Yancey, Kathleen B. (2004 October). “Using Multiple Technologies to Teach Writing.”
Educational Leadership, 62, 38-40.
Kathleen B. Yancey agrees that the age of technology has arrived in composition studies, and as teachers we must be prepared to use that technology to both our own and our students’ advantage. It is interesting to note that her use of the word fluency supercedes the conception of an individual being well-adapted to a particular language and goes further to incorporate other skills. She writes, “Helping writers develop fluency and competence in a variety of technologies is a key part of teaching writing in this century” (p. 38). She goes on to also expand the old concept of literacy as merely the ability to read and write and explains what she calls “textured literacy,” as the “ability to comfortably use and combine print, spoken, visual, and digital processes in composing a piece of writing” (p. 38). This argument adequately conveys the message that composition instructors of the 21st century are now faced with the task of not only teaching their students to read and write, but they are also challenged with the responsibility of fostering the growth and development of a “textured literacy” among their students.
Yancey examines the different types of literacy and determines how writing is applied to each. For example, she determines that teaching younger students to use word processing features such as bold-facing, italicizing, underlining and bullets is a method of developing “visual literacy” (p. 39). She goes on to examine the effect hyperlinking has on electronic portfolios, and asserts that “the access to imagery provided by technology also enhances writing by helping students visually diagram and demonstrate their own learning processes in texts we often call reflections (p. 39). She does note that there are challenges to be faced when introducing students to “new writing technologies,” but rising to the challenge is necessary and worthwhile. She concludes: “Teaching student writers to navigate between digital and predigital technologies in their writing—and even to use new technologies to reflect on their writing process—makes for an ambitious, complex writing curriculum. But it’s the curriculum we need to deliver if we want to prepare students to write in the 21st century—which, as it happens, has already arrived” (p. 40).
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