Articulating a Techno-Critical Pedagogy a Dissertation Presented
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Writing Bytes: Articulating a Techno-critical Pedagogy A dissertation presented to the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy Paul W. Shovlin March 2010 © 2010 Paul W. Shovlin. All Rights Reserved. 2 This dissertation titled Writing Bytes: Articulating a Techo-critical Pedagogy by PAUL W. SHOVLIN has been approved for the Department of English and the College of Arts and Sciences by Sherrie L. Gradin Professor of English Benjamin M. Ogles Dean, College of Arts and Sciences 3 ABSTRACT SHOVLIN, PAUL W., Ph.D., March 2010, English Writing Bytes: Articulating a Techno-critical Pedagogy (331 pp.) Director of Dissertation: Sherrie L. Gradin This dissertation examines how “modern literacy” and “contemporary writing” are increasingly influenced by technology from a critical pedagogical perspective. The study develops a definition of literacy that takes into account a reliance on technology, particularly computers, in our writing classes and writing lives. With a focus on one particular institution of higher education, and an emphasis on a qualitative, narrative perspective, the dissertation traces how “traditional” perspectives concerning writing and the job of a writing class influence the technological resources at instructors’ disposal. The study focuses on the well-known critical pedagogical work of theorists such as Freire, hooks, and Giroux in order to tease out the critical and political imperative of developing a modern literacy attuned to a more broadly defined kind of modern writing. More specifically, the dissertation focuses on the work of Henry Giroux, by utilizing his theory of “border pedagogy” in a way that centers on borders of different literacies in different mediums, rather than borders between different social groups. As a series of “texts” for examination in order to develop the practical applications of techno-critical pedagogy, Multi-User Domains Object-Oriented (MOO) technology is explored in a qualitative study. The dissertation also explores a techno-rich freshman composition course, focused on matters of online representation (from MOO to Second Life to violent 4 videogames), as a text for elucidating techno-critical pedagogy and its relation to our students’ compositions and in composing themselves in electronic environments. Approved: _____________________________________________________________ Sherrie L. Gradin Professor of English 5 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In “Petals on a Wet Black Bough,” author persona Myka Vielstimmig (an authoring partnership between Michael Spooner and Kathleen Yancey) argues that collaboration in writing has profound effects on the writing itself. In the Academic culture afforded to us, even in a discipline such as Rhetoric and Composition, in which we may be more likely to engage in questions about the nature of collaborative writing, the Western conceptualization of written texts as owned products still hounds us. Yancey and Spooner’s decision to author the essay under a persona Myka Vielstimmig (the first name being an abbreviated conglomeration of their first names and the last name meaning “many voices” in German) is an attempt to represent the reality of the impact of collaboration on the ownership (and the product) of writing. This dissertation, ostensibly written by Paul Shovlin, is a case in point. I’m compelled by the norms of Academia, the requirements of my institution, and the demands of my degree to condense the influences on my dissertation in the form of an “Acknowledgements” section, which few people will actually read, and obtrusively slip it into the front matter of the text. If I were quirky enough to take Vielstimmig’s tact, the reality of the effect of collaboration in the production of this text would compel the author persona’s “name” for this dissertation to run at least a couple of pages and be incomprehensible. I’d like to thank my advisor, Sherrie Gradin, for support during the process. I am grateful that she undertook collaboration with me and am thankful for the advice she offered in terms of the slew of issues that occur in the midst of any undertaking such as a 6 dissertation. I appreciate the leeway she gave me (and the faith it implied) to complete the work in my own time and get it to her. I am fortunate to have been able to develop as a writing program administrator and Rhetoric and Composition specialist under her guidance. I would like to express my gratitude to Candace Stewart for her continued interest in my professional trajectory. I appreciate the support she gave me as an employer in the Writing Center before and after 9/11. Her guidance, in part, led me into the field of Rhetoric and Composition, and for that I am grateful. I am grateful to my committee (Marjorie DeWert, Jennie Nelson, and Linda Rice) for supporting me in this stage of my education. I am aware of time constraints of their professional positions and the psychic energy it takes to give something like my dissertation a careful and thoughtful read. I feel very fortunate to have a committee of members from diverse backgrounds who will each offer something different in terms of input. I am lucky to be surrounded by many great colleagues who’ve made my life as a graduate student and graduate student administrator more palatable. I thank the following: John Borczon, William Breeze, Rachel Brooks-Rather, Don Dudding, and Talinn Phillips for their extensive help in writing groups. Their voices are represented throughout this text. I thank the additional current members of my writing group, Jessica Hollis and Marton Markovits for the support they’ve given me while I was wrapping my dissertation up. 7 I appreciate the support and encouragement I’ve gotten from my wife, Amy Mangano, my son, Sid Shovlin, and my extended family who’ve endured the whole process and tormented me continually with questions about what I was writing about and when I’d be finished. Finally, I’d like to thank the following random assortment of artists and companies that have produced texts that kept me going and certainly influenced the content of this dissertation: Sea Wolf, Vampire Weekend, Blitzen Trapper, The Happy Bullets, The Inklings, Zdob si Zdub, Dressy Bessy, Liz Phair, The High Water Marks, Pandora, Facebook, Sid Meier, Thomas Biskup, EA Games (begrudgingly), DICE Entertainment, Splash Damage, ID Software, Blizzard Entertainment (for the Diablo series, not for WoW), Bioware, and Valve. 8 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract ............................................................................................................................... 3 Acknowledgments............................................................................................................... 5 List of Figures ................................................................................................................... 11 List of Figures ................................................................................................................... 11 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 12 Inherently Political ........................................................................................................ 17 What is “a” Pedagogy? ................................................................................................. 21 Critic of Critical ............................................................................................................ 22 Coming to Terms .......................................................................................................... 28 How a Techno-critical Pedagogy Plays Out ................................................................. 31 Chapter Outline ............................................................................................................. 51 Introduction: .............................................................................................................. 51 Chapter One: ............................................................................................................. 51 Chapter Two: ............................................................................................................ 51 Chapter Three: .......................................................................................................... 52 Chapter Four: ............................................................................................................ 52 The Conclusion: ........................................................................................................ 53 A Final Caveat… .......................................................................................................... 53 Chapter One: Revising “Writing” and Modern Literacy .................................................. 57 Orienting Ourselves ...................................................................................................... 57 Three Claims about Literacy and Techno-critical Pedagogy ........................................ 58 “Writing” Decomposed ................................................................................................. 67 What We Know and What We Do ................................................................................ 74 What’s the Difference? ................................................................................................. 77 Write and Wrong: Popular Conceptions of Writing Instruction