The Importance of College Writing in a Digital Age

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The Importance of College Writing in a Digital Age In the ever changing and evolving society we live in, new tools and techniques in education are being developed everyday. Debates on how a subject such as college writing should be taught is a multi-angled argument encompassing all sorts of opinions. Should college writing be taught and how? If we teach it, what should its main goals be? These are the questions that seem to have too many answers. Statistics, facts, research, and history will help us find those few, specific answers. I believe the goals of college writing should be to enhance a student’s literacy with the involvement of all forms of technology in a multicultural environment. A student must understand all forms of communication, negotiate under diverse perspectives and eventually come to their own set of beliefs. This can only be accomplished with a student’s exposure to and interaction with all forms of literacy. An appreciation for ethnicity is the root of enjoying life in a multicultural atmosphere. Maxine Hairston is the author of “Diversity, Ideology, and Teaching Writing.” Hairston’s article focuses mainly on the positive effects of a diverse learning environment. Hairston says, “Students bring with them a kaleidoscope of experiences, values, dialects, and cultural backgrounds that we want to respond to positively and productively, using every resource we can to help them adapt to the academic world and become active participants in it” (179). She is basically saying that culturally inclusive curriculums will expose all students to the perspectives of others. I believe this is correct. Exposure to various people will most definitely teach children more then what they ... ... middle of paper ... ...used to describe most college writing courses now a day. Improving these programs will help the students of the future on many levels. Rhetoric is not just a class where compositions on “the real world” are handed in every week. It is a class where truth, understanding, and interaction with people and the media can be further developed. It is a primary environment of reality that will eventually guide us to our own understanding of this greatly diverse world. Works Cited Bray, Thomas. "Memorial Day and Multiculturalism." Detroit News 24 May 1998. 25 January 2001. . Hairston, Maxine. "Diversity, Ideology, and Teaching Writing." College Composition and Communication 43.2 (May 1992): 179-195. Marback, Richard et al. Writing Cultures in a Digital Age. Boston: Houghton- Mifflin, 2001.

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