The internet-based composition classroom: A study in pedagogy

The authors describe a pedagogical experiment conducted in Spring 1994, in which they paired their composition classes, shared syllabi, and had their students communicate synchronously (on Diversity University MOO) and asynchronously (using an e-mail list) over the Internet. The authors compared student attitudes about writing and student performance as writers with a control class, also taught by one of the authors. Students in the experimental classes contributed to their journals more frequently, reported a greater increase in their enjoyment of writing, and demonstrated greater improvement on initial and final timed writing samples as compared with the control class. These results reveal the effectiveness of the Internet-based classroom design for the teaching of writing, in accordance with the view that writing involves an individual's participation in a discourse community.