Writing Material: Readings from Plato to the Digital Age
Evelyn Tribble, Temple University
Anne Trubek, Oberlin College

ISBN-10: 0321077172
ISBN-13: 9780321077172

Publisher: Longman
Copyright: 2003
Format: Paper; 608 pp
Published: 12/17/2002

Suggested retail price: $72.00
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This reader considers how writing practices, old and new, affect the ways we write, read, think, and looks at how writing is influenced by historical events, cultural values, and technological advances.

This challenging reader examines transformations in reading and writing, from the oral traditions of the pre-print era to the hypertext of the digital age, to analyze the impact of these changes on our reading and writing practices. With its historical and cultural analysis perspectives, it has appeal for any instructor interested in having their students think critically about the changing nature of writing. The readings—which include ancient philosophy, personal essays, literary narratives, and accessible scholarly discussions all centered on the past, present, and future of writing—are intellectually ambitious and encourage active, critical reading. A pedagogical system of “Suggested Groupings” in the back of the text clusters the readings under specific themes that explore the complex relationships between the selections. Innovative writing assignments let students experiment with different communicative forms and media. Numerous visual images emphasize visual literacy.

  • Challenging readings model serious, contemplative, and innovative ways of thinking about writing; the selections range from contemporary articles by academics to historical selections from philosophers and novelists, including Peter Elbow, “The Shifting Relationships between Speech and Writing,” Walter Ong, “Writing Is a Technology that Restructures Thought,” Mark Twain, “My First Writing Machine,” Sven Birkerts, “Into the Electronic Millennium,” and Plato, Selections from Phaedrus.
  • “Suggested Groupings” pedagogical apparatus in the back of the text lists relevant reading selections under seven thematic headings including “Ways of Writing: From Tablets to Hypertext,” “The Spoken Word and the Written Word,” “Composing Identity,” “Cyberculture,” and “Transitional Moments in the History of Writing.” Extended writing projects in this section are sequenced from expressive writing tasks to more analytical ones that call for research outside the text.
  • Each reading is prefaced by a brief introduction providing biographical background on the author, contextual information about when and where the reading was first published, and questions to consider while reading.
  • Three types of prompts follow each selection: “Reading” questions that discuss the implications of the piece, “Linking” questions that make connections to other readings, and “Writing” suggestions that encourage students to work through the reading by experimenting with their own writing practices.
  • Inventive Writing Assignments ask students to experience reading and writing in a wide variety of modes, including analytic and expressive, and in a range of formats, from oral recitation to Web pages.
  • Includes visuals throughout the texts, both as “readings” on their own and as supplements to essays.
  • Designed for maximum teaching flexibility, the readings are organized alphabetically by author, and two appendices list the readings historically and rhetorically to provide alternative paths through the book.
  • Introductory section on reading critically provides students with strategies for reading and analyzing the text's rigorous essay selections.
  • Unique “History of Writing Technologies” visual timeline helps students follow the range of technologies discussed in the readings.
  • A Companion Web site includes Web links to additional readings, visuals, and audio pieces related to the topics in the book, and writing and researching projects that utilize the Web.



Preface for Instructors.


Introduction for Students.


The Readings.


Nicholson Baker, Deadline.


Dennis Baron, From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literary Technologies.


Naomi Baron, The Art and Science of Handwriting.


Sven Birkerts, Into the Electronic Millennium.


Jay David Bolter, The New Dialogue.


Jorge Luis Borges, The Library of Babel.


Frederick Douglass, From Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself


Paul Duguid and John Seeley Brown, The Social Life of Documents.


Elizabeth Eisenstein, From Some Features of Print Culture.


Peter Elbow, The Shifting Relationships between Speech and Writing.


Benjamin Franklin, From The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.


William Gibson, Johnny Mnemonic.


George Gissing, From New Grub Street


Adam Gopnik, Return of the Word.


E.D. Hirsch, You Can Always Look It Up - Or Can You?.


Homer, From Iliad.


Steven Johnson, Links.


George Landow, From Twenty Minutes into the Future: Or, How Are We Moving beyond the Book.


Wendy Lesser, The Conversion.


Toby Lester, New-Alphabet Disease?.


Malcolm X, Selection from Autobiography of Malcolm X.


Alberto Manguel, The Shape of the Book.


Herman Melville, Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street.


Melanie Stewart Millar, Filling the Void: Building the Hypermacho Man.


Janet H. Murray, From Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace.


Walter Ong, Writing Is A Technology that Restructures Thought.


John Opie and Charles Joseph Soulacrois, Three Images of Women and Reading (a collection of three paintings from the 18th and 19th century).


Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, The Work of the Encyclopedia in an Age of Electronic Reproduction.


Ian Parker, Absolute Powerpoint.


Plato, From Phaedrus.


Ray Porter, Reading is Bad for your Health.


Reading Screens: Word Processing and Web Site Screen Shots (four images of computer screens presented as visual artifacts)


Howard Rheingold, Look Who's Talking.


Paul Roberts, Virtual Grub Street: Sorrows of a Multimedia Hack.


James Sosnoski, Hyper-Readers and Their Reading Engines.


Mitchell Stephens, Complex Seeing.


Selections from Sundiata.


Cass Sunstein, Fragmentation and Cybercascades.


Johannes Trithemius, Selections from In Praise of Scribes (De Laude Scriptorum).


Sherry Turkle, Virtuality and Its Discontents.


Mark Twain, My First Writing Machine.


Suggested Groupings.


Appendix: Topical and Historical Table of Contents.


Credits.

For First-Year Composition - Reader


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