Austin in the Computer Writing and Research Labs and the Alternative Communications Technologies Labs. Models of interface, roleplaying, and imaginative space are presented to frame discussion of dramatic interaction.
We invite your responses to the articles included in this edition. Letters to the editors will be included in the following edition and will be linked into the articles of this edition. Send letters to cwrl@auden.fac.utexas.edu