ABSTRACT
The challenge of composing in multimedia environments has not escaped American's education community. In September 2002, the College Board—the nonprofit organization of over 4,300 schools and colleges—created the National Commission on Writing to respond to the board's plan to add a writing component to the SAT exam and to analyze the state of writing instruction in U.S. schools. Among its many findings, the National Commission on Writing (2003) argued that “just as [computers] have transformed schools, offices, and homes, [they] have introduced entirely new ways of generating, organizing, and editing text” (p. 22). Because of these changes,
teachers have to reconsider their inherent attitudes about the value of writing grounded in new technologies. Far from undermining libraries, the Web puts the world at students’ fingertips. Letters and notes are still appropriate in many circumstances, but e-mail, instant messaging, and electronic conferencing provide writers with an immediate and much larger audience. Educators need to tap into students’ inherent interest in these methods of creating and sharing writing. (p. 22)
