In a recent posting on the Writing Across the Curriculum e-mail list, a professor expressed serious concerns that course management software such as Blackboard may discourage effective use of writing because "it privileges quick and short answers," it "discourages full discourse," and the process of writing may get lost as students submit only final papers (McQueeney).

According to Bill Yarborough, the Director of Academic Computing who was instrumental in bringing Blackboard to PC, the automatic grading and recording of scores for multiple choice and true/false quizzes or tests is a strength of Blackboard. Essay questions, although easy to write on Blackboard, have to be graded the old-fashioned way.

Some instructors, on the other hand, welcome online discussion as a way to give students more writing practice: "Our students don't do enough writing," says Justin Brent, as one reason for using online discussion groups in Composition and World Literature classes. While new to the English Department this year, Brent is a veteran of online composition. Although many professors use the Discussion Board feature of Blackboard for out-of-class activity, Brent divides his class into five-person groups that work together once a week during class in the computer lab. He finds that small-group rather than class-wide online discussion is best: "My experience with class-wide online discussion is that there are just too many messages coming all at once and so conversation is simply impossible."

He gives each group a different question about the passage of literature assigned for that day. "A lot of students don't talk in class," he says, and often those quiet students find a voice in online discussion groups. "Good-humored collaboration usually prevails," says Brent, who can also participate in any group's discussion. He awards the group with the best discussion for the day five extra points on their last quiz.

Some of his students echo his viewpoint: "I don't like to talk in class much," one says. "I feel more comfortable discussing online instead of in front of the whole class." Brent makes sure his students do speak in class, however, by selecting one from each group of five to share with the class the consensus of their online discussion. Another student from Brent's class adds that the online discussion group "helps you think of ideas in general. It gets you thinking about the work [we are reading]. You don't get much chance in a normal class to talk over your ideas. This [online discussion] gives you a chance."

"I don't like computers" is a recurring comment from students in his classes who are not enthusiastic about Blackboard. Yet one of these computer-phobes does concede that the online discussion group "helps me understand the passage." Another, however, remains unconvinced of the value of online discussion: "I would much rather have a class discussion not on the computer."

One student who regularly spends time on computers and enjoys instant messaging with friends finds the Blackboard discussions a bit slow, "not like IMing." Brent purposely uses the slower Discussion Board because he worries that the Virtual Classroom tool, which is similar to instant messaging, may get "out of control." He plans to experiment with the Virtual Classroom later but finds that students take more time to shape their answers on the Discussion Board.

Writing process can work on Blackboard. To put process into his assignments, Brent has students bring an early draft of a paper, read a classmate's paper, and e-mail a response to the writer that addresses a series of questions. While some students do not find the exercise helpful, others do. Some bring their printed peer reviews with them to the Writing Center to introduce their main concern for the conference: "This student thought my thesis wasn't argumentative enough. Can we work on that?" Or "My peer reviewer said my paper was too general. I need to work on being more specific."

"Electronic discourse is taking students out of their comfort zones and encouraging new ways of learning and processing information," notes Scott Moore, now in his second Blackboard class. Brent, clearly comfortable with the computer environment, would argue that Blackboard "promotes in-class writing in a way that writing with pen and paper no longer can."

McQueeney, Pat. "A Return to WAC and DL." Online posting. 29 Nov 2001. Writing Across
the Curriculum. 30 Nov 2001 <WAC-L@listserv.uiuc.edu>.