A break in the transaction: Examining students’ responses to digital texts

Students of the millennial generation are often attributed with a willingness to embrace new electronically based forms of reading and writing, something they have become used to in lives circumscribed by technology [Costanzo (1994); Tapscott, Donald. (1998). Growing up digital: The rise of the net generation. New York: McGraw-Hill; Bolter (1992)]. However, with few exceptions (see [Newbold, W. Webster. (1999). Transactional writing instruction on theWorldWideWeb. Kairos. Retrieved from (); Johnson-Eilola, 1992]), these assumptions are not based upon studies that explore students’ experiences reading digital narratives [Yellowlees Douglas, Jane. (2004). The end of books or books without end? Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press]. This study of students in a university literature course fills that gap by focusing upon the students’ own words in their reactions to and experiences of digital narratives, revealing the crucial disjuncture students experience when moving from print to digital narratives. Using Rosenblatt's theory of the transactional relationship between reader and text, this study explores the roots of that disjuncture and the pedagogical implications that arise when instructors incorporate digital texts into composition classrooms.