Why Wix?
Continuity & Change
Although using a website builder to remediate student writing, there is less of a learning curve that you may think. Since Wix offers well-designed templates and incorporates those with drag-and-drop customization, neither you nor the students need to know coding (although they can embed html code) in order to create beautiful websites. Students can focus on the rhetorical challenges of remediation in a digital space rather than spending time learning a new language on top of a new platform.
Participatory Composition
Wix certainly has individualized composing capabilities and can create personalized websites; however, it is also a powerful resource for building a community of writers within the classroom and allowing for multiple voices. Students can share blog posts, offer comments, design together, and develop team web projects.
In a 2010, special edition of Computer and Composition, guest editors Michael Day, Randall McClure, and Mike Palmquist, introduce a new pedagogical lens, “Composition 2.0, a movement defined by its iterative, collaborative, and participatory approach to composing and working with information” (2).
Composition 2.0
J. Elizabeth Clark assesses these changes in composition and poses the Digital Imperative. Clark suggests that the composition classroom should “immerse students in analyzing digital media, in exploring the world beyond the classroom, in crafting digital personae, and in creating new and emerging definitions of civic literacy” (28).
The Digital Imperative
Originally used for a required e-portfolio, I found that the more my students paid attention to concepts of digital design and remediation, the more that they took away from my class. No matter what path they take, students will be designing some kind of web communication in the future. I use website builders in my class for students to practice web communication , remediation, and composition for real audiences.
Using Website Builders
