The Daedalus Integrated Writing Environment (DIWE) is an award-winning software program presently being used by the award-winning English department (WCU's Academic Excellence Award 1997-98). The software is an "integrated package of writing/thinking tools designed with the classroom in mind" (www.daedalus.com), based on components of classical rhetoric. WCU's Director of Freshman Composition, Dr. Elizabeth Addison, has great confidence in Daedalus' methodology: "Students like it. This software pushes students to say more, to go deeper. It's very interactive." Because students can send papers to each other and to their professor, and because student papers can be displayed on an over-head screen in an electronic classroom, student writing and the writing process becomes more public. In this way, Daedalus facilitates easier, more open communication-- "real communication"--not just academic exersizes exchanged in manilla folders between a student and the teacher. "This is writing, not word processing that we're teaching," Addison emphasizes. The software program is comprised of a series of prompts or "modules" guiding the student through the stages and complexities of the writing process: INVENT: used to generate text, to take the student deeper into the subjectby prompting new ideas, examples, insights. WRITE: simple word processing to write and revise drafts. RESPOND: questions to prompt peer response and analysis of drafts and other documents. (Prompts can be individualized to suit the assignment.) INTERCHANGE: enables synchonous or "real-time" discussion for the class about a text.

MAIL: acts as a "central switchboard" for class communications; an internal e-mail system for the class (with date, time, receipts for each exchange.) BIBLIOCITE: organizes bibliographical data and puts it into the correct format (MLA, APA, etc.) Addison praises the "Invent" and "Interchange" modules in particular because they force students to think through their ideas in depth and also to articulate their thoughts openly and effectively with each other. She notes that these features make the program especially applicable to other disciplines, to anyone who wants to help students write. The campus-wide scale upon which Daedalus is being used at WCU is different and important: Daedalus has never had such a huge implementation. The Office of Continuuing Education and Summer School initally bought the Daedalus site license in 1995 as the best way to deal with The Academic Success Program, because the software offered students a more intensive and complete immersion in communication. In the fall semester of 1996, the English Department began teaching its freshman composition courses using Daedalus once every two weeks in the campus' two electronic classrooms. Now there are six electronic classrooms on campus (Belk, Killian, Coulter, Stillwell, and 2 in Forsythe), and in Fall 1997 and Spring 1998, every Freshman Composition class had a class meeting at least once a week in an electronic classroom. The English Department is ready and eager to take flight with the incoming freshmen class this fall. For more information about Daedalus or how it might be of use in class, see www.daedalus.com and www.wcu.edu/as/english (in particular, Mary Adams' Power Point presentation of Teaching Tips for Using Daedalus).