Introduction

Welcome to the first issue of Lore, an online journal sponsored by the Rhetoric and Writing Studies department at San Diego State University. Our first issue features some very interesting work by writers who focus on several different issues.

Mike Palmquist's article is entitled "Clashing Technologies: The legacy of 19th Century Writing Instruction Meets the 21st Century Writing Classroom". Palmquist's article discusses how technology is affecting the teaching of writing, and explores differences between traditional and computer-supported writing classrooms. Palmquist also looks at the growing importance of Web-based instructional resources, course management systems, and Web/database integration tools. He discusses how these make possible a new range of teaching and learning possibilities.

Jane Hindman's article "Contexts and Criteria for Evaluating Student Writing"
analyzes the activities and discussions that often occur during the first couple of weeks of teacher training courses. Since evaluating student writing is so crucial to our jobs, as well as so time-consuming and so difficult to learn, she wanted to complicate the concept of evaluation - that is, to take it seriously. In her paper she explains and theorizes that process.

Jennifer Young's "Using 'Jeopardy' in Classroom Instruction" describes a game she created during her first semester teaching RWS 100. The game was inspired by the recent game show craze on television and is a mix of “Jeopardy,” the Win Ben Stein’s Money show on Comedy Central, and “Family Feud.” Its purpose is to test the students’ knowledge on pertinent information in the class.

Chris Werry's paper is entitled "The Work Of Education in the Age of E-College & Campus Pipeline". It provides a broad overview of some models of online education that have been developed by commercial and academic institutions. The paper examines some of the rhetorical strategies that have been used to talk about online education by commercial groups, and discusses some of the hopes and fears that have been associated with online instruction by academics, administrators and businesspeople. Werry outlines some of the main players and positions in debates about online education, and suggests some strategies that we in the academic community might consider exploring.

Jane Robinett's "Cyberethics: Back to the Future" grew out two classes she taught at Polytechnic University in Brooklyn: one in computers and ethics and a second in cyberpunk science fiction. Questions that her engineering students raised in both classes and in discussions with a number of American and Latin American colleagues whose field is the philosophy of technology encouraged her to explore the ways in which computers were shaping new kinds of realities and what the ethical implications and problems of those realities might be.

In our poetry section we have showcased the work of two poets who teach at SDSU. We have Matt Costello's "Space" and "The Palms". We also have three pieces by Celia Sigmon: "Painted Ladies", "Cathexis" and "Stitch"

If you are interested in submitting work to Lore, please send email to lore@lists.sdsu.edu.