Ethnographic Case Studies

Chapter 2: Computers, Composition, and Christianity

A friend who bought the book turned immediately to this chapter ("The title was so provocative!"). The study, of an ESL class in a small college,  is equally riveting, reading at times like a piece of horror fiction. The religious element is circumstantial, a case-specific, rather extreme embodiment of  institutional and pedagogical "fundamentalisms" that are more universal and widespread. We see familiar but distorted images of classes described on listservs, classes of our colleagues, elements of  our own classes. Here, Warschauer shows admirable objectivity, describing the perils and the positive  aspects of the researcher's dilemma while demonstrating that all learning situations are, to varying degrees, reflections of their cultural, social, and institutional environments.

Chapter 3: Networking into Academic Discourse

"Networking" carried multiple connotations in a graduate writing course for international students. The instructional approach was one of apprenticeship learning, in which technology provided the content as well as the medium. The instructor, rather than focusing on skills and formalism, approached the class as a discourse community in which the goal was "....to assist students to integrate into academic life in their disciplines" (44).  This learning experience, while reflecting the progressive environment of the institution and pedagogical philosophy of the instructor, offered both rewards and challenges for the students. As Warschauer observes, "It was an ambitious plan, perhaps overly ambitious" (47).

Chapter 4: Computer-Assisted Language Revitalization

This is an inspiring study of a writing-intensive language class in native Hawai'ian, for which "...a new way of writing, culturally appropriate education, social identity and investment, technology literacies, and language revitalization were not isolated themes of the course...[but] aspects of an integrated educational experience that helped shape their lives" (124). We discover the "metaphor of the net" as a traditional element of the Hawai'ian view of social relations, one which could be promoted and strengthened through the medium of the Internet, while text-based efforts had not been particularly successful.  This study has promising implications for a variety of learning situations in which language and writing reflect non-linear patterns of cultural and social relationships.

Chapter 5: Cyber Service Learning

The advanced expository writing course explored in this chapter  blended real-world writing and online communication, using synchronous conferencing to socially construct the classroom. Later in the semester, students worked independently of the instructor, collaborating on computer-based print or World Wide Web projects for community associations. This study shows perhaps the strongest deviation from the traditional teacher-student roles and from the printed-product focus that still pervades many writing classes, highlighting the complex issues that arise when print and electronic literacies converge.

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