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Learning To Love the Code: HTML As a Tool in the Writing Classroom | Margaret Batschelet

Other Possibilities

Clearly, the examples I have given here do not exhaust the possibilities for overlap between HTML instruction and writing instruction. For example, there could be a variety of activities centering on HTML and revision. Even if students use authoring software, revision may well involve adjustments to the HTML code itself in order to achieve the effects that student authors are trying to achieve. Moreover, as Katherine Nowak Kellen points out,

By teaching HTML, I not only enhance my English objectives of teaching writing and point of view, I teach many critical thinking, strategic problem-solving, and editing skills. With holistic grading of essays, I have ceased to mark off points for small errors. But any misplaced keystroke in HTML messes up your file. Successful HTML requires close line editing [. . .] I get to teach close line editing without coming across as petty (124)

CSS can also be used to teach visual rhetoric and to reinforce clarity of design. The title attribute in hyperlinks allows writers to describe a link target even for inline links, allowing students to develop brief, effective, audience-centered link descriptions. Form elements can become the basis for discussions of interactivity; structural layout might lead to discussions of organization. The possibilities are there, and I look forward to hearing what HTML-based activities others have been able to devise.

Citation Format: Batschelet, Margaret. "Learning To Love the Code: HTML As a Tool in the Writing Classroom." The Writing Instructor. 2004. http://www.writinginstructor.org/files/batschelet/ (Date Accessed).
Review Process: Margaret Batschelet's hypertext was accepted for publication following blind, peer review.