Week 3: Q&A: Cindy Selfe

Q&A: Technology and Literacy: A Story about the Perils of Not Paying Attention

1.    Who is her audience?

In the article, Technology and Literacy: A Story about the Perils of Not Paying Attention, Cynthia L. Selfe, main audience is literacy educators including English and Language Arts teachers in primary, secondary, and college/university classrooms. 


2.     What is her purpose?

Selfe’s purpose for writing this article was to change the attitudes of writing professionals about the use of technology in the classroom.  Although many of her colleagues negatively viewed computer technology as boring or frightening and distrusted the machine, she encouraged them to abandon their old ways of thinking about technology and accept the cultural strangeness of the new electronic environment.

3.     What is her exigence?

      The exigence of this article encouraged literacy educators to pay attention to technology issues that affect them.  As technology literacy influenced U.S. culture in 1999, President Bill Clinton initiated the idea of social-progress-through-technology in a nations project titled Getting America’s Students Ready. The national project promised the use of technology in classrooms “to improve learning, productivity and performance,” a direct link to literacy instruction. Unfortunately, the implementation of the educational goals and standards were not clear, so Selfe urged her audience to pay attention how the project’s goals were going to have a direct response to educators.

4.     What lessons about literacy do we learn by paying attention to technology?

Selfe points out the educators’ responsibility in the technological literacy system.  Although some educators want to avoid using technology in the classroom, she urges them to put aside their own biases and look at the large-scale picture of educating students to become technology literate.