Computer Assisted First-Year Composition at Northern Illinois University

Since computers have become the main tools for writing and the Internet a major medium for disseminating writing, many first-year composition programs have met the challenge of changing media by scheduling at least some classes in networked computer labs. The First-Year Composition Program at NIU continues to blaze the trail of technology integration, requiring that all first-year composition classes (about 150 sections each semester with 3000 students) meet at least one day a week in a computer lab. In addition, the new first-year composition teaching assistants at NIU actively and collaboratively develop ways to enhance their classes using computer-mediated communication.

In requiring the computer lab component, NIU's composition program assumes that college students should develop technological literacy in context; that is, when technology can be used appropriately at the service of other needs, such as writing. Because so much writing is created on computers and/or has migrated online, the first-year composition class becomes the logical place for students to learn to use computers and the Internet. This requirement by the university motivated its commitment of the financial resources necessary to build seven computer laboratories to support computer-mediated instruction in English core competency courses.

As is true at many schools, all of our students can log in to the campus network, and all can use e-mail and the World Wide Web. But one aspect that sets us apart from many other schools using commercial course packages such as BlackBoard and WebCT is our suite of class management and discussion tools especially designed for composition classes. As commercial "one size fits all" course management systems become ubiquitous, and courseware tends to drive pedagogical decisions, the more composition programs need customized environments based on pedagogical practice, and not ease of design. Our program uses a combination of commercial and open source software to provide customized templates and resources for teachers and students. These customized environments are, above all, predicated by pedagogy, and are designed to assist us in reaching our overall goals of helping students write better and helping them acclimate to the electronic environment as a site of written communication.

Our first-year teaching assistants attend a full-year, six-hour graduate course, Seminar in the Teaching of College Writing, which includes one class per week in the computer lab preparing them to teach the lab sections of their classes. Through hands-on experience with the tools, collaborating with each other on lab assignments, and consulting with veteran tech-savvy teachers, the TAs develop confidence in an approach to teaching composition informed by the latest and best of computers and writing research.

Our TA pedagogy class is complemented by a teacher-training lab which doubles as a graduate classroom. This "Networked Writing and Research" lab is run by a full-time faculty member who helps co-teach the training seminar, and is staffed with more experienced graduate students and instructors. The presence of this lab keeps discussions and applications of technology integration very active in the department, and reinforces the culture of human support which lies at the center of our successful operation. One unexpected benefit of this arrangement is the advanced level of technology training that we can provide the graduate students who work in the lab, preparing them for careers that more and more will demand computer and Internet expertise.

We are currently developing a programmatic assessment process, and would like to obtain as much feedback on the effectiveness of our uses of computer technology in the program as we can. With this goal in mind, we are developing entrance and exit questionnaires on computer skills and attitudes to be administered electronically for each first-year composition class, and looking into the possibility of testing students' computerized writing abilities when they enter and exit our program. Only through collecting rich data on attitudes and abilities can we assess how well we are meeting our program goals.