Technology, Materiality, and Critical Approaches to Producing Texts

I am a cyborg. If, upon reading that, you first thought of a human being whose identity is so interconnected with digital technology that the two create and recreate each other, you're probably pretty familiar with Haraway. If, however, you first thought of the Terminator, your relationship with technology might be a bit agonistic.

Technology has not always been such a part of my life; I spent the first ten or so years of my life running around the woods barefoot for at least six months out of the year, and viewed the first computers I encountered (2x86 IBMs at my school, my grandmother's inexplicable Texas Instruments with TI-Invaders) with more than a little suspicion, despite the fact that I still own my original 1985 NES and a few of the games that I never sold. Even in my twenties, I remained quite resistant to new technologies and thought of myself (to steal a line from "Californication") as "an analog man in a digital world." Really, most of my encounters with digital technology did not extend beyond video games or music, or the halcyon days of ICQ.

However, when I returned to WSU in the fall of 2007 after two years of flipping burgers and cursing furiously and often, I found that I was nearly illiterate in the technologies of the classroom. Everyone--everyone!--used PowerPoint (and I couldn't even afford MS Office), and almost all the students had laptops (something I'd dreamed of owning for years but could also never afford). Feeling as if I wouldn't survive college, let alone find a job as a technical writer afterwards, I critically investigated every technology that any teacher or student mentioned in (or out) of class. I sought out classes that would not only instruct me in the use of different technologies, but would also teach me how to shape my writing to these technologies (and visa versa). In short, I not only wanted to be able to use new technology, I wanted to bend it to what I wanted to do.

In adopting and immersing myself in new technology, I approach(ed) technology "alert to how these choices of material very much articulate into the other structures that shape writing and our lives" (Wysocki 10). For example, this summer I created a website for my English 101 courses. To create this website, I spent two summers learning XHTML, CSS, and Javascript (summer seems like the only time I have to learn something that isn't directly related to my coursework or research). Of course, it would have been simpler and quicker to use Angel or Google Sites to quickly generate a website for my classroom, but I wanted the website to reflect  choices in design and content that were suited only to my needs; the site had to function as both a homepage for English 101, but also as a professional website for my academic career. In creating this site, I've found that an elegant few lines of code constitute a text that takes just as much work as this entire blog post; in other words, my writing is not limited to English essays.

So I'm a cyborg; I accept new technologies willingly, but critically, in both my classroom and my personal life, but like Wysocki I'm determined to "highlight the materiality" of the texts that I, and my students, create (15). One last example: in using Wikispaces this semester, my students are not just using the technology as an online word processor (I hope), composing content for the void, but are instead using their wikis as a public discussion forum, a writing lab, a social network, and a professional portfolio of their work. In doing so, they are learning why they are using Wikispaces, as opposed to another digital technology or even 8.5" x 11" double-spaced papers.

While I can still function in an analog world (visiting my parents, for example, who use the computer for FreeCell and refuse internet service because "the terrorists come in through the phone lines"), I can also excel in the digital one. For me, adopting technology is simply a means of survival; because it's not a new toy or game for me, I tend to be quite serious about its application--either in the classroom, or in my own life.