Writing for a World That Wont Keep Still
Doug Hesse
Director, Writing Program

Our world drips writing. Never, and I mean since the first pictographs and cuneiform, have so many people been producing so much text. Never have so many words circulated so widely and so quickly.

Recently a newspaper reporter asked me to comment on the implications of all this, the effects of MySpace, IM, and text-messaging on students writing abilities. I think she expected me to bemoan an insidious assault on literate civilization. I imagine I disappointed her by offering that these media actually bode well for writing, which finds new forms in blogs, wikis, and the whole range of multimodal texts that commingle words, images, and sounds.

In celebrating these new media, Im hardly nave that the skills and strategies they require tidily transfer to other kinds of writing, especially traditional academic discourses and the essayistic tradition. There are different skills and standards for success in creating an effective PowerPoint slide vs. an effective research report for a sociology course, and a deft blogger isnt necessarily and adroit essayist. Perhaps the biggest favor that the new media have provided is to make starkly clear that good writing varies according to situation and circumstance, something weve always known but rarely foregrounded. What exemplary chemistry lab reports, history term papers, popular magazine articles, and business memos have in common is familiar enough: clarity, organization, evidence for claims, and so on. But these qualities look quite different in each instance, and a writers facility with one kind of writing doesnt automatically transfer to others.

The proliferation of new media dramatically reminds us that successful writers adapt, using the strategies expected in different readerships and discourse communities. The consequence is additive. On top of traditional skills that continue to be important (I could wax at length on how crucial the ability is to write extended prose essays, crucial both to individuals and society), student writers need to develop others.

Perhaps this moving literacy target is unfair. But unless we acknowledge the multiplicity of writing, those of us who teach it risk marginalization. Students are most cynical about writing when they encounter universal admonitions that clearly conflict with the texts they regularly encounter: never use first person; always tell them what youre going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them; always use active voice; avoid emotional appeals; and so on. The challenge is showing students that we understand the relationshipsand the differencesbetween writing as it exists in the academy and writing as it exists in various spheres beyond.

A writing education must, then, build a deep and flexible repertory of skills. A 2005 report from the National Commission on Writing shows that writing is an integral part of professional life for two-thirds of American salaried workers. We ignore those needs at our students peril. But writing serves needs beyond the instrumental and vocational.

Consider, for example, DUs vision to be great private university dedicated to the public good. Our societys health depends on individuals abilities to articulate and deliberate ideas, to impart information, and to understand when others are being sloppy or narrowly self-interested. Writing is crucial for those purposes, and thats why writing is also crucial to education. After all, writing is more than transcribing information. It is the very act of bringing ideas into existence, a mode of learning. We often think we know something until the sharp discipline of writing reminds us otherwise and drives us to think better and more clearly.

As a result, learning how to write is not like getting vaccinated against measles. It doesnt happen once and for all. Instead, we encounter increasingly complex writing situations, and the static forms of childhood or high school no longer suffice. We draw on previous experience but have to stretch in new ways.

Fortunately, we dont have to go it alone. There are teachers and mentors and good examples. At DU, students can expect a challenging first-year experience, followed by more writing intensive courses that develop the kinds of academic, professional, and civic writing important in the contemporary university and life beyond. Through all of this, they can count on a professional writing faculty and a writing center that provides careful one-to-one teaching.

This fall Ive enjoyed one of the most exhilarating experiences of my career. For thirteen weeks, every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoon from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. I met with the 19 new writing program lecturers. We debated teaching ideas, planned courses, and analyzed student papers. We devised research projects that will tell us how were doing as teachers, and we critiqued each others own writings in progress. We simultaneously wrestled with the writing needs of academic departments across campus and with the demands of new media writing for publics beyond the academy. I came away from those discussions even more invigorated about the future of writing at the University of Denver.

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