Looking Back and Forward

As my students conclude a semester of being introduced to literary studies, capped by the major project of us producing an ebook together, Becoming Digiliterate, it's time to take a look at our path here, and our future path as individuals and as co-creators of our ebook.

I'd like each of my students to write two final blog posts.

"Literature and Me"
The first post should be a retrospective personal narrative, one that traces their own progress of coming to understand the nature of literature from this semester in two ways: in terms of traditional ways to understand and study literature; and in terms of the future of literary studies as we have emphasized in our ebook.

I do not want students to recap our calendar or assignments, but instead to talk about their personal literary identity and how this is evolving based on their reading, research, writing, and publishing for this course. They should review their prior blog posts and scan those of fellow students to be reminded of what we have studied and the realizations that we have come to. What was literature to you before? How has this view developed? How will what we have studied and done in this course affect your future literary life?

I want students to focus on a few "aha" moments they have experienced, and tell an interesting story about their learning this semester which also shows they have reflected on the course content and activities across the whole semester, not just during our final project. At the same time, I hope that the project has been part of that "aha" experience. (Please note, this post should not be used to evaluate the success of the project - that's for the second post. In this one, I'd like to hear a more personal perspective on how doing the project has affected one's personal views of reading and literary study, whether in school or beyond).

As with all good literary writing, this short narrative should be supported with reference to specifics. In this case, that should include books read, class and online discussions, and assignments. Shoot for around 500 words, and be sure that you are not addressing this post to fellow classmates or just the teacher. Inform the broader blog world about your experience.

Evaluating Becoming Digiliterate
I'd like my students to write a second final post that is focused on the experience of creating an ebook together. This should be addressed to future students or to people in education generally. What exactly was the process, and how did doing this project differ from a typical course in literature? Obviously this project had successes and failures. Evaluate these honestly, but constructively. Where did things go better than expected? What problems could be addressed if future students do a similar project? Is collaborative learning or project-based learning a chaotic mess, or is it worth the price? Does doing a project like this ebook remove us from the core of literary study, or does it make literary experience better in some ways? What will be the long term effects, if any, from doing this project?

This can be about 200-300 words in length.