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Electronic literacy, critical pedagogy, and collaboration: A case for cyborg writing

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Abstract

This study concerns the convergence of electronic literacy, collaboration, and critical pedagogy in the classroom. I argue that teachers in the humanities must relinquish the vestiges of non-electronic criteria in their assessments of electronic literacy. Instead, the interplay of human and technological factors in the classroom leads to a reaffirmation of literacy as a social process. The radical democratization and multivocality of the corporate or collaboratively-written text demands a critical problematizing of our roles and actions as teacher-readers. The viability of static criteria for good literacy practices vanishes with electronic literacy. Feminist cyborg theory offers a useful paradigm for understanding the corporate text by bridging theories of electronic literacy and theories of collaborative learning. The cyborg is a dynamic techno-fusion of difference and contradiction: much like the corporate text. A cyborgian perspective reaffirms the polyvocalic, instable nature of postmodern literacy and calls for contextual writing criteria.

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  1. Department of English, Xavier University, 45207-4446, Cincinnati, OH, USA

    Carol L. Winkelmann

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  1. Carol L. Winkelmann
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Carol L. Winkelmann, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. She teaches electronic literacy, linguistics, and seventeenth-century women's literacy. Winkelmann has written forLinguistics and Education, The Oxford Companion to the English Language, andThe Sixteenth Century Journal. Currently, she is writing about women's political language, violence, and social change education.

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Winkelmann, C.L. Electronic literacy, critical pedagogy, and collaboration: A case for cyborg writing. Comput Hum 29, 431–448 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01829875

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