Introductions

Who are we? Cora Agatucci and Kathy Walsh have taught English at Central Oregon Community College for 13 years and 11 years, respectively [as of 2001]. Cora teaches writing, multicultural and world literature, and women's studies. Kathy teaches writing, American literature, and multicultural literature. We began writing for the web in 1995, eventually creating on line resources for all of our courses.

Our projects involving the internet in English instruction have gone through a certain evolution. Beginning efforts, involved writing with the web, enabling the students to research online, find information, and use that information in their academic essays. In the second stage, Kathy was involved in instructional projects enabling students to write on the web, specifically using web boards for online discussions, editing, and review of drafts. By 1999, we were both ready for a significant shift: engaging students to write for the web. We sensed that students would be as engaged as we are by the creative potential of web authoring and that such engagement would serve the ends of multicultural instruction. The opportunity to initiate this third stage came when we were awarded a grant to participate in the Community College Humanities Association initiative, "Advancing the Humanities through Technology" (funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities). This CCHA-NEH grant enabled us to develop and offer a special topics course Humanities 299: "Student Perspectives on World and Multicultural Writers - Writing for the World Wide Web" in Spring 2000, and again in Spring 2001. Our reflections on cyber writing as a tool for multicultural understandings result from Humanities 299 teaching-learning experiences and analyses of student webwork.

Kathleen Walsh, Instructional Dean and Professor of English
541-383-7530 (office), kwalsh@cocc.edu
Cora Agatucci, Professor of English
541-383-7522 (office), cagatucci@cocc.edu
Department of Humanities, Central Oregon Community College
2600 NW College Way, Bend, OR 97701-5998

Learn more about our Project and Humanities 299:

Showcase of Hum 299 Student Websites
URL: http://www.cocc.edu/ASA/studentwebs.htm

Humanities 299 Course Home Page
URL: http://www.cocc.edu/hum299/

Overview of Our CCHA-NEH Grant Project
URL: http://www.cocc.edu/ASA/project.htm

Where are we? Central Oregon Community College is located in Bend, Oregon, the largest town in the relatively isolated vast agricultural region of Central Oregon. (Think high desert, not rain or ferns: we're on the other side of the mountains). Because of our remoteness, we have been drawn to the web's potential to break down barriers, and all of our web projects have in some way been aimed at harnessing that potential: barriers between Bend and major libraries, between our students in Bend and our students who live in other Central Oregon communities (winter travel in Central Oregon can be hazardous and slow), and most significantly, between our students and other cultures (even with record growth in recent years, Central Oregon remains a homogenous culture).

Why did we create this website? This website is the online portion of our presentation for SP198 "Making It Public: Putting Multicultural Research Online," a Special Session Panel for the 2001 Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association (ASA), 8-11 November 2001, Renaissance Hotel, Washington D.C. This Special Session Panel was sponsored by the American Studies Crossroads Project <http://www.georgetown.edu/crossroads/>. Our online presentation is to be read in advance, and the ASA special session (scheduled Saturday, 10 November 2001, 10:00-11:45 a.m) devoted to formal commentary and group discussion. For more background, see:

Our ASA Panel Proposal: "Going Online to Develop and Communicate Student Perspectives on Multicultural and World Writers"
URL: http://www.cocc.edu/ASA/panelproposal.htm

ASA Panel Description & Call for Proposals: "Making It Public: Putting Multicultural Research Online"
URL: http://www.cocc.edu/ASA/panelproposal.htm

Abstract of Our Online Presentation: "Going Online to Develop and Communicate Student Perspectives on Multicultural and World Writers"
URL: http://www.cocc.edu/ASA/index.htm