Hi, Folks.
Geoffrey Rockwell, one of the organizers of the * Teaching Early Drama with
Modern Technology: the Message and the Media * session at this year's MLA,
asked me to post to REED-L a one-page position paper about my upcoming
presentation. So--here it is:
"The Shakespeare Multimedia Project: Using Hypermedia to Teach Early-Modern
Drama"
As a final project in my Shakespeare class, I assigned what I called "The
Shakespeare Multimedia Project," in which my students worked
collaboratively to produce a hypermedia annotated version of a passage from
a Shakespeare play. The Shakespeare Multimedia Project was
"constructivist" (or "constructionist," as Seymour Papert puts it) in its
pedagogical underpinnings. Such projects frequently involve collaborative
work among students to produce something for public viewing. By working on
the project, the students *learn by doing*, creating their own
understanding of the material by actively working with it. Such a
constructivist project transforms the learning environment, turning the
classroom into a workshop for independent, self-directed study. Students
become responsible for the successful completion of the project. They have
to organize their time, they determine how extensively they want to
annotate the passage, and they choose what alternate media to incorporate.
The task itself becomes enjoyable, because students make it their own as
they continue to work on it and incorporate materials into the overall
design.
Most importantly, students are learning to read and to interpret
Shakespeare as they annotate the passage. They learn to understand
Shakespeare's language and syntax because they themselves have to make
sense of the passage to explain its significance to the readers of the
hypertext document. They have to determine which words are unclear and
provide notes to explain difficult words and ideas. The project erases
boundaries between disciplines, creating the kind of "syntonic" learning
that Papert advocates. In researching the relevant contexts to
understanding the passage, the students combine English literary study,
history, film, drama, etymology, and various other fields as they create
links with their primary documents. They learn more about Elizabethan
culture as they present those aspects of the culture relevant to the text.
They also learn that literary criticism is inherently contextual, and that
we cannot establish some "pure" realm of "truth" and "beauty" when
discussing literary texts.
Also in accordance with constructivist pedagogy, the classroom becomes an
environment for true discovery. There is no one "right" interpretation of
the particular Shakespeare passage. In fact, one of the purposes of the
assignment is for the students to explore the many different
interpretations possible for that passage. The students can consult
different editions of the play, getting a sense not only of what details
editors choose to annotate, but also the many different possible
explanations editors and commentators can provide. There is no one "right"
annotated version; students are free to explore as their curiosity directs
them. The classroom thus expands beyond the highly controlled environment
of the instructor-led discussion, in which "discoveries" are planned
according to the prepared questions of the instructor, following
anticipated lines. In working on their projects, students move beyond the
instructor's knowledge of that particular passage and of the software as
well, as they explore the various ways of presenting the material.
Leslie D. Harris
Department of English
Susquehanna University
Selinsgrove PA 17870
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