College Writing in a Democratic and Digital Society :: Education College Technology Essays

College Writing in a Democratic and Digital Society Citizens of the United States spend obscene amounts of money to get a quality college education. For example, Rhetoric classes at Oakland University are costing each student about $600 to take for one semester. What are students getting for their money? One way to really make this class part of the college experience, and worth the high cost, would be to involve multiculturalism. Writing about and listening to other peoples personal experiences can help students learn about and better understand other cultures. This is important because it can help students learn about each other, themselves and the rest of the world. By learning about other cultures students may be able to break down existing barriers and expand their horizons. Rhetoric classes have become much more advanced in the area of technology. Technology has advanced all over the world, including in the classroom. Now the question is how do we use this technology to help better our education as well as our society. We need t o use this technology as a tool for literacy (Camper). Rhetoric teachers across the nation are taking different approaches to meeting the goal of spreading multiculturalism. A Professor of Rhetoric and Composition, from the University of Texas at Austin, named Maxine Hairston takes an interesting approach to teaching writing. She describes this style of teaching in an article entitled "Diversity, Ideology, and Teaching Writing." Hairston is a strong believer in spreading multiculturalism in education. She believes in a teaching style that allows students to express themselves freely through writing. Through this exchange of ideas, values, opinions, traditions and personal experiences students recognize and relate to other cultures and backgrounds. Hairston states that "these students bring with them a kaleidoscope of experiences, values, dialects, and cultural backgrounds that we want to respond to positively, using every resource we can to help them adapt to the academic world and become active participants in it" (Hairston). Basically, what Hairston wants to do is develop a curriculum that is not based on text book drills, but rather on the experience s of the students in the class. However, there are many students like myself, that spent all of their High School years in an environment with very little to no cultural diversity. I grew up in a neighborhood where I was surrounded by people that all shared a similar nationality, ethnic background, and even social class.