This dissertation was developed in response to a long-standing imperative for teachers and scholars of writing: the need to meet students where they are (technologically) and keep up with emerging writing technologies. Said differently, when an emerging writing technology comes on the scene, teachers of writing tend to develop theoretical and pedagogical approaches for students' use of that technology in the writing classroom. While the imperative to keep up is well-meaning, the attempt can feel futile or, at the very least, pedagogically frustrating. This frustration is often fueled by permanent innovation, or when a culture’s technological innovation outpaces its ability to adapt to and for those technologies. To address the ever-evolving difficulties inherent within the relationship between writing, developing technologies, and teaching writing, this dissertation offers the field of Composition a path through the futility and frustration represented by keeping up. I call this intervention Composition’s “Technological Boneyard,” or more simply, “the boneyard.” The boneyard is first and foremost a metaphor, an imagined dumping ground that contains the obsolete, trashed, and forgotten technologies of writing that Composition has used and discarded in its move toward its raison d'être: the study and teaching of writing. Brimming with obsolete and discarded technologies of writing—like the first personal computers, floppy and hard disks, keyboards, and early mobile devices—the boneyard allows Composition to (re)investigate its technological and techno-pedagogical history, as well as its current relationships with developing technologies and writing. Through two qualitative case studies, this dissertation investigates the technologies in the boneyard and considers how abandoned, obsolete, and forgotten writing tools have shaped (and continue to shape) the teaching of writing in higher education, as well as Composition’s own history.

This dissertation examines the “remembering-forgetting dialectic,” or a common assumption that remembering and forgetting are antithetical acts with opposing values in a public (Blair et al 18). More specifically, it examines this dialectic within the context of settler colonialism, which other scholars have noted is marked by the pervasive “forgetting” (Shotwell 37) and “erasure” (Stuckey 232) of the violent, genocidal acts that enabled a settler-colonial nation to develop. To examine this dialectic’s appearance and high stakes in that “forgetting” epistemic context, I analyzed US public memory of the Frontier, a historic space that references the United States’ settler-colonial westward expansion and a symbolic space that has lasting ties to hegemonic constructions of American civic identity. To do so, I ask, What does public memory of the Frontier suggest about the remembering-forgetting dialectic? To address this research aim, I analyzed three sites that engage in Frontier memory work: (1) the Foy Proctor Historical Park, an outdoor exhibit focused on ranching history at the National Ranching Heritage Center in Lubbock, Texas; (2) Remembering Our Indian School Days: The Boarding School Experience, an exhibit at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona that documents the experiences of American Indian students who attended off-reservation boarding schools; and (3) The Oregon Trail, a videogame that simulates a mid-nineteenth century pioneer’s journey across the Frontier. In my analysis, I identified the site’s public memory narrative, discussed how the site rhetorically builds that narrative, and considered the site’s efforts to encourage visitors to identify with the portrayed history. My results show that: (1) the Foy Proctor Historical Park perpetuates a settler-colonial narrative through its rhetorical invention of a Frontier landscape, (2) Remembering Our Indian School Days challenges the “forgetting” and “erasure” of settler-colonial memory through extensive documentation efforts, and (3) The Oregon Trail reproduces an interactive, settler-colonial narrative by positioning players into role-playing as pioneers. I ultimately argue common assumptions about the functionality of remembering and forgetting in a public do not account for the epistemic complexity shown within these sites; the remembering-forgetting dialectic thus remains a significant topic in public memory studies.