Elizabeth J. Cooper and Michael Keller

Elizabeth Cooper, director of VCU's undergraduate writing program, and Michael Keller, computer coordinator in the English Department, are both teachers of writing and trainers of teachers of writing at Virginia Commonwealth University. We work together to juggle the numerous institutional, faculty, student, disciplinary and multidisciplinary, and computers and networking variables involved in integrating new technologies into the writing classroom and curriculum. While much of the work in the field of computers and writing has been concerned with first-year composition and rhetoric or more generic writing, we find that in the upper-level writing courses, such as business and technical writing, creative writing, and advanced composition, we must also juggle the variables of additional curricular objectives. For example, how much hypertext instruction and opportunity for experience with writing online documentation should be added to technical writing courses, given the constraints of the institution, the multiple needs and abilities of students, among other variables? How much hypertext fiction and poetry should students of introductory creative writing courses be asked to read and/or write? How many elements of "writing for the web" should be added to what is taught to advanced composition students? What should comprise a curriculum for a graduate course offered specifically to prepare future teachers to teach writing effectively with computers? How are curricular changes implemented when approving departments don't approve? When support is insufficient? when students are variously prepared as writers?

In our workshop participants can explore a variety of curriculum changes that have taken place in our undergraduate writing courses because of the integration of computers and networking technologies and because of the emergence of new electronic text forms, formats, and genres. Our introductory web-based presentation for this workshop will lay out the dimensions of the numerous variables that must be juggled in considering curriculum changes. After giving participants time for exploration, we will invite discussion of the issues raised and offer strategies for solving particular institutional problems.

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