'Obsessive compulsive font disorder': the challenge of supporting pupils writing with the computer

Abstract

Writing with the computer provokes and enables pupils to engage with aspects of multimodal design [Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures, Routledge, London, 2000]. At the same time the traditional stages of the writing process become much more fluid and integrated [Aust. J. Language Literacy 17(3) (1994) 183]. These consequences of technology are not recognised within the curriculum, the assessment system or current models of teaching the writing process in the UK. Using examples from current classroom research this paper argues that the significance of pupils uses of the available designs of digital experience [Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures, Routledge, London, 2000] is undervalued. Furthermore it suggests that this undervaluing leaves teachers without well-developed pedagogic models of literacy when computers are involved.