ETEC 540: Text Technologies: The Changing Spaces of Reading and Writing (elective course)
Overview
The rise of computerized writing through the latter part of the twentieth century has precipitated extensive debate over how text technologies modify reading and writing processes. Our writing tools - whether chisel and stone, reed pen and papyrus roll, press and vellum, typewriter and paper, or keyboard and computer screen - necessarily influence the way we compose and respond to text. As Snyder (1996) observes in Hypertext, "the space created by each writing technology permits certain kinds of thinking and discourages others" (p. 5). By way of example, she that blackboards invite repeated modification, causal thinking and spontaneity, while pen and paper invite care, tidiness, and controlled thinking (p. 5).
And now, from our vantage point at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, it is clear that alongside the developments of computerized writing tools, there have been equally extraordinary developments in the means by which texts circulate, especially in relation to the global communication network we call the Internet. Networked-based, computer-mediated communications now penetrate almost all aspects of text production, to the point that documents that are intended for print are created first in digital spaces, and individuals now have the ability to publish to the world, a power once reserved to a limited few in society.
Harold Innis, the Canadian Historian of economics and media noted in his 1947 essay, "The Bias of Communication, that "sudden extensions of communications are reflected in cultural disturbances." In the process of examining the early development of writing and the evolution of technologies for writing from ancient times to the present, this course will offer students an opportunity to test such claims, and to consider the ways in which different technologies have influenced beliefs about, and approaches to, writing and reading.
Listen to the podcast interview with Jeff Miller, speaking about ETEC 510 and ETEC 540, on Radio EPLT, Episode 9: Pets! Pets! Pets!.
Writing as Technology
It is the premise of this course that to understand how new technologies may be modifying human experience it is necessary to situate them in an historical context. We will begin, then, by examining writing itself as the fundamental information and communication technology underpinning any literate culture. As Walter Ong observes, people in early literate cultures thought of writing "as an external, alien technology, as many people today think of the computer" (p. 81). Plato, for example, deliberated over its benefits and drawbacks in the Phaedrus just as we now deliberate over how the computer will change education, communications, and so on. [2] In considering Plato's remarks, Ong observes that in terms of its influence on human culture, writing is the most radical of any communication technology:
Because we have by today so deeply interiorised writing, made it so much a part of ourselves, as Plato's age had not yet made it full a part of itself (Havelock, 1963), we find it difficult to consider writing to be a technology as we commonly assume printing and the computer to be. Yet writing (and especially alphabetic writing) is a technology, calling for the use of tools and other equipment: styli or brushes or pens, carefully prepared surfaces such as paper, animal skins, strips of wood, as well as inks or paints, and much more . . . Writing is in a way the most drastic of the three technologies. It initiated what print and computers only continue, the reduction of dynamic sound to quiescent space, the separation of the word from the living present, where alone spoken words can exist. (p. 81-82)
Course Structure: Four Modules
Working forward from this foundational notion of writing as technology, we
will progress through a series of four course modules.
Module 1:
In this introductory module you will become acquainted with the course organization, your classmates, and the instructor. Here we’ll define our key terms–text and technology–and set out some of the questions that will guide our subsequent investigations. In this module we’ll also introduce the ETEC 540 Community Web, an online hypertextual environment that will be developed collaboratively by all members of the class.
Module:
The second module concerns itself with an examination of the shift from orality to literacy among certain cultures, and with early technologies for writing. In this section we will consider how the invention of writing may have modified human thought processes, and what effects particular developments in technologies for writing–for example, the shift from iconic to symbolic writing–had on the rise and nature of literacy. Our central text during this module will be the first four chapters of Walter Ong’s Orality and Literacy. You’ll also make a visit to the British Museum in order to examine their online collections of technologies for writing.
Module 3:
In the third module we’ll examine technologies for writing before the invention of the computer (i.e., scroll, codex manuscript, print). Again, we’ll consider how these technologies modified reading and writing practices, as well as literacy instruction. In this module you’ll be asked to research, individually or in pairs, the implications for literacy and education of a particular technological development (i.e., the shift from scroll to codex [paged book], or the invention of the printing press). In the last week of this module you’ll be asked to post your findings on the web space. As a class we’ll read Chapters 4 and 5 of Orality and Literacy, as well as selected articles. You’ll also be directed to some online library collections.
Module 4:
The fourth module comprises the last half of the course. At this time we’ll shift our focus to the consideration of computer-based technologies for writing. In particular, we’ll examine what some have called "non-linear" or "multi-directional" forms such as hypertext or hypermedia. All members of the class will by this point have published articles in the course web space. Now we’ll consider what implications hypermedia has for the future of literature, literacy, and teaching methodologies. For example, do networked writing environments encourage what Ong has termed secondary orality? Finally, we'll also consider how the read/write web as structured by Social Media or Web 2.0 technologies extends and/or challenges assumptions concerning literacy practices.
Objectives
The global objectives of this course are as follows:
- Students will consider how the invention of writing, the fundamental technology of all literate societies, has modified human ways of knowing.
- Students will develop an understanding of how technologies for writing have changed through the course of history, and of how such changes have affected writing styles and genres.
- Students will explore how cognitive and affective response to text might be influenced by different mediums (e.g., print versus hypertext)
- Students will consider how technologies for writing facilitate or hamper access to knowledge.
- Students will consider how the "information explosion," caused by the development of increasingly efficient vehicles for the transmission of text, has modified human understandings of what it means to be educated.
Course Texts
Required Reading
The following texts are required; they may be obtained through the UBC Bookstore, or through the distributor of your choice.
Assignments and Assessment
Students will be assessed in ETEC540 on the basis of the following work:
| 1. |
Online discussion of course topics and readings, as well as of the materials generated by other participants. Prompts as to when you should contribute to forum discussions may be found throughout the course notes.
Weight: 25%
|
| 2. |
Contribution to the development of the ETEC 540 Community Weblog (i.e., post relevant items, post completed assignments, demonstrate an awareness of your classmates’ work by making relevant links to their materials from your own.)
Weight: 10%
|
| 3. |
Module 3 research topic. Research, individually or in pairs, the implications for literacy and education of a particular development in technologies for writing before the computer (i.e., the shift from scroll to codex [paged book], the invention of the printing press--a list of possible topics is included in Module 3).
Weight: 25% |
| You will also be required to complete one of the following major assignments in points 4 and 5: |
| 4. |
Complete three formal commentaries (thoughtful, well-supported, academic responses) of 750-1000 words each on assigned or recommended class readings and post these to the community weblog.
Weight: 40%
OR
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| 5. |
Complete one commentary and a project of approximately 2000 words on a topic related to the course. Your project might take one of several forms: interactive fiction, video essay or theoretical paper, empirical research on reading and/or writing print or hypertext.
Weight: 40%
|
Technical Requirements
As is the case with all MET courses, you are expected to have regular access to a computer and to have basic computing skills, such as an understanding of how to use word-processing software, a web browser and email. With respect to the latter, you must know how to send and receive attachments.
In this course you will also be required to publish materials on the course web site. To do so you will need to acquire some skills relating to web-publication using weblogs, wikis and, if you choose, html.
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Course Descriptions
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