The Worth of a Project

Group projects are hard.

I think that at some point in every person’s life, they’ve had one of those group projects that make them never want to work with another person ever again. When I was told at the beginning of this semester that I would be working with the rest of my nine-person class to create an ebook about digital literature together, I agreed on the outside, but on the inside I was cringing.

A whole semester for a group project… I was definitely prepared for the worst.

At first I think it was difficult, everyone had their own ideas of what should and shouldn’t be included, how it should be formatted, who was in charge of what, as well as so many other issues. But as we began to actually communicate with each other and realize the importance of (the dreaded) peer editing process, we began to learn and grow together as a class instead of trying to learn individually, which would have failed. While it stretched us all, the fact that we had to rely on and help each other ultimately created unison throughout our ebook while still maintaining each individual identity and opinions. The work wasn't always evenly distributed, and this did cause some issues, but we had some kick butt people who really took their work into stride even when they were overwhelmed. This project never would have worked though if each of us hadn't buckled down and opened ourselves up to criticism and critique from our professor but also each other.

My class' whole purpose was to create an ebook about studying literature in the digital age. In some ways our project helped me with this concept, and in other ways I felt it took away from it. While our ebook as a whole definitely shows ways that digital literary study can be furthered, I did feel as though we focused so much on individual aspects of this concept that I barely actually got to put these theories into use. But I do believe that this ebook will be able to help me, as well as others, as we make the transition from classic literary studies to digital literary studies. And I don’t believe that it’s a “one or the other” situation, I think it is possible that both digital and classic can work hand in hand if we let them.

For myself, this project taught me the value of letting others read my work. I hate sharing my work before I believe it's perfect, and this forced me to. I learned that some situations require me to work with others, and this made me take interest in their works as well. And I also learned that my opinion can matter out there with this new turn of the digital age.

So what began as a social nightmare in my eyes, ended as a project well worth my time that taught me not only about digiliteracy, but also the value of a group project done well.

Evaluating the class, and the project, and the everything.

How does one begin to evaluate a group project honestly, in a place where the entire group can see it and know exactly who said it? Perhaps timidly, or with only praise. It can be difficult to be honest when your anonymity is taken from you. It is as Oscar Wilde said, "Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth."

So with that in mind, when it comes to this project I will say what Slaughterhouse Five's protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, desired to have on his Tombstone: 

Pleasantly Surprised

This semester in our Entry to English Studies course -- an entry course like no other -- we used digital platforms to enhance our study of literature. I'll say it right now: this course proved me wrong in a myriad of ways. Kind of a negative overarching theme, right? I actually don't think so. In this blog post, I want to illustrate the ways that my personal literary identity changed, or rather, expanded in order to let the digital age (and other things that used to bore me) in. I will explore my progress in terms of traditional ways to understand literature and in terms of the future of literary studies. 

Traditional Literature Studies

The main change I see in myself in reference to traditional literary study is being more open to subject matter and genres that I used to think didn't hold much relevance in my personal life. A great example of this is my personal study of the novel Heart of Darkness. I was not initially thrilled to learn that we would be studying Heart of Darkness, because the first time I read that novel, I just wasn't impressed. I was a senior in AP Literature, I was stressed about college applications, and I absolutely loathed the movie Apocalypse Now. However, this semester, as we studied the novel while also studying different literary theories, and reading other students' interpretations of the novel based on Marxism, reader response theory, cultural studies, etc. spiked my interest, and I began to see the novel as more of a vehicle for Joseph Conrad to make many different statements about society, etc. It was fascinating for me to see all of the different lenses by which we could interpret Heart of Darkness, and I realized that the novel was quite interesting to me when I read it through the lens of feminist literary criticism. Reading about different literary theories opened my eyes to the critical conversations that are already going on about novels, epic poems, and more. Critics are constantly finding more things to be said about books and poems that were written years ago, and they, along with their theories, help me to see how these things are relevant in my own life. Just because I don't personally enjoy a certain author's style doesn't mean that his or her work doesn't deserve my attention. More examples of this kind of enlightenment occurred when we analyzed the York Mystery Plays, wrote our own sonnets, and more. 

Digiliterate in Project Based Learning

My high school was completely based around the idea of Project Based Learning, which is essentially what we did here for this ebook project.  So, I have had a lot of experience with doing personal projects and team projects in lieu of a traditional curriculum.  Doing project based learning encourages students to be more involved in the learning process.  I also thing the tools that we used to create our ideas (Goodreads, Twitter, Blogging, etc.) were particularly helpful and they really kept me interested in the learning process.  I had a lot more fun learning and I know that I gained more long-term knowledge like this as opposed to learning through the lecture-then-test format.

I think that overall, our ebook project was successful.  I was concerned to begin with that our writing wouldn't have been professional enough, but I am very impressed with how things turned out.  I think we learned a lot about publishing and creating and how we can use free, digital tools to express our ideas.  I was impressed that we were all able to complete two chapters because our class was small.

I think the biggest issue with group project based learning is the division of time.  I feel really bad for the students who dedicated more time to their assigned job.  I don't think students did more work than others because some were lazy.  I just think that the assigned jobs were awkwardly divided and kind of a one-person-only job.  Maybe in the future students could work with an easier publishing tool.  I

I don't feel like the ebook project removed us from the core of literary study.  I believe that instead of consuming literary study, we created our own literary study, which is more awesome.  I know that I am certainly more confident in my writing abilities and by abilities to publish and analyze literature because my work is being published as an ebook.  However, I feel like the focus needs to be more on the literature analyzed instead of a digital medium such as Goodreads.  I feel like we focused too much on what Goodreads and other things were as opposed to incorporating traditional literary elements into our chapters.

I do think that PBL is worth it.  Like any new thing, there are a lot of kinks that need to be worked out.  Overall, I feel as if PBL contributes much more (in lengths and bounds) to a student's overall learning.  Instead of memorizing flash cards, PBL allows students to retain more long-term memory.  I really wish there were more classes that used the PBL approach.

The Digital Wake Up Call

At the beginning of this English course I felt completely out of place and slightly incompetent. I had just returned from an 18-month mission for my church, and had immersed myself in a foreign language during that time. I was unsure if I could even write anything coherent in English.

Registering for this class I knew it would be a challenge, but I have always loved literature. I kept telling myself that anything worth it is difficult, and so I plunged into this new world. I was able to discover the diverse world of literature all on the digital platform the Kindle; a device I was completely unfamiliar with. I remember ordering it off of Amazon and to my surprise receiving it only 3 days later because of Amazon Prime membership, but that wasn’t the biggest surprise. I opened the Kindle and was amazed by its appearance as a printed book. I had never seen the screen of a Kindle, and in that moment it changed my opinion of the device almost instantaneously. (Check out chapter one of our class ebook, Becoming Digiliterate to learn more about the Kindle.)

Through reading Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad I began to see that the Kindle models traditional literary study; notes can still be taken, highlighting can be done, bookmarks may be placed and much more. It resembled a printed book, but it also enhanced note taking, highlighting, and bookmarking. Instead of tediously flipping through pages of the book I could see on one page all highlights, notes, or bookmarks I may have placed. This was very beneficial as my class collectively authored this blog and we all wrote several posts about Heart of Darkness.

Twice a week my classmates and I wrote in our class blog, ranging from blog posts about books that had impacted us to writing our own sonnets. I had read fashion blogs before, but had never actually desired to start to author my own blog. At first, it was such a stressful homework assignment that I would spend most of the day just brainstorming what to write about; it made me so nervous to post any of my personal thoughts about literature online. Literature was supposed to be something private right? Not anymore… If that wasn’t social enough my class was also assigned to have a Goodreads account.

The first time I was on Goodreads I probably spent the rest of my evening finding books I had read, and also adding some to my to-read list. I was surprised that many of my friends already had a Goodreads account as well, and I was able to see what books we had both read. I no longer had to rely on what a librarian insisted that I read, but Goodreads could recommend books based on what I had read and rated.

Through all these mediums my literary study has been enhanced. It goes deeper than just the sparknote study that I was used to, but into social sites such as twitter and youtube. This class has helped to see that traditional literary study has been changing since it begun from just an oral medium and it will continue to do so. The Kindle and any other form of digital literature are becoming just as much traditional as a printed book.

Putting Knowledge to Use

English 251 was the first class that I’ve taken as an English major.  The jump from being a Music major to English was pretty drastic, and I entered this class unsure of what to expect.  I admit without hesitation that I was a novice to the world of literature and more than a little apprehensive when I imagined spending my semester reading long texts and painstakingly analyzing every nuance and hidden meaning that could possibly be included.

My expectations were wrong, luckily.  This class provided a hands-on experience to literature that made quite a difference for me.  First off, the fact that we used a blog to turn in assignments was incredibly beneficial.   I’m someone who has always been outgoing, but putting my writing out for others to see has definitely been a struggle.  The constant feedback and advice from my peers was helpful and made me look outside of my own views and analyze the work I had done for flaws that I’d probably overlooked.  I also really enjoyed getting to read the work of my classmates.  I gained insights into their personalities, recognize their writing, and was able to learn more about them than I would for any other class. 

Here, the classic works that we analyzed were also brought to life.  Instead of just reading poetry, we listened to it.  Instead of analyzing the words of a play on a page, we watched videos of them.  We were able to see what a difference it makes when personalities are incorporated into the work and audiences are considered.  To me, this really made all the difference.

Over the semester, I was able to figure out a lot not only about literature, but about what I wanted to do with my own future.  I went into this major not really sure of what I wanted to do with it, but after completing the various assignments, especially our last project, I found my aim.  This course was extremely practical and helped me look into more about writing, self-publishing, and techniques to market books to be read.  I learned the value of editing, and especially of honest feedback.  This class helped me to not only better analyze classic literature, but prepare for my own future work to be analyzed and improved as well.

Once, during a slide presentation, Dr. Burton talked about sending out feelers for projects before actually doing any work on them to see what the prospective audiences would be like.   At this time, I was working on creating videos for a website that I was creating.  I knew that the concept was good, but I had no idea how to create the videos or how to help them be successfully viewed.  After this lecture and talking to Dr. Burton, I got a group of my peers together and sent out one of the first videos to them for some feedback.  It was brutal.  But you know what?  It was SO GREAT because from their opinions, I was able to re-focus the project and make it into something much more productive. 

In this class, I did not spend months reading thousands of books and I did not break my cranium worrying about author intent.  I did not read everything that Shakespeare ever wrote, nor did I become a professional lit critic.  However, this class taught me the practicalities for literature in today’s society and how to be not only a knowledgeable consumer, but also an effective contributor, which is the most important thing of all!

One and the Same.

My semester of literary studies is quickly coming to an end. My class has studied everything from poetry, to plays, to literature online, and everything in between. We’ve sort of gone through everything in our quest to learn about the importance of literature both classically and digitally. This class was my first class I’ve taken that is actually required for being an English major, and some days it really made me question my life decisions concerning being in this major.

The beginning of the class started with jumping from different forms of literature each week. Nonfiction, fiction, poetry, plays, etc.. – you name it, we did it. And all the while we were beginning our journey into using and finding this literature online. There were two big pieces of work that really stood out to me. The really big one was when we read Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. We spent a lot of time on this one, and I think it sticks out to me so much because of the amount of time I personally spent with it. I had to fully read and analyze this book, and it was very difficult for me to get into. This was sort of my gateway book into online literature though, as the difficulty of it and the analysis I had to make of it took me right into the heart of the Internet for help. It was during my studies of this book that I first really entered into Goodreads and discovered how reviews work and how a book can connect me with other people. In fact, there was a particular review that really stood out to me and helped me understand why this book matters. When I read that review, I decided to follow the man who wrote it, and since I’ve become so enraptured by his other reviews and have become in new books simply because of his high opinions of them. It was because of this section that my ideas began to form for my chapters about both reviews and Goodreads for my class’ semester ebook we would soon be writing.

My other big work of literature that really stood out to me during this class was during our poetry unit. This was in the beginning of the semester before we had really delved into the online world. So while I was finding and reading poetry online, I was also focusing on the more traditional poetry such as Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley. This poem showed me the ways of traditional literature analyses and how to compare the ways in which an analysis must be made. This was quite a challenge for me as I hadn’t before done a formal analysis in this way. We also had to write our own sonnet during this portion of our studies. While struggling with my rhythm and wording of my own poem, I began to feel a connection with these other poems I had been trying so hard to understand. I found beauty in them that before I hadn’t seen, and I developed a deeper appreciation for the authors and the pains they went through to bring us their words.

I could probably go on forever about what works I used and how they helped and frustrated me, but that would get old quite fast. This semester and the class ebook project have taught me so much about the importance of classic literature as well as its introduction into the digital age. Classic literary analysis is still valid, and I would hate to ever lose that part of literature or understanding. But after this semester, I do believe that working with the more social and online aspects of literature are now becoming just as important as the classic. It opens more doors and ideas than before, and allows people to actually connect to these books and people and authors in ways that have never been seen before. It's becoming almost impossible to have literature without including the digital in some way. They're becoming one and the same.

Literature is changing. And to keep it alive it must be allowed to change and grow as the world continues to change and grow.