Considering all this has led me to another line of inquiry, however: page count. For ENG 1020 the page count requirement is 32, and I'm not sure yet, but I think I've heard the page count requirement for the intermediate comp classes (including Intro to Poetry, which I've got this summer) is 36 pages. That makes projects like the “Twitter essay” seem relatively worthless in comparison to the bulky 10 page research paper; the Twitter essay just can't cut it. Despite all the hard-thinking about abstract concepts and rhetorical choices, as well as the revision, students might put into a Twitter essay, we still value students using as many words as they can to develop ideas, not making sure all of those words are gold. A Twitter essay does not even make a drop in the bucket when we're counting to 8,000 words. So do we need to reconsider the value of words, pages, language, and what we want students to do with them? Do we need to rethink what we want to emphasize about how we use discourse, its power, and its flexibility? Or should the Twitter essay just remain a fun side-activity, and a way to creatively introduce ideas like rhetorical choice and summary? I think I might finally create an account and start off with the latter, but who knows what the future holds in terms of considering the former.