Writing is a rule-driven means of communication, but we're not always aware of these rules, which are more often part of our enculturation rather than explicitly taught. Yet their implicit presence is what allows two usersin this case a writer and a readerto communicate. Even the amount of freedom one has to break the rules is governed by "rules" of practice, or discourse conventions, among group members. Friends often accept a more relaxed grammar, sometimes becoming almost a private shorthand of communication, and some disciplines/professions are so jargon-laden that their communications would be barely intelligible to an outsider.

Despite writing's evolution from the scroll, to the codex, to the printed book, and now to the World Wide Web site, all of those forms of written communication are governed by rulesrules that have evolved with each new type of writing. Even as new media for writing came into vogue, as is happening now with the growing proliferation of electronic communication and the World Wide Web, the rules for print-based texts are applied, adapted, and adopted to govern these new texts. New media borrow from the conventions of older media, while improving some of those conventions and inventing others, which are sometimes in turn adopted by the older media. In short, neither media is the same as a result of this process, part of what Jay David Bolter calls "remediation".¹

Making those rules, both new and old, and the connections between them, more palpable for students is one of the goals of my writing classes. Seeing those connections (and eventually being able to manipulate their own connections), gives students the comfort of common rules and practices in the face of the discomfort over new ones. To show the connection between the type(s) of text-based writing taught in required composition courses and the hypertextual "writing" (graphics, sound, arrangement, and text) that many of our students "read" daily on the Web, I want students to see how the rules that govern text-based writing are applied and transformed to produce hypertextual "writing." In the following examples, I will discuss how integrating web site analysis and simple web site construction into my first-year writing courses (and a newly designed, upper-level hypertextual writing course) allows students to see that they can apply text-based writing "rules" learned in required composition courses to writing "rules" for this new E-learning environment.

ENGL 015 Rhetoric and Composition

In this course, required of all Penn State graduates, students practice applying rhetorical principles to construct arguments through various forms of writing (traditionally all print-based).

• In the Web Site Evaluation assignment, http://www.personal.psu.edu/bjj6/ENGL_015_Web_Site_Evaluation.htm students are asked to apply critical reading and thinking skills to evaluate the validity of a web source, to be used in their individual research projects, just as they would evaluate the validity of a print source. As a follow-up assignment to a critique of a print text, this assignment reinforces several newly learned skills, by asking students to adapt those skills to a text from a newer medium. As students manipulate the old rules for new texts, they can see the connections between the two media.

ENGL 030 Honors Freshman Composition

This course, an Honors version of ENGL 015, has many of the same goals as that course; however, students' already competent writing skills allow a faster pace with more sophisticated readings and assignments. Although writing for these two courses is traditionally print-based, because the rules that govern writingin fact the very definition of writing itselfare evolving, newer forms of writing that allow students to practice those same rhetorical principles are certainly appropriate.

• In the Museum Web Site Evaluation assignment, http://www.personal.psu.edu/bjj6/ENGL_030_Museum_Web_Evaluation.htm students were asked to use many of the same critical reading/thinking skills that they had used to critique a more traditional print text to "read" a different form of texta museum web site.

• In addition to analyzing web sites, students in this class worked collaboratively in small groups to construct a Web site, http://www.personal.psu.edu/bjj6/ENGL_030_Web_Project.htm which made a statement about some aspect of technology in today's society. Examples of these sites are linked below:

These constructed Web sites are the contemporary counterparts of the traditional academic essay, and as such require students to adapt the rules for that genre, to Web site construction. For example, although these Web sites are still thesis-driven, the thesis may be expressed by a visual design motif, rather than a discursive statement early in the essay.

• Throughout the semester, students in this class created Web-based portfolios of their work in this course. For these portfolios, students "translated" their print essays into Web-based pages. Considerations for spatial arrangement and visual rhetoric gave students an additional opportunity to see the process of remediation in action.

ENGL 420 Writing for the Web

(A new course, designed as part of Capital College's proposed Writing Minor)

This course, designed for writers and potential writers, will explore the unique opportunities and constraints of writing for the Web. As a writing course, it should appeal to students in the Humanities; however, because of the growing importance of Web texts in fields like business and the social sciences and given the opportunity to compose/construct a variety of fictional and non-fictional, "creative" and informative/persuasive Web texts, this course should be of value to students across the College.

In this course, students will survey a wide variety of Web texts: webs, electronic journals and books, learning to analyze these as to their efficacy in light of each text's rhetorical situation. As students learn to compose and construct such texts themselves, rhetorically based principles of audience awareness and persuasive appeal will be emphasized. Rather than focusing on writing html codes and java scripts, this course will build on the rhetorical principles taught in first-year writing courses, teaching students how to apply those principles to more sophisticated, multi-sensory, multi-media hypertextual writing. Visual rhetoric (the text's appearance) and site functionality (the means by which a "reader" moves throughout the hypertext) will be considered, but the main emphasis will be on the ways in which hypertextual writing environments influence, and are influenced by, writing and thinking

The course will be taught primarily in a hands-on workshop environment, in a PC computer lab or laptop-equipped classroom, using word-processing and basic html editing software, as well as the hypertextual writing software, Storyspace, http://www.eastgate.com/Storyspace.html. Although no prior Web writing experience is required, some experience with Web navigation and computer word-processing will be helpful. Students will be evaluated on the basis of their participation/attendance in the course's workshop environment, written web analyses, and constructed web texts.

A Final Note

Taking students into the eye of remediation to see the point at which rules blur and change is not the only reason for these assignments. As an educator, I believe strongly in the responsibility to foster students' technological literacy; a responsibility that Cynthia Selfe, longtime technological-literacy pioneer, proponent, and educator, assigns to literacy educators.² However, I would argue that it is a responsibility for educators across the academy, not just literacy educators. Furthermore, although technological literacy is a worthwhile end in itself, as Fred Kemp notes, integrating technology into a course can also bring about a powerful change toward a collaborative pedagogy "in a way that nothing else can".³ While the above examples deal with assignments in various writing courses, those and others like them can certainly be used in other disciplines. Any discipline requiring student research can likely benefit from training their students to be more discerning researchersand given the wealth of research material available on the Web, I believe we owe it to students to teach them to use that information critically. Furthermore, the sharing of knowledge, scholarship, and documents is becoming increasingly at home on the Web, so students should know not only how to access that knowledge, but also the rules that govern contributing to that knowledge and scholarship. Not only can such assignments illuminate writing rules, they can also show that writing "rules" as a form of communication, as well as a valuable tool for learning.

¹Bolter, Jay David. Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print. Mahway, NJ: Erlbaum, 2001.
²Selfe, Cynthia L. Technology and Literacy in the Twenty-First Century: The Importance of Paying Attention. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois UP, 1999.
³Kemp, Fred, and Rebecca Rickly. Presentation. "Technology in Writing Programs: Responsible Development, Responsible Development, Responsible Implementation, Responsible Assessment." WPA Conference. Charlotte, NC. 15 July, 2001