A 1969 court order in Charlotte spurred busing plans throughout the country. Crew said he got all the information he needed for his paper from online law journals and archives of The Charlotte Observer. Suzanne Cadwell, the graduate student teaching the group of freshman English students who participated in the focus group that Anderson attended, said the feature she most liked was the ability to insert her comments on a paper via the computer. Instead of red pen marks in the margins, students look for a yellowish comment highlight that appears over the sentences or words in question. Click on the highlighted area, and the instructor's comments appear.
Students use the same feature when reading and critiquing their classmates' papers.
Reviewer's initials appear with their comments so that the student receiving criticism can know where it's coming from. Cadwell said the e-mail feature of the laptops also allows students to continue the conversation in class outside of the classroom. With e-mail from their laptops, the conversation between students can resume anytime of the night or day. Scholarly approach Bill Cahoon, a student in Cadwell's class, said being able to show his work to other students helped him improve his papers in ways he would never have thought of on his own. Another aspect of writing that students must understand is that it is a public act that requires getting feedback from a target audience.