Expanding "Text" (Selfe "Students Who Teach Us")

In “Students Who Teach Us,” Cynthia L. Selfe issues a challenge to English teachers to expand their idea of composition so that it includes the new communication methods that students are using (54).  I strongly agree that print literacy is no longer the dominant form of communication, and even electronic forms that resemble print documents are becoming less important.  Maybe our society just needs to take some Ritalin, but I think it goes beyond failure to focus on words.  We have been exposed to communicating through images, animations, sounds, and interactions, and now text doesn’t seem to convey as much meaning as it used to.

By “text,” I am referring to alphabetical language, but Selfe seems to be using a different definition when she talks about “new media texts” (49).  She doesn’t really provide a definition of text in this article, so I’m not sure quite how expansive she intends the term to be.  Perhaps she doesn’t want to limit the term by providing a definition, since Selfe doesn’t know what new forms will appear in the near future that will need to be included under “text.”  For my writing, I would like to at least include those communication tools that involve sound, animation, and interactivity under the heading “text.”  If I can at least expand the term text that far, then I can relate this article to a paper I wrote last semester on webcomics, anime music videos (AMVs), and indie games.

Webcomics, AMVs, and indie games are relatively new creative forms that are dependent on technology and the Internet.  They interest me because, although they use very different means of communication, they attract similar audiences and seem to be fulfilling similar roles.  Through Selfe’s article, I can view these three creative forms as a new type of literacy.  Like David Damon, people who create these forms may not be fluent in print literacy, but they are still capable of communicating, expressing, and teaching through alternative means.  Furthermore, these methods of communication are more relevant to many peoples’ lives than print literacy is.

As a composition instructor, I don’t quite know what to make of this information.  While a unit on AMVs would be fun, our students are probably still too indoctrinated into print culture to embrace such a project.  Also, I don’t think we could possibly teach them enough skills to make them effective in communicating in a fraction of the new types of literacy that are emerging.  However, I still like the idea of analyzing new forms that have emerged through which people express themselves so that we can continually expand our notion of text and composing.