Reading Rhythm Science and thinking about the meaning of “composition” in a very different light. Obviously we can think about musical compositions, material compositions; composition is the bringing together of parts that exist in some prior state. I suppose that in rhet/comp the parts are supposed to be pre-existing thoughts in the writer (though that runs counter to the notion of composition as invention) and, of course, the integration of research materials.

But in reading Paul D Miller/DJ Spooky, I am reminded of Deleuze and Guattari’s reflection on the refrain in ATP and just the flow of repetition/iteration as it runs through Derrida. So the DJ as composer. We dispense with the notion of the “original” and see instead each composition as an iteration.

Miller writes, “Writing may be a little retro, but that’s cool, too. That’s why people still wear bell-bottom jeans. You can squeeze something out of the past and make it become new…At the end of the day, I write because I want to communicate with fellow human beings and forestall subjective implosion.”

So look five or so years ahead, where we can imagine accessible technology in the computer classroom for any student to compose a multimedia piece as simply as they put together a written essay now–sampling video, music, text: creating a space with which we interact as readers/users/teachers.

Clearly we shall need to truly abandon our tired out notions of authorship and originality that underwrite our evaluation of student writing. We shall need to rethink our ideas about what learning might be and how it might be demonstrated.