Sexualities, technologies, and the teaching of writing: A critical overview

In this introduction to a special issue of Computers and Composition, the authors critically review current literature on computer-assisted writing pedagogies that grapple with issues of sexuality. Although this body of work is small, it points to provocative ways to develop our students’ critical and rhetorical sensibilities about the constructions of sexuality in our culture. Further, such work innovatively addresses the place of networked communication technologies in the interrogation of such constructions. The authors conclude with both an introduction of the work in this special issue that addresses the intersection of sexuality studies and computer-assisted writing studies and with a call for additional work in this field.     

Computers and Composition 20/20: A Conversation Piece, or What Some Very Smart People Have to Say about the Future

At the 2011 Computers and Writing Conference, Town Hall speakers were asked to envision the future. This piece extends that conversation, with contributors presenting a range of ideas, often looking backward at our history before gazing into their crystal balls to envision what the future might bring. The pieces included here discuss writing, teaching writing, writing assessment, publishing, robotics, mobility, and other aspects of the field loosely termed computers and composition as it was, is, or may come to be in what we hope will be only the start of an ongoing conversation.