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Teaching Aspirations

When I consider what I hope to teach and research, I begin with the question how online collaborative tools shape the composition process. How does technology restrict or expand the choices available? Is composing enhanced or degraded for those with special needs or language limitations?

Because I am a creative writer, I view "team" compositions of interactive fiction with the same curiosity I have for non-fiction projects. Composition, in my mind, includes a mix of what we often label as creative and academic genres. What matters to me is the writing process, regardless of how we might categorize the product at a specific moment.

"Composition and rhetoric" are often perceived as limited to the study of academic genres. I cannot foresee myself being limited to genres I want to challenge and reshape. The "rhetoric of fiction" and "rhetoric of theatre/film" are topics I would hope to teach in the future, from a technological and collaborative perspective.

Certainly, I see value in traditional forms, though I hope to influence their evolution to exploit technology. A serious academic work is creative. I hope to extend ways to express that creativity using technology, drawing from methods employed in creative composition.

It is my sincere belief that students who struggle with academic genre norms might excel with alternative approaches. Collaborative, multimedia composition has been studied for years, but we still employ traditional forms in most of our classes. I hope to be an advocate for change, ideally a radical shift towards collaborative compositions across the curriculum.

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