I originally created this bibliography for my colleagues in the PWR at CU Boulder, to help them explore the scholarship and pedagogy that supports digital composition. The bibliography below is by no means comprehensive, but it should provide a good starting place.
Professional Statements
Before you explore these readings, you might want to take a look at the following statements from NCTE, which help clarify the pedagogical rationale for integrating digital composition into writing instruction at both the high school and college level.
- CCCC Position Statement on Teaching, Learning, and Assessing Writing in Digital Environments
- NCTE 21st Century Curriculum and Assessment Framework
- NCTE Beliefs about the Teaching of Writing (scroll down to the section titled: Composing occurs in different modalities and technologies)
- NCTE Position Statement on Multimodal Literacies
- Digital Text and the K-12 Common Core Standards
Recommended Readings
Articles with hyperlinked titles are available for free on the web. I most likely have PDF versions of the other articles, so if you’d like something in particular, please contact me.
Ball, Cheryl E., and Ryan Moeller. “Re-inventing the Possibilities: Academic Literacy and New Media.” The Fibreculture Journal 10 (2007).
Daley, Elizabeth. “Expanding the Concept of Literacy.” Educause Review (March/April 2011).
DeVoss, Danielle Nicole, Elyse Eidman-Aadahl, and Troy Hicks. Because Digital Writing Matters. Jossey-Bass, 2010. (Published for the National Writing Project)
Hicks, Troy. The Digital Writing Workshop. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2009.
Lunsford, Andrea. “Writing, technologies, and the fifth canon.” Computers and Composition 23 (2006): 169–177. (PDF on Google Docs.)
New London Group. “A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing social futures.” Eds. Courtney Cazden, Bill Cope, Norman Fairclough, Jim Gem, et al. Harvard Educational Review 16 (Spring 1996).
Selfe, Cynthia, ed. Multimodal Composition: Resources for Teachers. NY: Hampton, 2007.
Sheppard, Jennifer. “The Rhetorical Work of Multimedia Production Practices: It’s More than Just Technical Skill.” Computers and Composition 26 (2009): 122-131. (PDF on Google Docs.)
Sidler, Michelle, Elizabeth Overman Smith, and Richard Morris, eds. Computers in the Composition Classroom: A Critical Sourcebook. Boston: Bedford/St.Martin’s, 2007.
Yancey, Kathleen. “Writing in the 21st Century.” NCTE Report. (See NCTE’s page on Writing in the 21st Century)
The WIDE Research Center Collective. “Why Teach Digital Writing?” Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy 10 (Fall 2005).
Additional Readings
These readings may be of interest but wouldn’t necessarily count as “core” readings for newcomers.
Articles
Ball, Cheryl E., and Rich Rice. “Reading the Text: Remediating the Text.” Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy 10.2 (Spring 2006).
Brandt, Deborah. “Accumulating Literacy: Writing and Learning to Write in the Twentieth Century.” College English 57.6 (1995): 649-668.
Cope, Bill and Mary Kalantzis. “Design for Social Futures.” Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures. Eds. Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis. London: Routledge, 2000. 203-234. PDF on Google Docs.
Dangler, Doug, Ben McCorkle, and Time Barrow. “Expanding Composition Audiences with Podcasting.” Computers and Composition: Professional Development. Spring 2007.
Gocsik, Karen. “Digital Discourse: Composing with Media in the Writing Classroom.” Dartmouth Institute for Writing and Rhetoric.
Kress, Gunther. ”Communication: Shaping the Domain of Meaning.” Multimodality: A Social-Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication. London: Routledge, 2010.
Lauer, Claire. “Contending with Terms: ‘Multimodal’ and ‘Multimedia’ in the Academic and Public Spheres.”
Muller, Kjartan. “Genre in the Design Space.” Computers and Composition 28 (2011): 186-194. (PDF on Google Docs.)
The New London Group. “A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures.” Harvard Education Review 66 (1996): 60-92. (PDF on Google Docs.)
Porter, James. “Recovering Delivery for Digital Rhetoric.” Computers and Composition 26 (2009): 207–224. (PDF on Google Docs.)
Selfe, Cynthia. “The Movement of Air, the Breath of Meaning: Aurality and Multimodal Composing.” College Composition and Communication 60.4 (June 2009): 616-663. (PDF on Google Docs.)
Jody Shipka. “Negotiating Rhetorical, Material, Methodological, and Technological Difference: Evaluating Multimodal Designs.” College Composition and Communication 61 (2009). Web. (link opens PDF file)
Sorapure, Madeleine. “Between Modes: Assessing Students’ New Media Compositions.” Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy 10.2 (Spring 2006).
Yancey, Kathleen Blake. “Looking for Sources of Coherence in a Fragmented World: Notes Toward a New Assessment Design.” Computers and Composition 21 (2004): 89-102. Print.
Yancey, Kathleen Blake. “Made Not Only in Words: Composition in a New Key.” CCC 56.2 (2004): 297-328. (PDF available online)
Books
Bolter, Jay David and Grusin, Richard. Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000.
Cope, Bill and Mary Kalantzis, eds. Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures. New York: Routledge, 2000.
Kress, Gunther, and Theo van Leeuwen. Multimodal Discourse: The Modes and Media of Contemporary Communication. New York: Oxford UP, 2001.
Kress, Gunther. Literacy in a New Media Age. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Selber, Stuart A. Multiliteracies for a Digital Age. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2004. (Book available on Amazon; see this Composition Forum review)
Wysocki, Anne. Writing New Media: Theory and Applications for Expanding the Teaching of Composition. Utah State UP, 2004. (Link to Amazon page)
Wysocki, Anne Frances, Johndan Johnson-Eilola, Cynthia Selfe, and Geoffrey Sirc. Writing New Media: Theory and Applications for Expanding the Teaching of Composition. Logan, UT: Utah State UP, 2004.
Journals
Want More?
Try these resources:
- Computers and Composition master bibliography
- Digital Writing, Rhetoric, and Discourse Bibliography
- Computers, Writing, and Rhetoric Bibliography
Also search CompPile.org (“an inventory of publications in post-secondary composition, rhetoric, technical writing, ESL, and discourse studies”). The site collects resources beyond the realm of digital composition, but you can also find back issues of Computers and Composition Online here.
For links to web articles and resources, browse the links I’ve saved to the PWR at CU Diigo Group. Also browse my Diigo library for items with the tags digital literacy, digital writing, and digital composition.