5th C SIG in Chicago

[Traci Gardner <traci@daedalus.com>]

Please join us Thursday evening, April 2, 6:45 to 7:45, Palmer House
Hilton/Salon III, 3rd Floor for the Fifth C: Computers, Special Interest
Group 1.8.

The Fifth C SIG discussions, sponsored by the CCCC Committee on Computers
and Composition (or 7C's), provide a public forum for conversations related
to issues and agenda items before the committee.  Discussion notes from
previous sessions are  vailable at http://www.daedalus.com/5thC.html

At this year's session, we're focusing on Technology & Literacy Initiatives,
in response to Cynthia Selfe's address at the General Session: "Technology
and Literacy: A Story about the Perils of Not Paying Attention," which is
available online at http://www.ncte.org/forums/selfe/.

In her draft, Cindy discusses the importance of not just using technology,
but  interrogating it -- thinking about the ways that technology affects
literacy and how we need constantly to examine the socio-economic and
political ramifications of our actions.  We can all nod knowingly about the
lack of resources for women and minorities which Cindy outlines.  Her
poverty-bound definitions of what constitutes "literacy" (and, therefore,
"illiteracy") strike home for many of us.  And I think we can all agree that
the starting places she lists at the end of her paper give us a sort of
global to-do list.  

Our response to these issues, however, needs to be fairly situated.  It's
not difficult to think about how to respond to Cindy's to-do's for a
particular school nor to brainstorm on what we can do to increase access to
minority teachers and students in a particular department; but any attempt
at global, profession- or society-wide checklists or solutions is going to
bog down in generalities fairly quickly.  So what can we do here and now?

Cindy states:
...in a curious way, neither the CCCC, nor the NCTE, nor the MLA, nor the
IRA-as far as I can tell-have ever published a single word about our own
professional stance on this particular nationwide technology project: not
one statement about how we think this project's funding should be spent in
English composition programs; not one statement about how excellence should
be gauged in this project; not one statement about the serious need for
professional development and support for teachers that must be addressed
within the context of the project. [Draft of passage emailed to Traci
Gardner, 26 March 1998]

Naturally, Cindy addresses these issues in her paper, but there's room for
concrete discussion, discussion that can begin to fill the absences Cindy
identifies, but which is not bound to a specific school. During the SIG,
we'll divide into groups and brainstorm for 20 to 30 minutes on the issues
raised in this passage.  After discussing in small groups, we'll come back
together to present our ideas and have a few concluding remarks.  The notes
from the session will be available online at
http://www.daedalus.com/promo/1998sig.html (visit that page now to see the
specific discussion questions).

To enter the discussion online now, go to the discussion forum related to
Cindy's keynote at http://www.ncte.org/forums/selfe/#forum.

We look forward to seeing you there!

The SIG Facilitators -- Eric Crump, Traci Gardner, Cynthia Haynes, and Judi
Kirkpatrick