Gender, race, and socioeconomic status are important factors in the experience students have with computers before they reach college classrooms, and these experiences establish the foundation for student and faculty attitudes toward computers. English teachers' attitudes toward computers can be considered in the context of the thinking process model analogous to the writing process: the degree to which teachers' attitudes have resulted from prethinking rather than rethinking of facts, fears, and intuitions reflects humanities writers' and teachers' ambivalent relationships with technology. Historically, computer assisted instruction in writing has ranged from early single-activity drill-and-practice software to the notion of "idea processors." There are now numerous applications for computer assisted instruction in literature: tutorials, word processing activities, data base courseware, creative writing software, and interactive fiction. Attitudes toward this changing technology need to be reexamined. Teachers' prethinking, thinking, and rethinking will be a major force in making the most of current technology and students' preconceptions. (HOD)