[conclusion of New Software Releases article at top of this page]
In an effort to disseminate the shared information of the Special Interest Group of CCC, we include below handouts contributed by participants at CCCC 1984:
Although I write regularly with word processing, I am not a programmer. I offer no enlightened formulas for teaching composition with computer assistance. Instead, I'm on a guest for some advice, a bit of expertise, and perhaps even programming and software. As some of you know, I'm the author of Writing Research Papers, the Scott, Foresman text that is now in its fourth edition. We have published this year a Study Guide to accompany it. We also plan a companion text for the social sciences, based on APA style, entitled Writing Research Papers across the Curriculum. I mention these books not for promotional purposes but because I need help in developing a computer diskette compatible with WRP/4. I can't take time here to elaborate on details, so contact me if you're interested.
In addition, I anticipate development of a computerized writing laboratory that would feature computer programs for invention, for correction of mechanical errors, and for stylistic analysis. My understanding of the current situation is that no single program exists which embraces all three of these elements. I need to coordinate the construction of a set of compatible diskettes for accommodating the different needs of young writers who come to the writing laboratory for assistance.
Some of you may be working right now to develop such programs. Please get in touch with me. I have the means to produce the programs if you can write the appropriate software.
PROPOSAL TO HARCOURT BRACE - to use a computer program to generate printouts which in turn direct writing students to use the Harbrace Handbook in more systematic and personally relevant ways.
HOW DOES THE PROGRAM WORK? After the student's paper has been corrected, the teacher (or clerical assistant) needs only to code each error identified by the paper grader and type in on a computer terminal those codes and some related data. The program will then produce a printout of errors and advice.
WHY SHOULD THE PROGRAM BE USED? While it is obvious that the program mainly organizes and prints out what most composition teachers include in corrected papers they return to their students, it does something which those teacher can accomplish only with the greatest difficulty: tabulate previous errors print diagnostic messages, and prescribe remediation for each student. That capacity, to monitor student progress--or the lack of such--and to direct students to remedies appropriate to their writing maladies, will not only save teachers' time but, if it helps their students write better, will make teachers more effective.
WHAT ELSE CAN THE PROGRAM DO? With minor modifications it
can also
(1) tabulate and average, from paper to paper, all the grades assigned by all
teachers of composition;
(2) tabulate and average each teacher's grades;
(3) correlate students' grades in composition with TSWE and SAT verbal
scores.
CAN IT BE SOLD? TO WHOM? I would think that at least three groups
of college personnel would find the program worthwhile:
(1) teachers who would like to regularly follow their students'
progress;
(2) chair who might want to monitor their instructors' grades (to
standardize grading practices, for example);
(3) counselors who could use the cumulative data for purposes of
motivation or retention.
HOW SHOULD IT BE SOLD? It shouldn't. Give it away--to anyone who orders the Harbrace
Handbook for students. The cost to Harcourt Brace Jovanovich would be little more than that of the diskette on which the program is stored--about $2.00 each. Offering the program as a lagniappe might induce more teachers to order and use the Harbrace Handbook.
PROBLEMS? Not all computer systems, even those using BASIC (the language in which I am writing the program), are compatible with all software stored on diskettes. But one only moderately computer literate could modify the BASIC program (the printout of which would accompany the diskette) to make it work on his or her personal computer or on one of the college's computers.
I am presently studying two CAI prewriting programs, each addressing a different approach to rhetorical invention. The computer programs apply what we presently know about the writing process to the latest delivery system, computer-assisted instruction.
One program is based on a systematic heuristic discovery strategy. The systematic approach uses a series of specific questions to explore the writing topic. Student-writers answer the questions as they pertain to the topic, thereby generating the prewriting material for the actual essay. These questions cause writers to consider the topic in ways which they would not normally. For example, one series of questions asks writers to consider the topic as it changes in time--what was it like in the past? what might it become in the future? what couldn't it possibly become? how much can it change before it becomes something else? (how many of its essential elements can change before it has mutated?--scientists understand this type of question).
The other program is based on an unsystematic heuristic, allowing student-writers to explore the topic by free-writing. Writers begin with a five minute free-writing about the topic, ignoring any concern for grammar or spelling. The program then asks writers to look for a "center of gravity," a central tendency, in the free-writing. Once this is expressed writers use the center of gravity as the focus for another free-writing. This strategy of expansion and contraction of ideas continues until student-writers have generated a wealth of prewriting material for the essay.
The effectiveness of both these prewriting strategies, systematic and unsystematic, is well documented in recent composition research. However, I am presently studying the application of computer-assisted instruction for their presentation, the potential for which was shown by Hugh Burns. My study will examine the number of ideas produced for the essay by the two strategies, the number of ideas actually used in the subsequent essay, and the holistic quality of writings produced with these prewriting strategies.
Copies of the two programs are available to anyone willing to supply a blank diskette and postage. The programs have been written for Apple 11 and DECmate 11 (CPM/MBASIC) systems.
SEEN, an easy-to-use computer program, can
help your students
This interactive, non-judging computer program guides your students in creating and testing their opinions about literary characters. SEEN is designed to help students see more in what they have read or observed by using a tutorial and then communicating with other students (on a computer network) about the ideas each has developed in the tutorial. The program also keeps records--allowing you to monitor student activities and providing students with printouts of their work for use as study guides
or as drafts for starting essays on an Apple-compatible word-processing program (like Applewriter II).
SEEN comes with a master disk (which you can use to boot one or more Apple microcomputers) and a TEACHER'S AIDE disk to help you start up. The TEACHER'S AIDE disk, with an easy-to-use menu, will let you prepare a disk to store each group's text files and records of users' activities. You can also use the TEACHER'S AIDE disk to keep track of student identification numbers, to monitor student use of the program, and to monitor students' work.
To use the program, you will only need to be able to run an pre-packaged program and to initialize blank disks.
EQUIPMENT NEEDS: Apple II Plus microcomputer (48K, DOS 3.3) with monitor and one (or preferably two) disk drives, plus access to a printer.
Optional: An Apple-compatible word-processing program (like Applewriter II).
Note: You can use SEEN if you have access to only one Apple or several.
SUITABLE FOR: high school, college, adult
PRICE: $89.95 (Michigan residents add $3.60 Michigan sales tax.) Price subject to change without notice. Terms: Pre-payment required.
Our computer-assisted composition program is currently in its third semester. The college has loaned our department a facility with about twenty-five Apple 11+ microprocessors and five Epson dot-matrix printers. We selected the Word Handler software package and modified the operator's manual for use in the classroom. By the close of the spring 1984 semester, a total of five instructors will have inducted seven twenty-student classes into the joys of word processing.
"Joy" isn't the first adjective one usually associates with freshman English, yet one of the pleasures of teaching this course is the observable ease with which student writers are able to revise and rewrite their work. Some of them find themselves sufficiently enchanted by the process of composition that they do, in fact, respond with something quite like joy. Perhaps the single most notable difference between traditional instruction and this course is the amount of in-class time students spend actually writing: from fifty to seventy-five per cent of the classes are spent in composing and rewriting on the machines. Generally, the instructors believe that the classes can forgo much of the time devoted to lecture and discussion in more conventional courses because, in the word-processing classes, students are given considerably more personal attention than is possible otherwise.
It works this way. Students hand in their essays, and the teacher evaluates and grades them, referring the writers to specific chapters, units or passages in the Little, Brown Handbook. (Specific exercises from the handbook may also be assigned; these are either put on-screen for checking or are printed out for submission.) The students then rewrite their essays on-screen while the teacher circulates among them, amplifying and refining his or her written comments. This kind of personalized, "hands-on" instruction strikes many teachers of writing as the most productive sort. In addition to the amount of in-class time actually spent on the writing process, the instructors keep the writing lab open for extra hours each week, thus allowing ample time for students to practice their writing. The second submission of the essay, a genuine collaboration between teacher and learner, earns a second grade, and most of the instructors give this later grade significant value in determining the student's final grade.
To enhance the learning process, we envision (and are seeking funding for) an English Department Computer Laboratory. As a faculty we are aware of being at the beginning of something altogether challenging and exciting. We are looking forward to the possibilities of networking student machines with a control machine, for example, and to using programs that call attention to errors in spelling, punctuation, and grammar. In this brave new world, the only limit is the ingenuity of programmers.
We are currently in our second year of a federally-funded project designed to study the ways we can incorporate computers into our writing curriculum. We have surveyed a wide range of computer tools for writing and writing instruction, and offer our findings to you in two ways: 1) order our articles from us; they are listed with costs for mailing on the publications list we brought along; if you didn't get one, write to us to request it; 2) order our annotated bibliography of research on computers and writing from Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road, P.O. Box 5007, Westport, CT 06881--forthcoming in May. We would also be interested in any material you have that we haven't reviewed.
We will hold our second conference on Computers and Writing in Minneapolis, April 12-14. We invite you to attend, but if you can't, watch for a publication from the CCC Special Interest Group and Computers and Composition. We expect to publish abstracts and articles from the papers presented.
The following are some of our current activities:
1) Assessing curricular goals in writing that might be aided by computers (instruction in invention, revising, editing, text analysis, audience analysis, etc.)
2) Designing prototype programs for a computer system we're calling, tentatively, ACCESS--A Comprehensive Composing Educational Software System. Ultimately, it should provide ways for writing teachers to produce their own computer exercises for student writing, without computer programming.
3) Testing commercially available software and field-testing programs under development.
4) Studying the ways writing with computers affects students' attitudes toward writing, their composing processes, and the texts they produce.
5) Training instructors to use computers in their writing courses in "principled" ways, i.e., placing the needs of students as writers ahead of any infatuation with technology.
Last fall, Ellen McDaniel was co-principal investigator on a $608,000 grant from Texas Instruments which brought in 100 of TI's IBM-compatible Professional Computers to Texas A&M. Twelve of these machines came to the English department, and Dr. McDaniel is director of the new lab the department created to house them. Each computer has 256K RAM, dual-disk drive, a printer, and assorted software. They are currently being used by faculty to train themselves in computer applications, especially word processing. However, the terms of the grant specify their eventual use by students in the Writing Specialization, a minor the English department offers to students interested in technical writing and editing. Dr. McDaniel directed the specialization last year after Dr. Malcolm Richardson left Texas A&M. The specialization is now directed by Dr. Sam Dragga and Gina Burchard. Students in the Writing Specialization have begun to receive instruction in the use of the computers. Next year, the computers will be fully integrated into the courses of the Writing Specialization.
Ellen McDaniel and Guy Bailey, both Assistant Professors in the English department at Texas A&M University, have received two grants to support their research in human-computer communication. A grant from the Texas Engineering Experiment Station gives them 50% salary support, and an equipment grant from Texas Instruments has supplied them with the computers to do their research. Drs. McDaniel and Bailey each have a TI Professional computers with 256K RAM, 10M Winchester hard disk, 3-plane color graphics, speech
synthesis board, and a variety of software, including word processing, spreadsheet calculation, database management, several languages, and speech recognition/command kits. A letter-quality printer is attached to each machine.
Drs. McDaniel and Bailey are applying research in text linguistics and discourse theory to the task of creating better human-computer dialogue. They are working with engineers and computing scientists in the Robotics and Productivity Laboratories at Texas A&M to model these theories and apply them in language interaction between human and robot and within the more general manufacturing environment. Until recently, research in this area has focused on syntax and parsing. However, the problem in natural-language interface design cannot be solved until the computer can handle semantics. By isolating the cohesive and semantic devices in our language and making text, not the sentence, the focus of this investigation, the researchers on this project are mapping the procedures and strategies that humans use to understand context and such cohesive features as personal and demonstrative reference, substitution, ellipsis, and conjunction. Another goal of this project is to investigate how communication procedures and strategies change to accommodate voice input and interaction.
This project is interdisciplinary and combines work in rhetoric and linguistics with information modeling techniques, database construction and management, and fifth-generation languages such as LISP and PROLOG. The project relies heavily on Terry Winograd's work in syntax and semantics at Stanford.
An interdisciplinary project recently undertaken at Texas A&M University involves programmers, authors, designers, and developers in a local area network composed of CDC, DEC, and TI equipment.
The project, which is supported by Control Data Corporation and the Texas Engineering Experiment Station, is the design of a sophomore-level course in statics, to be part of CDC's Lower-Division Engineering Curriculum (LDEC), a computer-based curriculum which the company will market nationally. The design group consists of a coordinator from electrical engineering, subject-matter experts from mechanical engineering course designers from Education and Educational Development and Curriculum Instruction, and technical writers from English, who are responsible for all technical documentation as well as textual course content.
The project suggests both practical applications and theoretical implications of computer-based education and computer-assisted instruction. As CBE and CAI continue to expand and increase in sophistication, writing, even as word processing, will become less and less a medium of communication and more and more a supplement to interactive graphics. Graphics are fast outstripping the power of writing in technical training; the function of language changes in response to advances in computer-graphics technology until verbal communication eventually becomes not the primary medium, but the "glue" providing coherence for graphical communication.
The project has suggested several categories of issues that need to be resolved through research and practice:
How students respond to CBE and CAI employing interactive graphics; How much text provides most efficient communication with students; How much documentation (separate from the textual course content) students need in support of their interaction with the computer.
How to design CBE and CAI courses;
How to generate interdisciplinary research and design projects in CBE and CAI;
How to organize and administer such projects;
How to determine royalties and copyright (how much to authors, other designers, the university).
How communication will evolve in professional training for industry;
How video and interactive computers will be used in training;
What the role of words and word processing will be in a future dominated by interactive graphics.
Written originally by Hugh Burns and modified by others including Donald Davis, TOPOI is designed to stimulate rhetorical invention. As Hugh Burns puts it, "The basic idea is simple enough: a computer program asks questions, and a writer answers the questions. In terms of creativity theory, these computer programs generate content-free `matrices of thought' by asking specific heuristic questions, and the writer responds with other matrices of thought based on the specific knowledge of a situational context." The first part of Davis' version of TOPOI asks students to state and refine topics, to identify audience and purpose, and to clarify a central idea. The second part consists of a menu of six rhetorical categories--Definition, Circumstance, Comparison, Relationship, Testimony, and Consequences. Seven to ten heuristic questions are written within each category.
Adapting TOPOI to the research paper assignment, we followed this procedure:
A. During the first two weeks of the semester, we acquainted students with the computer facilities--ten Apple IIe micros housed in the library. Using the program "Apple Introduces Apple" and overviewing TOPOI, students became comfortable with the computer within one hour.
B. Shortly thereafter, we assigned the research paper--a thesis and support essay of at least six typed pages, using at least eight sources.
C. After selecting topics, students began to browse in the library, to compile working bibliographies, and to take notes.
D. At this stage, students were more or less ready to encounter the computer and TOPOI's questions on Testimony:
1. What do supporters of "topic" say?
2. What do opponents of "topic" say?
3. What is your own opinion, "student name"?
4. Are there any sayings, proverbs, poems, or songs related to "topic"?
5. Are there any books, magazines, movies, or tv programs related to "topic"?
6. Do any famous persons have opinions on "topic"?
7. Are there any laws or legal precedents related to "topic"?
8. Are there any facts or statistics related to "topic"?
9. Can you use any of your opponents' arguments to support your own?
10. What further research is necessary?
Students were required to answer these questions, and they were encouraged to experiment with questions under various other categories. The students left the computer center with two printouts of questions and answers, one to be submitted to the instructor.
E. We then reviewed student printouts, making suggestions where appropriate. So as to stimulate invention, we did not grade responses.
F. We then asked students to do further research, focused and directed by their own unanswered questions. Recognizing the recursive nature of the writing process, we encouraged students to return to TOPOI at later stages of the assignment.
Since Fall of 1983, sixty-seven students have used TOPOI. Forty expressed unreserved enthusiasm, twenty-one enjoyed the computer but suggested improvements in the soft- and hardware, and six described frustrating experiences. Two problems emerged: first, the program allots a certain amount of memory space (9-12 lines, subdivided into 3-4 lines per part) for an answer. Despite careful warning, some students exceeded the allotted space and lost everything that they had typed into memory. A fail-safe routine is necessary. Secondly,
errors erased from the CRT appeared as character strike-overs on the printout.
Regarding invention, the overwhelming majority of students expressed enthusiasm: "It [TOPOI] suggested ideas that I hadn't thought about and led me to research my paper more thoroughly." "It helped me get started and made me see my paper's topic from new angles." "It helped me realize what further research was needed." Many students also found TOPOI helpful for arrangement: "It helped me organize my ideas." "It was excellent for outlining." And many students enjoyed learning to use the computer: "It was fun working with the computer." "It made my work fun. Computers are helpful. I hope to become more familiar with them."
As instructors, we too are enthusiastic, and we suggest that the computer is put to best use when integrated into the process of instructor and peer review of student writing. As TOPOI is a model for any kind of questioning strategy, we plan to formulate new questions appropriate to literary response/analysis and to student journal writing.
We welcome your questions and advice.
John C. Thoms and Eleanor Wimett
New York Institute of Technology
Many college students find it difficult to select among and then logically organize the writing ideas they have generated. Such students often have not learned to discriminate adequately either between related and unrelated ideas or among different levels of generalization.
Under a broad Title 111 grant to introduce microcomputers into the writing program at New York Institute of Technology, we are developing a graduated sequence of non-punitive software exercises--called "LOGI COMP"--to introduce and reinforce logical skills intrinsic to effective selection and organization of ideas for writing. The distinctive design features of this sequence are that:
1) different textual colours are consistently associated with different levels of generalization,
2) students are encouraged to see relationships among ideas in spatial rather than simply linear terms, and
3) ideas may be easily moved about to create different patterns of logical relationship.
As presently conceived, the sequence will move from a fairly basic beginning exercise (students will select and organize related words) to a fairly sophisticated final assignment (given a topic, students will generate their own theses and supporting ideas, organize these appropriately, and produce an effective argumentative essay). The sequence will emphasize the following skills: discrimination between related and unrelated ideas; organization of ideas according to relative levels of generalization; discrimination among topics, related theses, and unrelated ideas; discrimination between main and supporting ideas; and recognition of and experimentation with the four basic paragraph structures (deductive, inductive, mixed deductive/inductive, thesis implied).
COMMENT is a computer-assisted revision aid for use by instructors and students in composition, technical writing, and literature classes. It is designed to adapt GRAMMATIK, a popular style and grammar analysis program published by Wang Electronic Publishing, to writing classes. The program includes on-screen instruction, is entirely interactive and menu-driven, and requires only a style manual to accompany it.
Students type in their papers using the word processor. They then correct the spelling using the RANDOM HOUSE PROOF READER, after which they run GRAMMATIK. GRAMMATIK produces a list of common "errors"--wordy and redundant phrases--and it produces a statistical summary of sentence and word length and counts of user-defined categories of stylistic features, such as the numbers of vague terms or sentences that open with "Th." Students are
prompted by COMMENT to enter the data from GRAMMATIK's statistical summary. COMMENT automatically calculates percentages of surface-level elements, compares the percentages to standards pre-set by the instructor, and prints out advice in several areas: readability, to be's, prepositions, continuity, "The sentence-openers," vagueness, and sentence variety.
SET-UP. SET-UP is a companion program to COMMENT. It allows any number of instructors to customize the standards against which COMMENT evaluates student writing. Instructors are identified by a three-letter id and a class number of l through 4.
RUN NUMBERS. COMMENT asks students to enter the number of times they have run COMMENT on their work, and prints the run number on their output. This helps keep track of revisions.
VAGUENESS. COMMENT counts the number of vague terms in students' papers and if the count is higher than the instructor's standard, the program prompts them to run a specially configured version of GRAMMATIK that prints only vague terms.
COMMENT is currently being tested in five pilot courses: Freshman English, Technical Writing (sophomore), Advanced Composition, Technical Editing, and Advanced Technical Writing. COMMENT was written in MBASIC in the Microcomputer Learning Laboratory at Texas Tech University. It requires CP/M or MS-DOS, 64K RAM and 2 disk drives.