George Waddington, who has also taught RHE 306 and RHE 309K: Rhetoric of Autobiography in the CWRL, has incorporated multimedia group presentations with textual analysis in his E314L: Banned Books and Novel Ideas. Waddington successfully combined two projects that are potentially onerous for students: group work and technology. By providing a clear framework, expectations for the assignment, and hands-on tutorials, Waddington's E314L students were able to create engaging websites that allowed them to become experts on one of the class's novels, sharing their research not only with their peers but with a larger virtual classroom.
The assignment:
For the exact assignment, go to Waddington's class website at www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~waddington and click on the Fall 2002 version of the website. Then click on the group presentation or author websites link. To see the Spring 2004 version, click on group presentations and author websites. The finished products can be accessed by clicking on the presentation schedule on the Spring 2004 site or on the images of the texts at the bottom of the screen on the Fall 2002 page.
Students often complain about group work but a clear and structured assignment allows students and instructors to take advantage of the computer classroom's unique capabilities. In order to address the importance of the assignment, Waddington begins by establishing the pedagogical impetus behind group presentations in his classroom. He states in the first lines of the assignment: "I firmly believe that class presentations encourage student participation and investment in course material; thus they make for a more intimate learning environment and more exciting class time. Student presentations dissolve the traditional, polarized instructor/class dialectic to allow class members to learn from one another and about one another." In addition, Waddington emphasizes the importance of confident and successful presentations to the majority of students' career choices, saying that "oral presentation is a great skill that goes back to the importance of rhetoric and professionalization." This initial phase of the assignment grounds the importance of the group presentation to the students as individuals and as a class.
Although the assignment initially called for a PowerPoint presentation (and could still very easily substitute a PowerPoint presentation for the website), Waddington decided to have the groups build websites about their texts. He started with the goals of the textual analysis, which were fairly open, telling students that they were "largely free to pursue their own interests as long as presentations are grounded in a meaningful discussion of the relevant text." Through class discussion of the texts he further elucidated what he was looking for in the presentation, modeling different approaches to close reading. In order to give more structure to his assignment he offered a few options for organizing the presentation, including focusing on "an historical, social or personal theme as long as it advances your audience's knowledge of the novel in question [or] what literary critics have to say about the book and offer up these critiques for class discussion." He steered students away from superficial close readings and biographical lectures about the audience, emphasizing the importance of connecting textual details with contextual background during class discussions about the literature and the assignments.
In E314L Waddington decided to shift his focus from PowerPoint, which most students are able to use without a problem, to designing websites in HTML code. Waddington borrowed from David Barndollar's approach to teaching HTML code. In order to ground the web design assignment pedagogically, he explained to students that HTML code is in fact a metaphor for the reading and writing process. If the computer is unable to "read" the code, the "writing" will not be clear to its audience. By connecting the traditional reading and writing process with a virtual reading and writing process, Waddington was able to connect two seemingly disparate elements of his course: literary analysis and web design.
In order to teach web design, Waddington scheduled two one hour and fifteen minute classes to walk students through basic HTML code. He also gave HTML homework, emphasizing that students would "learn through doing" much better than only modeling his lesson in class. He then gave limited class time to the groups to begin their initial organization.
Several groups in the Fall 2002 class explored author biographies and applied different schools of criticism to the text. Waddington says that a number of the editions of the novels used in class provided essays that explained the literature in terms of literary theory, and students had brief discussions of the applicable schools of theory in class. His personal philosophy is that although some students were successful at reading the texts through the lens of literary criticism, requiring such readings is not practical in an introductory level literature course. In his Spring 2004 class Waddington adapted the assignment slightly. Students still designed their web pages and made presentations but this time Waddington encouraged them to base their presentations on their own textual interests and interpretations, including topics for discussion that could be incorporated into the presentation. This resulted in less psychoanalytic readings of Lolita and more discussions of the use of religious imagery in The Bluest Eye or contemporary media manipulation in relation to 1984.
The web design element of the assignment emphasized "collaboration, technical achievement and innovation as equal parts," encouraging students to master a new technological skill while working together creatively. The web pages in both semesters were meant to visually complement the students' written analysis and oral presentation; by incorporating written, oral and visual elements, Waddington offered students with different learning strengths a means to contribute significantly to the group.
Outcomes
Waddington says that the websites and group presentations were very successful from both his perspective and that of his students. The students felt that they had learned a lot, both about their text and how to interpret it for an audience and about HTML code and web design. He also notes that the assignment "allowed the class to bond and learn from each other as well as from the instructor," fostering a stronger classroom community. After using this assignment in his classroom twice, Waddington has a few recommendations to make it more successful. If at all possible he recommends that the instructor model the type of website and presentation he or she would like to see. Although the websites came out very well, Waddington says that "sometimes the presentation was not as successful." Although many groups did great presentations, others could have used a concrete example to help them create their own smooth, professional presentation of the material.
This assignment gives instructors a classroom-tested template for a project that incorporates technology, literature and group interaction in a way that fosters community and encourages not only discipline specific skills like close-reading but overall professionalization.
by Colleen Hynes, CWRL Developer