Implications
The collaborative Final Web Project assembled by the students of the Digital Narratives course is designed to be an example of integrating new digital writing technologies with established critical practices in English studies. It is a pedagogical approach in a traditional discipline that consciously and thoughtfully draws on its contemporary media context.
In the most ideal sense, it might offer an example of how the discipline can move toward assuming the sort of "cognitive jurisdiction of the communications revolution" that Gregory Ulmer (1989, p. viii) described. At the very least, it is intended to demonstrate three forms of exchange — three "conversations" — that can contribute toward this end. First of all, it is an exchange between an English teacher and digital tools: English teachers who are conversant with digital technology can better recognize the changing face of literacy and are able to convey to students that traditional conceptions of literacy and new conceptions of "media literacy" are not mutually exclusive. Second, it is an exchange between the technological and the literary. This relationship is symbiotic and mutually enhancing — after all, as literary production becomes more technical, there is no reason why it should become less literary. Finally, the project is a conversation between students. The Web is a communal and participatory medium. Its application in academic settings should reflect this quality. It is, above all, an open-ended conversation.