Scaffolding the pursuit of digital writing is a whole galaxy of software tools that automate away difficulty. WYWISYGs. One-click installers. Hosted applications. In a computing culture of "There's an app for that," digital writers are attuned to obvious difficulties that software can simply solve. Point. Click. Done.
Abstracted away from technological concerns, difficulty presents itself in many different forms as part of education and learning generally and writing instruction more specifically. Some difficulties are written into the challenges of a course or curriculum; others are deferred to more advanced study, or simply ignored. Whether the product of conscious effort or not, the structure and content of courses and entire curricula form complex orbits around different points of difficulty.
Institutional structures such as course numbering, sequences, and prerequisites are familiar approaches to managing those orbits. But technol