My assignment three is entitled, “Hypertext Technology and the Changing Face of Writing Pedagogy”. This assignment called for a question about writing pedagogy. I read many journal articles while doing assignment 2 and came across several that dealt with technology in the classroom. I chose this as my question and discovered that I needed to narrow it down quite a bit more. After much research I narrow the question down to “How does the use of hypertext technology in the classroom effect current writing pedagogy?”

            The requirements for this assignment were to create and research a question using only peer reviewed scholarly journals. After researching the question and presenting the information that I found, the assignment required that I develop some more questions that I still have and also to identify possible solutions for the question I posed. I then had to add something new to the conversation and reflect on my methods of inquiry. I feel that I met all of these requirements. I developed a “narrowly focused and researchable” question, which was your requirement for a good question. My question evolved over time while I was conducting my research. This shows a strong inquiry process because I knew that I needed to conduct more research in order to formulate a good question. The question was also one of personal interest, because so much of my schooling has revolved around technology and I feel that it is a powerful tool. I researched a wide variety of voices in the subject area. I was hard pressed to find anyone who was vocally against using hypertext in the classroom, it seemed like people either knew about hypertext and its applications or they did not. I did find articles on the drawbacks of computer technology in general and I felt that these would also be drawbacks to the use of hypertext in the classroom. I ended up with 13 different works cited, and I had to read through a whole lot more than that before I found the sources that were useful for me and that I would be able to cite in my paper. After all of my research had been done and presented, I did include several questions for further study. Hypertext could easily keep me going for the next decade. I had a difficult time with the solutions section, because it was more a matter of applications for hypertext than actually solutions to a problem. My new contribution to the question was the idea of using hypertext as a way to promote voice in children’s writing. Too often children lose their voices in school because the teacher expects a particular format. Hypertext allows a greatly variety in writing approaches and allows children to get their ideas down in the way that they want to and feel best suits their needs, rather than in a dry preformatted essay specified by the teacher. The self analysis section was very interesting and I believe that I did a good job delving into my process of inquiry. Stephanie Harvey’s book was very useful and I did use several of her suggestions when researching my paper. I did dig deep when analyzing my research and inquiry habits.

            Over the course of this semester my writing improved immensely, but more importantly, I gained exposure to a wide variety of voices and sources in the writing and educational fields. I will be moving into my Master’s program in two weeks and before this semester I really had no idea where to begin developing a question for my thesis. I now have some exciting new questions and areas of research that I have an interest in. I think that hypertext is a new and growing field in need of much more discussion. We are just touching the tip of the iceberg. I feel that this assignment demonstrates my growth over the semester because with each revision I was able to synthesize more of my own ideas into the research of others. The original draft I submitted had little personal reflection; the final draft is full of personal notes and new questions. I was able to do this as my knowledge base in writing pedagogy increased due to the amount of reading that I have been doing for this class. When I first began this term, I knew very little about the teaching of writing and thought I felt that I had some fairly strong ideas on how I personally would teach the subject, I did not know if these ideas were rooted in research or just my gut instinct. What I found out was that as I read more and more, I was able to connect the readings to my personal experiences and beliefs much easier, which resulted in a far better draft of Assignment 3. I also experimented with hypertext on my own and for other classes during this semester after first studying it for Assignment 3. My own experience developing a hypertext helped me to form new questions and reflections and incorporate them into my final draft of Assignment 3. I would never have expanded my horizons and attempted my own hypertext document if it was not for exploring peer reviewed journals in this class.

            Finally, I believe that “Hypertext Technology and the Changing Face of Writing Pedagogy” reflects my success as a college level writer because it demonstrates my use of MLA format and citations as well as my ability to proofread and polish my work. I realize that my weak spot is grammar and I have been trying all semester to remedy this. I believe that in my final polishing of this paper my grammar has improved. If not my grammar, than at least my voice, another of my struggles throughout this term. I read the paper out loud to myself and reworded several sentences that did not sound right to me. All in all I feel that this paper meets all of the requirements for this assignment and is certainly up to the standards of college level writing.