The act of writing is organic and generative. Ironically, this biological approach to writing is strengthened by digital environments that allow students and teachers to cultivate better compositions. Composing is a demonstration of thinking, and in any hybrid classroom, students should be able to a) see this thinking modeled and b) practice it themselves. Digital environments maximize the potential for organic writing in three distinct ways: they rebuild “audience,” expose the organic layers of a composition, and invite outside participation in key stages along the way.
Academic composition involves a number of connected cognitive skills: reading, interpretation, argument, research, organization, and vocabulary. The best composition instruction isolates these skills and teaches writing as a method of engaging academic material rather than simply an activity that results in an essay. Organic writing develops in non-linear clusters, like the way organisms develop. Calling writing “organic” is not solely poetic; it’s a concept that permits a clearer view into the pulpy, fleshy process of giving linguistic, visual, and electronic architecture to our ideas.