"The revolution, if there is one, is the social one of connectivity" Van Horne applies modern extensions of ZPD, such as situation definition, to consider how mulitliteracy practitioners might use such approaches to encourage student learning. In so doing, he also suggests a possible approach to maintaining the human value of writing center practice, even as writing centers become mulitliteracy centers, and mulitliteracy centers perhaps move from the physical to the digital. Having such approaches at the ready as we navigate the current bridge will be one essential tool in the effort to maintain, that which is effective, even as we change in radical ways. For a humorous, dystopian essay about the dangers of technology run amok, check out David Chapman’s "Requiem for a Writing Center" (Writing Lab Newsletter 14.4 (1989): 7-8).
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Van Horne suggests that by interrogating and referencing those rhetorical understandings that guide student writing processes, practitioners can facilitate improvement in how students approach their writing. In so doing, he suggests, the student’s movement through the ZPD will reflect his or her own perceptions of the task, rather than the didactic process of correction and response. Van Horne illuminates his theoretical analysis with exemplars of online synchronous writing conferences, and suggests implications for mulitliteracy practitioners who will increasingly engage students in the digital space.
Van Horne suggests,
Van Horne suggests,
“The text-only environment of online synchronous tutoring requires tutors to find appropriate strategies that are suited to activities that are created through written speech. Eliciting students’ definitions of writing tasks and rhetorical concepts can be an effective strategy for helping students refine their writing processes because students can reflect on these mediating concepts when they translate them from inner speech to external speech for others. “
His proposal that mulitliteracy practitioners working in the digital space should use ZPD approaches to guide students in making their own rhetorical definitions explicit in the low-stakes environment of an online discussion provides us a strong potential foothold, as we begin defining the expectations of such discussions. Further, he suggests novel advantages of technology that extend rather than ignore the human element of writing center practice (e.g., transcripts of online discussions for student and practitioner use).
While suggestions, such as Van Horne offers, are helpful, they do not address the needs of all students whom we serve in multiliteracy centers, however. Our client populations grow increasingly diverse, both from a globalization perspective, and from a personal perspective. Now and into the future, the challenges of keeping pace with technology will compound in the face of questions regarding appropriateness of use, on the one hand, but perhaps less obviously – open access, as well. How can we design multiliteracy centers that are both current and effective technologically, but also accessible and aware of the many and diverse learning profiles our students represent?
For some potential answers to these important questions, we can look at Allison Hitt’s insightful piece, “Access for All: The Role of Dis/Ability in Multiliteracy Centers” (2012).
For some potential answers to these important questions, we can look at Allison Hitt’s insightful piece, “Access for All: The Role of Dis/Ability in Multiliteracy Centers” (2012).