Dr. Harrington’s Blog

Dennis Baron is an English professor at the U of Illinois who’s written extensively about language history and technology/literacy connections.  This piece looks at the ways in which technologies affect writing in very hands-on ways–the technologies available to us change the practices we have as writers.  In this piece, Baron looks at what it takes to get new literacy technologies to become popular and embedded in culture.  Hs summarizes his argument in The Stages of Literacy Technologies and then moves into examples.

Think back on Brandt’s notion of literacy “piling up” when he discusses the ways new technologies affect older technologies.   Baron sums up his own purpose:

My contention in this essay is a modest one: the computer is simply the latest step in a long line of writing technologies. In many ways its development parallels that of the pencil — hence my title — though the computer seems more complex and is undoubtedly more expensive. The authenticity of pencil writing is still frequently questioned: we prefer that signatures and other permanent or validating documents be in ink. While I’m not aware that anyone actually opposed the use of pencils when they began to be used for writing, other literacy technologies, including writing itself, were initially met with suspicion as well as enthusiasm.

Baron looks at the relationship between humanists (remember, Selfe used that term) and technology, reprising an argument of interest to Selfe in looking at well-known humanists who have rejected technology.  He offers a great tour of Thoreau and the pencil, arguing that the history of the pencil shows us much about the history of literacy.

In The Technology of Writing, Baron looks at writing itself as a technology that spread through the world.  He ends up looking at What Writing Does Differently, looking at the way a new technology “goes My contention in this essay is a modest one: the computer is simply the latest step in a long line of writing technologies. In many ways its development parallels that of the pencil — hence my title — though the computer seems more complex and is undoubtedly more expensive. The authenticity of pencil writing is still frequently questioned: we prefer that signatures and other permanent or validating documents be in ink. While I’m not aware that anyone actually opposed the use of pencils when they began to be used for writing, other literacy technologies, including writing itself, were initially met with suspicion as well as enthusiasm..”

You may be surprised by Baron’s next section, in which you learn that the pencil was not invented as a writing tool, at least not a tool for writing down words. it was used for marking measuring points, not for words.  But then it was adapted and the new uses for this technology overshadowed the old.

Baron looks at the way the telephone affected the communication, and then at the ways computers affected patterns of literacy.  He ends with a section on fraud and issues of trust with texts.
The final section (Conclusion) recapitulates his argument.  By the time you get through here, you should have a good sense of his argument.  He’s not interested in predicting the effects of computers on literacy, but rather in looking to history to see what we can learn about what kinds of changes can be spurred by a technology and what it takes to make a technology invisible.

Look to the concluding portion of this piece to raise some questions we might pursue.  You should be able to identify some good points of discussion, and some questions we might want the course to answer, in here.  Have fun with this one.