final project: interactive e-readers

I worked on my final project with Colleen, but we used different approaches to the same idea, which I find very interesting. Colleen used a play, Romeo and Juliet, but I used a novel, Peter Pan.

I chose a novel because I wanted to show how this idea would work in different genres of writing, and I chose Peter Pan because it has been adapted in many different ways. However, because it is a novel, the text is quite long and involved. I chose to make Chapter 3 of the novel into this interactive e-reader; it is a well-known scene and would therefore be familiar to the potential audience (students).

I'll post the essay/explanation first and then the presentation at the bottom. The presentation includes clips that are long, music written specifically for Peter Pan, and pictures and paintings that are adapted from the ideas in the text. Most of the content comes from the movies Hook, Peter Pan (2003), Finding Neverland, and Peter Pan (1953).

Interactive E-reader: Peter Pan

When I first started the Interactive E-reader project, I thought it would primarily be used as a teaching tool. The gathering of clips, photos, and audio would be a way to show different interpretations to students. In the instance of Peter Pan, which I used in my project, the way that the character of Peter Pan is interpreted in every adaptation is slightly different. In the musical, Peter Pan was played by a woman; in Hook he was represented by a middle-aged, slightly-overweight man; in the 2003 live-action film, he was played by a teenaged boy. Each of these changes the look and feel of Peter Pan, and therefore our understanding of the character and the way that he acts and reacts. Showing these different adaptations to students can help to broaden their perspective.

Beyond helping students to see different adaptations, it can also clear up any confusion within the text. For example, in the first page of chapter three of Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie describes Tinkerbell as “embonpoint;” rather than defining that word, a visual of Tinkerbell could be used to demonstrate the concept. But interactive e-readers could go one step further by combining these things into a useful prompt to help students think of their writing process.

One of the points that we have covered in class was the materiality of a text. An interactive e-reader would get students to actively think about the additions of the visuals and how it adds (or does not) to the value of the story being told. Within the Peter Pan example, the difference in the Lost Boys from each adaptation could be used as a way to think of the culture that Peter Pan tried to escape from. How does the variation in ages in the Hook version affect the student’s understanding of the Lost Boys? Another thing that I found interesting while making this project was the way that the music within these clips made me see the scene. How is the reading of the text enhanced by this audio? Does it make a difference when reading it to have the song playing? Teachers could have students read just the text first, then go back and read the text with the sound playing. Make it an experiment.

I think it is also a great opportunity to make the students think about audience. In the end of the project I used a clip from Finding Neverland, which was primarily a movie for adults; the way that the play was acted out in this scene had more melancholy overtones than the other versions. The live-action film was geared towards teenagers who grew up with the Disney version, and it delved deeper into the actual text of the novel. The Disney Peter Pan, aimed at children, is a more sugar-coated, happy version. It could be interesting, as a prompt, to explore how the text manages to appeal to adults and children, and how the vocabulary changes to suit each audience in the films. It could easily be applied to the difference that students make in their own vocabulary when talking to a students versus writing an academic paper.

One of the most interesting ways to use the Interactive E-reader is to use it as an assignment. Instead of assigning a paper closely analyzing a work, have the students make these interactive e-readers. It would clearly show that the student read and paid close attention to the work, and it would also give the professor insight into how each student perceives the piece being read. The chest of drawers that I used in my project, for example, is not a typical chest of drawers. Why did I choose that set? What does using that dresser add to the understanding of the text? How does the design of the text make the person read it differently? Was the combination of multimedia effective? As short paper explaining these choices would be simpler to grade and understand. And honestly, I think it would be more fun to look through multimedia projects and their explanations than to read another explication.

*If you make the "presentation" full-screen, the results will make much more sense.

collector

I really liked, from Chapter 4 of the book, the idea that a writer is not just a selector, but a collector. I find that everything about that statement makes sense to me.

Yes, writers need to be able to select the information that they want to use. They need to be able to select an argument, a subject, a way to organize it. This is all true, and all something that I've been taught in some form or other in all of my writing classes, beginning, technical, and creative.

But writers also need to collect things, collect research, ideas, organizational tools, notes, visual prompts, etc. Being able to rearrange these things, or design them, into one project is a skill that will translate across curriculum and across the boundaries into the professional world.

For example, if a scientist is taught to be a collector in his writing classes, then he will collect his information and learn to rearrange it coherently for his lab reports and research later. Outside of academia, collecting information on a client will help to produce a larger picture of how to help and handle the client and insure future business with the paying customer.

I'm sure that the way to organize these things could be broadened. I like boxes more than the average person, just ask my mom, but for a composition course it might also be interesting to see how these things would be organized in other formats, like a notebook, blog, or magazine.

I think that my high school teacher was operating under this sort of idea, too. When she made us create those idea notebooks, keeping a notebook of visuals, lyrics, words, ideas, drawings, and such everyday of the year, she was really making us search for something that struck us every day. It made me look at the world a little differently, dissect it and understand why I liked the things that I did. Organizing those to make them represent something larger for my teacher was eye opening.

I just want to say that I find it interesting that the way that Cornell collected things is such an awesome discovery; we have television shows on nearly every channel that help people get rid of this sort of "junk." We want them to not be "hoarders" and join normal society. That's just a side note though.

visual literacy

I know this is late, but I've been sick, which got me behind, so now I'm trying to catch up. The idea of visual literacy from the third chapter really appeals to me, but since I'm presenting tomorrow, I'll talk more about it then. (Don't want to step on my own toes, if I can help it.)

In one of the activities, she suggested that students go on a traveling experience and document it. After I read the the activity, I realized that I have been sort of doing that on my YouTube channel without realizing it. I did that with photographs and journals and random artifacts when I was in Ireland, too. It's something that I did naturally, though perhaps not as well as I would have liked, and I am intrigued by making it into a project for the classroom.

Something else I thought about. When I was in high school, my teacher made us keep a journal of sorts. She called it an idea notebook. We put quotes or pictures or lyrics into whatever form we had handy. I liked to make mine out of different materials or gather the things around me. I wanted the book to look like me. It was interesting to design a book that could convey a personality.

I ended up filling two notebooks. The first one was tall and has several quote and pictures per day, but by the second half of the year I was using a smaller notebook and more minimalistic layout. Looking back on it, it's interesting to see the progression.

Meshing these past two thoughts together, I wondered whether it would be interesting to take one of the activities that she suggested and turn it into a longer project. For example, why not make a visual essay something you can revise and turn in with a portfolio at the end of the semester? Or why not have students post a picture each week to a blog to represent how they are or who they are at that moment? Use the visual as communication, teach it, and help them learn to master it; these are all things that I agree with, but I also think it's important to show how the visual literacy can change and develop, just as writing essays over time can grow.

All of this made great sense in my head, but maybe it's not very practical. I'm unsure at this point, but it's an idea. Thoughts?

poetry goes multimedia

I first heard of poetry as a visual and multimedia activity while in undergrad, in a Writing for New Technologies. I was introduced to it on this website: poemsthatgo. It makes poetry and fiction that is interactive with readers through visuals, audio, and animation, and other things.

I'll leave you with a spoken word piece done by a British musician on a video. Tom Milsom's very aware of the medium he's using and how to make it work for the music and poem. I find it interesting.

new media

Oh dear, it's been a long time since I posted on here. Sorry about that. This week, let's talk about taste and "new media."

I've noticed lately that some of the popular, new movies are blurring the lines between artistic "filming" and making the main characters of the movie make videos of themselves. Sounds confusing, right? But movies, especially movies about teenagers in the modern world, include the internet in different ways. In Easy A, for example, the main character sets up a livestream that reveals the majority of the key information. The information is then shown to the audience in the traditional film format. The combination gives the movie an authentic feel.

This sort of thing shows an awareness of what those sorts of mediums can provide, and it makes the viewers very aware of their materiality. See where I'm going with this?

Magazines and newspapers are doing this too. The Red Eye directs readers to participate in polls on various websites, Twitter included. The Knot has pages dedicated to giving their readers links. They show a hairstyle in the magazine and then print a link at the bottom to be able to give a demonstration of how to accomplish this. If you follow the link, a picture is shown, then a video. The Knot is aware that the print things in their magazine only attract a portion of readers; it's the interaction that keeps people coming back.

The beauty of combining mediums and being aware of them makes the differences between the mediums clear. It shows the strengths and limitations of each of them.

Print, for example, is seen as more "high culture" or a more sophisticated taste than the internet. Traditional film is more artistic than YouTubers; newspapers are better than magazines. New media casts a light on these distinctions, then tosses them aside.

Well, at least from what I understand of "new media." It makes the entire concept very exciting, and it creates more options for teachers to connect with their students.