Form Part II

WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
THE INVITINGLY OPEN FORM OF WEB WRITING
AND OUR PROJECT OUTCOMES?
Part II

Key goals of our project (as stated in our Abstract) were to enable our relatively homogeneous Central Oregon students to cross cultural and disciplinary borders and make meaningful connections to multicultural and world studies. We theorized that web creation would provide a powerful and exciting means for students to participate actively by constructing knowledge in multicultural and world studies. And we do believe that these goals were achieved in Hum 299.

Now we'd like to take a closer look at the impact of internet and web-authoring technology both on what and how students learned. One key concern that we identified at the end of Form, Part I of our online presentation, was that the "invitingly open form" of web writing and media so enthralled several Hum 299 students that they were unable to fully implement--especially the textual content of--their website plans by the end of the quarter-length (10-week) term.

And so we posed this question:

Is it a bad thing . . .
that the "invitingly open form" of web-creation enticed
many Hum 299 students to invest so much time and energy
on design, layout, and visual elements,
that their ambitious plans for developing the textual content
of their websites had to be curtailed?

Cora's Response: Well, no . . .

Not if you believe that visual communication is a definitive component of WWW "writing" and that students' enthusiastic investment in learning how to "speak" in this language is important;
Not if you are convinced that form and content operate inseparably in shaping both what is expressed and how well it communicates to others;
Not if you value the process of learning and discovery, as well as the product. Again, an important part of the experiment, for me, was to see how students, given certain general parameters (i.e. principles of Cyber Rhetoric), would work out for themselves the creative tensions of form and content, and the sometimes competing demands of topic, purpose, audience, genre.

We now invite you now to review the following selected Hum 299 websites . . .
selected because they represent cases herein student investment in form, to lesser or greater extent, resulted in running short of time needed to complete planned textual content.

Before you do, however, please review our Notes on Form.

Opposing Oppression by Lisa Goetz-Bouknight	U. S. Immigrant Literature by Dan Farring & Sam Farring

So . . . what do you think?
Is it a bad thing that the "invitingly open form" of web-creation
enticed many Hum 299 students to invest so much time and energy
on design, layout, and visual elements,
that their ambitious plans for developing the textual content
of their websites had to be curtailed?
Join the Discussion now . . .

Exploring the Contact Zone by Dawn Hendrix [Smith]	Geo-Cultural Exploration by Brenda Sanchez