Kairos Interactive

Response, Replies, and Commentary

Featuring: 

BackTalk Response Forum 
C&W '98 Conference Abstracts 

Reader and author/presentor interaction may appear rare--this forum makes it a bit more common. Selected conference abstracts are posted to this forum for reader and author interaction. Readers are encouraged to post answers to Kairos questions and their own questions, responses, suggestions, and comments. Authors are sent the responses, having agreed to post replies and follow-ups. Reader and author communications are also available for response, creating many possible levels of discussion. 

Hosts Michael Day (Host for C&W 99) and Nick Carbone (Kairos Editor and Longtime Computers and Writing Conference Attendee) lead an interactive response to C&W '98 and brainstorming for C&W '99. Special guests include past C&W hosts: Anthony Rue ('98),  Judi Kirkpatrick ('97), and Eric Crump  ('94). Hosts, special guests, readers, and conference attendees participated in this Lingua MOO session, discussing everything from Keynote Speakers to possible dinner musical entertainment, to wine tasting.

KMTA is an interactive series featuring the authors of Kairos webtexts hosted and coordinated in association with the journal's electronic partner, LinguaMOO.  

KMTA and The Classroom Spotlight have something in common, Robert Kendall's class. Featured as a Classroom Spotlight in this issue, Kendall, his students, and readers participated in a prepublication KMTA. Focusing on hypertext, the discussion ranges from literary acceptable, definitions, the reader's value, and the connection between hypertext and technology.  

Robert Kendall's class Hypertext Poetry and Fiction takes place entirely on the Web, focusing on both the reading and writing of hypertext in order to impart a well-rounded knowledge of the genre. Many of his students went on to publish hypertext fiction and poetry; some even entered his class with published hypertext. Students' hypertexts and thoughts mingle with Kendall's views and knowledge of hypertext, giving a well rounded look at the class and hypertext fiction in general. This Spotlight is also the featured KMTA.

Carl Whithaus's essay "Hypertext Conceals Itself, It Announces Itself": Rhetoric and Collaborative Writing in the Electronic Classroom" is based on two of his courses: English 95 taught in a developmental classroom for students who failed to meet the basic writing competency needed for college-level work, and his Cybercomp class, a standard fist year English course. Whithaus illustrates the value of hypertext in college classrooms with not only his knowledge and teaching but also with students' words.