I was intrigued by Jesse Stommel's blog post on Twitter essays. I have resisted getting a Twitter so far for reasons that are unclear to me, especially as I kind of have a hand in the Digital Humanities. The professional networking possibilities with Twitter are becoming a real thing, and, as Stommel demonstrates, there is potential for Twitter in the classroom, too. Stommel has created formal “Twitter essay” assignments were students respond to questions which could take books to answer, in only 140 characters. It is a soul-searching exercise where the students have to really look carefully at a subject and make the decision about what is essential at the concept he or she is being asked to define (for Stommel, “what is a monster?” or “what is posthuman,” etc).
In The Future of Thinking, an open-access digital book on changing patterns of learning in the technological age, several interesting observations are made on the tensions in pedagogy regarding technology use in the classroom. For example, many college-level instructors are interested in the concept of using computers in class, but those same instructors become increasingly frustrated when the presence of computers becomes a tool for students to do other non-class-related things. I experienced this frustration when I taught in State Hall 029 last year. I guess there are a couple solutions to this problem: one is to request a non-computer classroom and ban the use of all digital devices during class sessions. The other is to use the computers as much as possible, counting on the fact that students will spend their time doing course-related activities on those irresistible machines as opposed to other things.
If one was to adopt this second course of action, then the idea of creating a “social network” for the class seems appealing. The authors of The Future of Thinking mention sites like Ning, which are social networks structured like Facebook, but are cultured specifically for smaller groups of people. At first I scoffed at the idea: Facebook for my classroom. Great. What on earth would I possibly do with that? But after thinking about it a little, there does seem to be some real benefits. This week’s readings presented several different philosophies of teaching which can be located at various points on the pedagogy-spectrum . For example, in Elaine Showalter’s Teaching Literature, I was surprised to read of Bonnie Zimmerman’s (University of California at San Diego) approach to pedagogy: “I believe in telling students what they ought to think. I tell them, ‘I’m going to preach to you, because I want you to think about the meaning of books and I believe that literature makes you a better person,’” (Showalter 51). Remember that reading response that I mentioned getting destroyed over my first year in my Master’s program? I think I said something like that. Now, I can see why statements like Zimmerman’s (and mine) are rather fraught and contentious. The idea of looking for “meaning” is a statement that needs to constantly prefaced and qualified over and over again to students, if the term is going to be used (which Zimmerman may do, I don’t know). But even more problematic was the idea of literature making students “better” people. Whose notion of ethical/moral progress is being used at the standard to measure “better” in this sense? Is each student able to decide what “better” means to them, or is there an underlying current of morality which Zimmerman cultures throughout the semester?
Felicitously, the week I get notification that I may get to teach my very first lit class ever (Introduction to Poetry) is also the week we were assigned to read the chapter "Teaching Poetry" in Elaine Showalter's Teaching Literature. I eagerly read the chapter for suggestions from seasoned professionals on how to handle introducing poetry to unsuspecting undergrads, since I have never really had that experience. Instead of just talking about some of the methods I liked and might try over the summer, however, I'd like to revive our conversation from last class session and discuss ways of bridging the gap between composition and literature.
|