A Public Service Announcement

This semester I decided to have students post all of their work publicly somewhere in the digital world. I had been moving in this direction for a couple of years, but spent much worry over issues of sensitivity, privacy, and exposure. The writing class can be a place of egos, a place where confidence and insecurity often settle into dullness. This tepid situation is worsened by students’ attempt to give the teachers what they “want.” Is the problem one of rhetors or one of audiences? I blame both sides.

The one-on-one relationship that characterizes the traditional scenario of individual submission to the individual grader is often seen by the student as a battle of wills or, literally, as “submission.” Students often submit the digital essay to the plagiarism-checking software or to the teacher’s personal dropbox. The student doesn’t simply turn in her writing; she turns it over to the power of a machine or another human. This mindset is far from the instructor’s goals for the writer or the course (I think). We often boast of empowering and authorizing student writers, but is that really the case when students turn it in, submit it, or drop it into a digital space that is hidden from their view? Or do students give in to preconceived notions of the teacher’s desires or the perceived criteria of past successes (e.g. what got them the grade)? I know that sometimes they just give up. Is that what we mean when we ask them to “submit” their papers?

I decided to answer these questions with an opportunity to publish. My hopes for this public participation in discourse are partly influenced by the theoretical writings about “publics” (see Michael Warner’s work for provocative discussion about multiple publics). The prevalence of digital literacy, from gaming to social media to texting, suggests that our students are hyper-aware of the ways their discourse exists in these various publics. To ask them to go public is to allow them to continue their practices. For many of us, students and teachers alike, awareness of our publics is second nature. If not, it can’t be hard to awaken.

Assignments can be publics. The collaborative space of a wiki site charts and maps the creative history of a public (click the “history” button to see this intriguing record). A blog post may reflect its public in more mysterious ways, but every time the author answers reader’s comments or views the blog stats, an awareness of the public emerges. I view these activities as awakenings. Students may find social and academic awareness through their writing that contrasts sharply to the act of submitting the writing to the teacher. What are the implications of this difference? That is a research question we need to pose to our students.