Literacy and Computers: The Complications of Teaching and Learning with Technology ed. by Cynthia L. Selfe and Susan Hilligoss (review)

208Rocky Mountain Review CYNTHIA L. SELFE and SUSAN HBLLIGOSS, eds. Literacy and Computers: The Complications of Teaching and Learning with Technology. New York: Modern Language Association ofAmerica, 1994. 387 p. 1 his MLA publication takes its place on the shelfalongside other comparable collections of essays on computers and writing. The questions raised in the twelve essays are familiar to those who stay current in this specialized literature: How do computers change the nature of reading and writing and its instruction? What sorts of collaboration do computers and networks encourage in the classroom? Does hypertext force us to redefine our theories of composing and reading? The contributors are well known and the book is well put together. The production qualities are good, the layout attractive, and the references as current as one might expect (with reasonably good coverage of the literature up to 1991 in this 1994 copyrighted work). Several of the articles provide useful commentary on the difficult challenge of using computers to change the nature of reading and writing instruction in the public schools. Paul LeBlanc comments with an insider's familiarity on the truly daunting facts of life for an urban elementary teacher who would like to do more in her classroom with computers. The problems—lack of administrative know-how and support, teachers' lack of experience, outmoded systems—are recognizable to anyone who has sought to implement instructional change via technology. Gary Graves and Carl Haller recount an attempt to influence the uses of computers in a high school, demonstrating how difficult it is to change traditional instruction and how quickly institutions revert to their old ways, even with highly informed and dedicated core personnel. Betsy Bowen portrays a number of interesting ways that networked communication has linked classrooms and expanded learning for school children. L. M. Dryden describes specific projects in hypermedia composition within student-centered classrooms, a development that radically alters our traditional notions of the secondary school English class. The title is a bit of a misnomer, reflecting a narrow construction of literacy . The book is really about teaching writing with computers, and only in very modest ways about issues of reading or literacy instruction as it is practiced, for instance, by legions of community volunteers or night school Adult Basic Education teachers. This is a missed opportunity to bring two communities together through scholarship. There are no references in this book to research on adult literacy, to the recent National Adult Literacy Survey, or to such organizations as Literacy Volunteers of America. The field of literacy instruction for adults with very low reading and writing skill levels could usefully be examined by those who work with higher forms of literacy instruction in secondary and post-secondary public schools. The contributors to this book know how to teach writing, they know why computers make good tools for teaching writing and communication, and they know the pitfalls ofhaving high expectations for the computer as a teaching machine. But their arguments are largely cast toward applications in mainstream public education. Even Gail Hawisher, writing about classification Book Reviews209 schemes for literacy software, covers only those developed for writing and literature classes, ignoring the developments over the past few years that have grown out of projects with adult literacy learners. The readers of this journal will find many of the essays provocative, especially if they are newcomers to the field of computers and writing. William Goodrich Jones details how little the research habits of traditional scholars have been influenced by technology, though one suspects this situation has already changed substantially since he wrote his essay. Hypertext receives much speculative attention in a group of essays by Johndan Johnson-Eilola, Catherine F. Smith, and Stuart Moulthrop and Nancy KaplEin. Unfortunately, those well grounded in the literature will find little that is new in many of the essays. Indeed, rather than presenting fresh perspectives , much of the collection reworks familiar ground, covered by these authors in other contexts. There may simply be too much essaying, and too little originEd and substantial research, going on in this field. Davida Charney does provide a useful overview of cognitive research on reading and writing hypertext that at least introduces an empirical note...