Campers

I have two interests, both involve expanding literature classrooms through digital technology.

First, digitization has opened up rare book research to scholars in an unprecedented way. Rare book archives are online and allow scholars from all fields to deepen their research from their office. This form of scholarly researched needs to be incorporated into the classroom. Students are extremely familiar with navigating the internet, but are unaware of the academic possibilities the web holds. Therefore, I am interested in bringing rare books online into classroom activities in a meaningful way. Currently, I bring in images for students to analyze before we analyze texts. Therefore, I was thinking about having students analyze an image from an illuminated manuscript, but am not sure it will have the same appeal as a modern image. As you can see, I’m still working through this idea but know it holds great possibilities and would like to hear your comments!

I also believe that this would prove useful to a composition classroom, as you can now view edits of writers such as Hemingway and Whitman online. This could be extremely useful when discussing the revision process or word choice.

My second idea also involves technology in the literature classroom. Students can be intimidated by literature, however we can present complex analyses in a non-threatening way. For example, students can talk sophisticatedly about movies, images and music but get silent when asked to analyze literature. I could present on the ways I get complex ideas using media, then have students transfer those skills to literature.

I appreciate any feedback and suggestions- thanks!