Generating New Theory for Online Writing Instruction (OWI)
Other helpful discussions of these theories as applied in f2f and OWI situations can be found in Murphy and Sherwood's The St. Martin's Sourcebook for Writing Tutors (1995), Hewett's "Theoretical Underpinnings of Online Writing Labs (OWLs)" (Anticipated publication in 2002), and McAndrew and Reigstad, 2001.
McAndrew and Reigstad (2001) list Reader Response Literary Theory, Talk and Writing, and Feminism, in addition to Social Constructionism and Collaborative Learning, as predominant theories for the writing conference, a particular form of writing instruction. Their overarching theory appears to be Feminism (2-7).
Readers may want to consider theoretical constructs from such fields as education, training and development (especially for computer technologies), and sociology that may be used to ground contemporary OWI. Although I do not detail them here, cognition-based and technology theories often are applied to online instruction and may be helpful to reconsidering our field's approaches to OWI. See, for example, applied theories of constructivism for educational technologies; student centered learning environments; new conceptions of cognitive theory (such as situated, sociocultural, ecological, everyday, and distributed); online communication and identity; theories of technology, and hypertext/hypermedia theories.