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.