Synthesis, meaning to combine disparate information that together form a new composition, is a necessary skill in academic writing and self-directed learning that can be cultivated through the use Google Drive. Google Drive is excellent for teaching students on how to write synthesized documents in a group environment. While writing in a group document, students quickly learn the need to contribute new ideas (when they see that others already have provided common ideas), negotiate content with others (allowing others to add to, rewrite, or eliminate parts of their writing for coherence and clarity), as well as develop the courage to revise and edit other people's writing (when students spot problems or conflicted ideas that need to be modified to generate a synthesized text). The result of a collaborative writing exercise is a co-authored, new composition that often provides interesting ideas that warrant further research exploration, and in turn allow self-directed learners to generate more learning opportunities for themselves. Students learn writing and content together by working as co-authors of a synthesized text.

To get started with Google Drive, watch this comprehensive Google Drive video tutorial by Anson Alexander (feel free to show your students this video as well):

Create a Google Drive Account Here:

Writing rhetorically effective texts requires the writer to recognize the audience for writing, as the audience affects the writer's purpose, style, and use of appropriate rhetorical appeals and claims. Contemporary audiences, whether in their personal or business lives, predominantly use social media as their primary modes for communication. In order to prepare students for digital communication in their future work environments, which are already social media based, it is in the educators' best interest to allow students to engage in social media; the use of social media prepares students to recognize, analyze, and understand how to use contemporary rhetoric in the digital sphere, where most communication occurs.

Twitter, a social media tool, is particularly useful for helping students engage with a variety of audiences with different rhetorical purposes. The rhetoric of Twitter is unique due to its composition: The simultaneous personal and impersonal nature of Twitter allows anyone to generate unfiltered or topic relevant texts (tweets), each limited to 140 characters or less. This forces the Twitter user to reconsider and adjust his/her rhetorical style; the short text constraint of tweets requires users to produce concise and clear messages to avoid being misunderstood by their intended audience. In order to maintain followers, Twitter users must use the type of language that the followers (intended audience) would understand, as the followers have the right to "unfollow" an account that does not produce interesting or relevant tweets to the followers' interests. The popularity of a Twitter account is partly determined by the type of information (and the centrality of that information) that the account provides. Thus, a Twitter user must determine the theme(s) or the main purpose of their Twitter account before tweeting (or otherwise risk alienating their followers). With a purpose in mind, the Twitter user calculates the words, structure, and style of their tweets so to maintain or attract new followers. Twitter provides a rich field of digital rhetoric that students can encounter and interact with as training for concise and persuasion based digital writing, which is a skill highly sought by today's employers. It is precisely for these reasons that Twitter can be used to teach digital rhetoric and composition, as well as encourage students to be self-directed learners as they explore the complex world of #hashtags (current topics on Twitter).

I particularly like David A. Cox's Twitter Tutorial for Beginners video that breaks down and explains the purpose of each element of Twitter. Get started with Twitter by watching the video below (which can be shown to your students):

Create a Twitter Account Today:

Whether or not you have computers in your classroom, both Google Drive and Twitter can be used in class. Allow students to use their smartphones to access Google Drive and Twitter in class; there are applications for both programs available for download on iPhone or Droid. Help students create rhetorically compelling compositions in a group environment, and display students' new compositions with the class projector for presentation purposes. This kind of learning environment helps students become self-directed learners, and proud co-authors of published works (students can self-publish their writing through Google Drive and Twitter).

Educators, I would love to hear about your experiences and methods for using Google Drive and Twitter for teaching rhetoric and composition (or any other discipline). Feel free to contact me below:
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