ABSTRACT
Th is chapter discusses the role of computers in the teaching of writing. It includes a historical overview of how computers have been integrated into composition pedagogy, a discussion of multimedia writing, and suggestions for using computers in the writing class. Where once “computer-based composition” designated courses that made word processing available to student writers, today these courses are designed in a range of ways: in distance writing classes, the computer is the exclusive medium of instruction, whereas in face-to-face courses, the instructor typically combines computer-based practices with noncomputerized ones, oft en in the same physical space. A third type of course, known as a “hybrid,” meets part of the time online and part of the time in a physical classroom.
