Writing the Information Superhighway is the first text intended for composition courses that shows students how to read and write using the modes and resources available on the Internet. The text is designed to acquaint students with the wide variety of information available via computer networks, with the tools for accessing that information, with the means for searching and selecting, as well as with the traditional ways of putting that information to use in serving the writer's purpose and in addressing the writer's audience.
The book focuses on activities that predominate in cyberspace — manipulating text, communicating one on one, communicating in groups, finding and using resources, and constructing texts online. The overall movement of the book involves students and teachers in an exploration of academic literacies and invites them to consider how those literacies change as the technology of the classroom changes and students begin working online. Students are encouraged to use online resources and are involved in increasingly complex opportunities to write about what they are learning as they develop cyber-literacy.
The book employs numerous writing to learn, narrative, analysis, and argumentation writing projects that lead students through the various stages of the writing process — invention, drafting, peer editing, and electronic publication. The writing projects, embedded into a collaborative learning context, help students learn together not only about the tools of the Internet and how to use those tools as writers, but also as a way to build a learning community, to develop criteria for successful writing (both in traditional and electronic modes), and to explore the social, political, legal, and economic issues particular to Cyberspace. A chapter on writing in the disciplines offers suggestions and activities for using the Internet to write across the curriculum.
