AN ELECTRONIC DISCUSSION LIST IN AN UNDERGRADUATE WRITING COURSE

A required listserv, borders@uci.edu, electronically enhances composition instruction for seven combined classes in an undergraduate course on Argument and Research at the University of California at Irvine. E-mail is a convenience for these students, easing access to research information in the library and to their instructors and peers. Even more importantly, the listserv's electronic community provides a forum where students and instructors can model, rehearse, test the limits of, exchange, and reshape academic arguments. These seven instructors reflect in this paper on the objectives of their innovative approach and its implications For teaching and learning-particularly students' resistance to an inevitable electronic relocation of the teacher in cyberspace. They also offer some practical suggestions based on their experiences.