The new "Computers and Writing" course implemented by the division of rhetoric and composition at the University of Texas at Austin is an elective second-year writing course that satisfies the university's requirement for writing component courses. In this course, instructors and students generate and apply rhetorical terminology and strategies appropriate to the electronic arena, and analyze how changes in technology are represented in the popular discourse and media. Course texts include artifacts and imagery, popular narratives--the movie "Terminator 2" won out over a host of others--public media discourse, advertising, fiction, academic analysis, and a hypertext textbook called "This Is Not a Textbook." The course emerged through a number of enabling conflicts, such as the chilly embrace humanities departments have given computers. The computer course plays a diverse set of roles. One is the introduction of technology criticism, design and practice, but another is the element of play that can be a part of writing. Although the course stresses critical thinking and rhetorical sophistication, much of the practice of learning to apply and adapt rhetoric to electronic discourse involves the exploration of the Internet, MUDs, hypertext, the World Wide Web, news groups, and other lively, highly conflictive and decidedly unacademic discourse arenas. A review of the collaborative process through which a group of instructors designed the course shows how conflict carried on through electronic media led to fruitful outcomes. (TB)