Please contact facilitator Jim Brown at jimbrown@mail.utexas.edu if you have quesitons about or are planning to attend this roundtable.


The CWRL classroom is a peculiar place for a class about technology. There are a number of questions that arise for any instructor in the CWRL: Do we think enough about how these computers, scanners, and software tools inform our teaching practices? Do we run the risk of letting this technology melt into the background? This roundtable discussion will take on questions about objectifying technology. The term objectify tends to be pejorative. In fact, in discussing the title for this roundtable discussion, there was disagreement about the appropriateness of the term. Do we objectify technology in the CWRL, or is it more of an intricate balance between practice and reflexivity? We hope the title of this discussion can be a jumping off point for an exchange about the complicated relationship CWRL instructors have with technology.

The three instructors leading the roundtable discussion all deal explicitly with technology in their classes. Mariela Gunn’s “Computers and Writing”, Doug Freeman’s “TechRhet: The Rhetoric of Technology”, and Jim Brown’s “Arguing the Digital Divide” all make technology part of their course content. One could argue that the questions we’ve raised become magnified when technology is the topic of your course. Is it easier or harder to talk about technology in these classes?

We envision this roundtable as a way for instructors to talk about strategies and theoretical underpinnings of CWRL classes. Those interested in using technology in their classes or making technology a central theme of their course may find this discussion especially helpful, but we also believe this discussion will be broad enough for any CWRL instructor to find it useful and interesting.

This is the first of a four-part series about the CWRL Colloquium. The colloquium will take place on November 5 in the Eastwoods Room of the Texas Union. Upcoming spotlights will describe each of the colloquium roundtable discussions.