Computers, Writing, Rhetoric and Literature
Catherine Yoes
Department of English
University of California
at Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720
The Science Fiction Web Project: Adventures in Teaching
with Storyspace
Computer-aided learning is fun, it is expensive
and it has to be seen as an addition to the strategies of teaching and
learning that will continue to be used in parallel with them.
End of diatribe.
--Professor Hilary M.
Carey, University of Newcastle, NSW Australia, "Re: [Comment] Computer
Studios." 12 Apr 1995. Online posting. H-MMedia LISTSERV. 15 Apr
1995.
- Storyspace is a "hypertext" program.
In concrete terms, Storyspace allows the user to make little boxes,
fill them with text, and then connect the boxes to each other with
lines, arrows, and labels, creating multiple links among chunks of
text. Or you can describe it in a more abstract fashion, thus:
Storyspace creates sophisticated conceptual maps that challenge linear
thinking in provocative ways. What follows is the story of my
classroom adventure with Storyspace. Although I remain enthusiastic
about the possibilities for teaching and learning hypertextually, I now
believe that the World Wide Web is a better environment in which to do
so. For instructors who do want to use Storyspace, I would caution
that it may be impractical for instructors who cannot or do not want to
do all of their teaching in a computer facility.
The
Adventure Begins...
- After reading George Landow's
description of his work at Brown University with Intermedia, the
precursor of Storyspace, my interest was piqued. I was seeking the best
way to introduce the concepts of intertextuality and "cognition and
estrangement" in a science fiction survey course. All literature is
intertextual, but I would argue that science fiction is particularly
and self-consciously so. As Edward James points out, SF writers borrow
pieces of each others' universes, and slip the names of other SF
writers into their texts--the very name for such recursiveness in SF
lingo is "Tuckerism," after a long-time fan and author.[1] I hoped that by building Storyspace
webs over the course of the semester, students could both represent and
perform such linking themselves. They could write observations about
our first text, Frankenstein, in text boxes, and then make new
boxes for subsequent texts, linking the new ones back to
Frankenstein if it seemed appropriate, and so forth.
-
As for "cognition and estrangement," I borrow these terms from critic
Darko Suvin's definition of science fiction.[2] The relevance of "cognition" in a
writing class is obvious: students need to analyze the pattern of
letters, words, literal and figurative images, et cetera, in texts in
addition to responding to those texts emotionally. The usefulness of
"estrangement" is also fairly evident; one of the main techniques of
critical thinking is to be able to look at the familiar as though it
were strange. The process of working in the computer lab with new
compositional tools such as Storyspace has the potential to provide
this combination of effects, as Richard Lanham observes in The
Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology and the Arts . As a result
of electronic manipulations,
the textual surface
has become permanently bi-stable. We are always looking first AT it
and then THROUGH it....Look THROUGH a text and you are in the familiar
world of the Newtonian interlude, where facts were facts, the world was
really 'out there,' folks had sincere central selves, and the best
writing style dropped from the writer as 'simply and directly as a
stone falls to the ground,' precisely as Thoreau counseled. Look AT a
text, however, and we have deconstructed the Newtonian world into
Pirandello's and yearn to 'act naturally.' (5)
Students comfortable, or at least familiar, with using word processors
in order to create traditional linear essays have to consider the more
radical implications of cut-and-paste technology when using Storyspace:
what if the writer didn't try to impose only one order on the text, but
allowed multiple linearities to emerge?[3] In turn, any meta-discussion of
multiple linearities in writing could feed back into our consideration
of time travel paradoxes in science fiction.
- I was
encouraged in my endeavor by hearing Ed Madden and Greg
VanHoosier-Carey give a presentation about their experiences teaching
with Storyspace.[4] Greg suggested that
I try using Storyspace with small groups, training a student from each
group who would then help the other group members learn how to use
Storyspace, and that I have students make conceptual maps or webs on
paper before introducing them to the program. I followed all of these
excellent suggestions. After giving all members of the class an introductory handout, I had the students do
webs on paper. I divided them into small groups and did training
sessions in the computer lab with representatives from each group. Ed
Madden's Storyspace assignment provides a more detailed model for
structuring such a project.
- In addition to explaining the
general concept of hypertext and training students in the use of
Storyspace, I described my sense of how we could use these tools in the
study of science fiction. I told them we were looking for answers
(emphasizing the plural) to the question "what is science fiction,"
and that they should decide within their groups how they wanted to
approach that question--by presenting multiple interpretations of a
single text, or by linking together several (or all) of the semester's
readings according to a thematic or structural topic. I showed them a
small sample web I had created. In this
model, my "lexias," or chunks of information, visually represented as
boxes in the web--utopias, future wars, time travel, artificial life,
and cyberpunk--all radiate from the central question, "What is SF?" I tried to make clear to the class
that I did not consider this model complete, nor did I think that this
"wheel with spokes" was the only structure which could stand for the
intertextuality of science fiction. My model, rather, was meant to
demonstrate one possible way of approaching the problem, encouraging my
students to think conceptually , rather than resorting to plot
summary in an attempt to find links among our assigned texts.
[Intro][Crisis/Eureka!][The Point of Resistance][Biblio]
Page: "Storyspace and
Science Fiction"
Copyright (c)
1996
