A Community of Learners: Teaching Literature Electronically 
Ann Woodlief (http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/), 1997
Please e-mail at awood@vcu.edu if you wish to download or link

Trying to use the Web for teaching is like trying to shoot at a target moving close to the speed of light. The possibilities offered by the medium are changing exponentially, yet the nature of the medium itself, as well as its content, profoundly affects any kinds of pedagogical applications. Another complicating factor is that changes in teaching must necessarily move slowly, testing with different subjects and groups of students. Having available the most appropriate, convenient and reliable technology (hardware and software) and the necessary technical support may pose the greatest hurdles because they depend on forces beyond faculty control, on institutional decisions which are generally based on financial rather than pedagogical grounds.

It’s a wonder that any teacher would take all this on, as well as spend the vast amount of time and energy required to become sufficiently computer literate, to develop materials which work most effectively (often different from usual classroom materials), and most important, to examine carefully one’s own pedagogical goals and nurture them in this very different teaching environment. Yet there are teachers who are doing this, not because they are seduced by the increasing media hype about the Web or by administrators who dream of economies possible in room-free classes, but because they are convinced that networked teaching offers ways for students to learn unparalleled in traditional classroom settings. I count myself in this group, although sometimes in the deep of night I wonder why I chose to complicate my life unnecessarily. However, when I log into the class in the morning light, I am reminded that the results seem to be worth the effort.

Pedagogically, my goal is to use the computer environment to help create more dynamic communities of readers and interpreters of literature with classes which involve each student in intense reading/thinking/writing activities yet bring each into the larger community of readers and interpreters. The major issues are how to keep the course focused on the pedagogy and not the computer, and how to balance the focus on texts with the chaos of electronic student discussion. The medium of the computer should carry the pedagogical message, not overwhelm it.

1. Background and Tools

I began using computers ten years ago in writing and literature classes, working alone and against the grain of the very complex technology and poor support then available, exploiting the possibilities offered primarily by word processing and file sharing on an awkward and very complicated university mainframe computer. Finally, the software, computer facilities, and support became available at VCU to realize the kind of classes I had imagined. The software which truly launched my teaching in a full computer environment was GUIDE, an easy-authoring hypertext program which VCU purchased a site license for three years ago.

For two and a half years I have been teaching in a networked computer center, teaching five different on-line and on-site literature classes, sophomore-level to graduate level: American Literature through the Civil War, American Nature Writing, Literary Criticism, and Women Writers. We meet in a room of 25 IBM-PC computers networked on a LAN-server, which has the software we use, fast access to the Web and e-mail, and access from other student computer centers. The LAN-server itself does not have dial-in access; materials on the Web, however, are accessible in more public student computer areas and from home by those few students who have access. This is a more ideal set-up than most teachers typically have, especially since I have good technical support. These classes, then, are also laboratories for fashioning new paradigms of teaching and learning about literature which others can adapt to less ideal circumstances.

At this point, the content presentation and interactive discussion tools my courses require are available through the Web only in rough forms, so I am using a hypertext program, GUIDE (which can be presented on the Internet and accessed with its own free browser), and W.W. Norton’s text-sharing program, CONNECT (which now has hot URLs and will also soon be available from the Internet) as well as the Web.

2. Pedagogy and Technology

My quest for a new kind of class environment began with my study of reader-oriented theory and the difficulties I found replicating its collaborative pedagogy. Trying to teach students how to explore texts fully and to generate the different interpretations which arise naturally from intensely active--and individualized--readings proved virtually impossible in the ordinary classroom where a few students can talk in response to the teacher’s direction and they rarely learn from each other.

The major premise of reader-oriented theory is that the classroom is a community of readers--one which includes in part the larger scholarly community of readers--which generates a number of interpretations and negotiates meaning as a group. This requires that every voice be heard and reckoned with, and the teacher has one of those voices (one which connects the class to the larger community of readers). It presupposes an unusually collaborative environment, with everyone “speaking” and everyone “listening.” It also requires incorporation of outside resources (that “larger” community) as a kind of great hypertext which students actively incorporate into their own readings, guided by the “senior reader,” the teacher. The goal is to empower students as better readers able to generate and articulate their own informed interpretations in writing, comparing and negotiating ideas by sharing and critique. Accomplishing this “multi-vocal” process to create a community of informed readers requires:

I also hoped to find better ways for students to develop more personal connections with texts, to work at their own paces to suit their own special learning needs, to think through problems and open questions, to express their own ideas with immediate feedback, and to feel in control of their own learning.

A. Interactive text-centered materials.

A literature teacher’s primary mission is to help students explore the richness of literary texts, individually and in relationship to other texts and cultural context. Providing information, open questions, connections and contexts can be done very effectively with the computer, allowing students to access a wealth of materials at will, even collecting and adding their own notes. A teacher can electronically post texts, learning materials, context--in short, offer “pearls” for students to browse and study at their own paces. In particular, enhancing literary texts by turning them into study hypertexts, embedding annotations (containing information, open questions, leading ideas) and connections (to related materials, including student papers and discussion transcripts), presents that material very effectively, offering choices that stimulate thought and encourage connections. Indeed, I often hear students calling these hypertext materials “help” and their own efforts “discovery,” two words dear to any teacher’s heart.

A hypertextual syllabus can also incorporate student involvement beyond exercises of responding to teacher-generated materials. My class hypertext-syllabi include electronic discussions, papers, and book reviews from previous classes. Also, there are student-generated hypertexts which explore works, offering study materials or interpretations (my graduate students often prepare these as independent study projects). Students can also connect with the larger community of readers and information on the Internet through the Web with an URL-enriched syllabus.

B. Collaborative Student-centered Activities.

The heart of the reader-response, collaborative classroom is not so much click-the-mouse activities as true interaction of the reader with the text and with other readers. No matter how challenging and “opening” the teacher-prepared hypertext or Web-based materials might be, in the reader-oriented classroom the students also need to learn how to talk and explore questions “behind the text” in the unlimited margins of hypertext. In fact, the major reason for students exploring a prepared hypertext on a work is so they can learn to read “hypertextually,” seeing multiple possibilities embedded in a text. To represent that process for other readers and themselves, they may also create their own electronic hypertext(s) to generate ideas, post questions, insert information, and connect to other works as they read.

The computer enables the process of students reading, responding in writing, sharing those responses, re-reading, and re-writing. Reading, writing, and interpreting need to be linked seamlessly, and a record of this process must be public, at least for the class. Although this process of developing an interpretive community can be enacted on paper and with small group discussions, it works better and for more students when it proceeds electronically. To do this, students need not only the fluid capabilities of word processing but the ability to share papers, to respond repeatedly, and to edit knowledgeably. Although e-mail, lists, and news forums can accomplish parts of this process, only sophisticated networked software developed for composition courses supports the kind of writing which goes beyond fragments of response to articulate and well-developed critical arguments.

These discussions and papers are primarily electronic in my classes, although students often break into small impromptu groups discussing ideas as they write them, and some times they send each other private messages or e-mail to continue developing an idea. The electronic format means that papers can be revised and polished, if need be and they can easily incorporate textual materials (most of our reading is also in electronic form). Even more important, electronic discussions of a work can be revisited, expanded, questioned, and analyzed, by the class and by other groups of students who are studying the same works, expanding the community of readers beyond one class in one time and place. All of these class materials--teacher and student-created hypertexts, responses and re-reading papers discussions (on-going and past), useful Web resources, e-mail messages--are slowly woven into a dynamic syllbus which becomes a unique hypertext record of the class over the semester.

The process of reading/writing/interpreting as a community is itself an intense and complex one, and one which most students are not familiar with. The software tools which enable it, then, must be very easy to learn, highly accessible, affordable, and virtually foolproof. That, of course, is a dream, but every year it becomes more of a reality.

3. A sample course: American Nature Writing.

The American Nature Writing course, like all of my courses, used study hypertexts, electronic discussions, and rereading/rewriting assignments linked to a GUIDE-created syllabus, but it also took fuller advantage of the Web. Though this particular subject may seem an odd match with the computer, “Writing Nature in a Computer Environment” (http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/com-nat.html) delineates some reasons--and advantages--for this choice. Perhaps the best reason, though, is that there is an active community of nature writers (and readers) on-line, including some authors that we read in the class, and I want my students to join that community. Its home base is the ASLE website (http://faraday.clas.virginia.edu/~dpn2n/asle.html) which indexes hundreds of web sites related to nature writing Our course was listed there as an on-line discussion, thus making our class open to anyone using the Web. People using the ASLE site were particularly invited to join our forum at any time to talk about works which interested them. Also a similar class on Western Nature Writing in Colorado particiated in the on-line discussion of some of the works, and we shared by e-mail.

The nature writing class, as taught largely on the Web in the Spring of 1996 (and in process in 1997) is posted at http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/eng385/main385.html. The Web elements are the syllabus, complete with links for assignments to particular important Web sites, some of the reading materials (which are not under copyright), other good resources on the Web, and the on-line forum, where the 1996 class discussed on line and publicly many of our texts. There is also a communications center, where students can easily e-mail me, each other, and the class as a whole. As the semester progressed, I borrowed a digital camera and took their pictures, posting them in a “Rogues Gallery” on the communication site. (At this point in the semester, they--and the Colorado students--wanted to attach faces to names.) Toward the end of the semester two students accepted my invitation to post their writings on a home page accessible from their picture; the present class will create home pages with their papers and Web projects.

Most of the class materials, however, were created and posted into a constantly expanding hypertext syllabus created with GUIDE. These materials were restricted to the class, and therefore could include essays not in their printed texts. The syllabus also featured work created by students in former classes: nature essays, papers about authors and works, reviews of works of nature writing, even previous electronic discussions of the works. Papers and discussions of the class-in-progress could also be posted easily in GUIDE files.

I used both GUIDE and the Web because each medium offered different but necessary possibilities. GUIDE has a flexibility and complexity not yet available for the Web. Its primary advantage is that the literary text remains the “home base” for all operations, so that all materials seem to be embedded behind the text. Like the Web, GUIDE allows materials to be linked internally and externally. Unlike the Web, GUIDE offers the reader the opportunity to click up from marked text boxes with relatively small bits of information, questions, definitions, or whatever the hypertext creator puts in them. It also offers expansions, so the reader can click on a word or phrase and open up a deeper level of materials..In addition, it can launch other programs, a useful feature for the multi-tasking we had to do.

The collaborative elements of the course operated with CONNECT and a Web Forum for later discussions. CONNECT is relatively easy to use in its Windows version; as a macro add-on to WORD, with all its resources of dictionary, thesaurus, grammar and spell checks, and it also includes the Writing Essentials, a brief on-line handbook, most useful for students to consult and for me to connect their papers to at appropriate points. I also used the grading macros extensively, commenting on student’s papers in hypertext.

Interaction is the key concept in such a class. Students would read materials posted on-line (and class-restricted) on GUIDE, then toggle to CONNECT or to the Web Forum to discuss their reading. They often copied passages from the text into their discussions, thus focusing more carefully on the text than they might have otherwise. Typically students would read assignments, in print and on-line, and then come to the class to write on them in CONNECT. They would post their responses in the first 15 to 30 minutes of class, and then spend the rest of the time in the 75-minute class reading and responding to each other’s postings in an electronic discussion, which I joined too. For more formal paper assignments, such as their nature essays or critical reviews, students would be in “critique groups,” and they would work closely together on revisions until I collected the final drafts electronically. Interaction also went on outside of the “classroom.” For several assignments, students e-mailed papers to students in the Colorado class (as they did to us) for reading and feedback. When we began discussing works on the Web in an open forum, we often discovered postings from people all over the country who were joining the class “on the side” as well as postings from the Colorado class. One particularly serendipitous moment came when we were discussing the Ktaadn passage from Thoreau’s The Maine Woods and received a forum message from a professor offering us the opportunity to read his article (published in a journal not in our library) on the passage. He even allowed me to post his excellent article from our Web site. Also, we occasionally received e-mail messages from lurkers who seemed to be enjoying the on-line interchange. One student even interviewed one of our writers, Gary Snyder, by e-mail and posted their exchange in the forum.

At times the class did not work entirely electronically, when the students pulled their chairs out, turned off their monitors, and we just talked. There were other times when we met outdoors to “gather materials” for our nature essays. It is crucial not to get so wedded to the electronic medium that you miss opportunities for the best kinds of personal interactions possible in a class, and a good teacher should be sensitive to when those moments are necessary and desirable. When students can’t type fast enough to say all they wish and they start talking to their neighbor at the next computer about the work, then is the time to call a halt and talk--sometimes in small groups, if the emerging ideas are different ones, sometimes as a whole class.

Evaluation of the course.

The jury is still out on how successful this course was. Students who stayed with the course all semester reported an unequaled opportunity to talk about their ideas, to share, and to learn from each other. They noted that they had probably never worked so hard in a course, but then again, they had rarely learned so much. A number of them continue to converse, with me and with each other, by e-mail, and many became good friends during the semester. The paradoxical intimacy of electronic communication did much to bind the class together. Several have taken other courses from me, becoming tutors to their new classmates.

There were other students who withdrew from the course for a variety of reasons--inability to get adequate access to a computer outside of class (a university problem), computer phobia (and certainly the prospects of learning three computer programs would be daunting to any one), but mostly unwillingness to participate in such an interactive course. Some preferred the more traditional and more passive kind of class, where they could simply take notes and tests and write papers.

It is important for students to understand from the beginning the rationale behind a computer-based course, for it is a very different and often more demanding learning experience for them. Once they accept the idea of interactivity and collaboration, then they welcome the tools that make it possible. I now have a few “repeater” students in every class who explain why they think such a class is worth the extra effort (it’s great when the teacher is not the only convert!) They reassure their fellow students that they are not guinea pigs; they are on the cutting edge (which explains the occasional blood!). What is better is that they report that “not only did we learn how to use the computer, but we learned how we could think and write about literature.”

Not surprisingly, there were technical problems with unexpected pedagogical consequences. We decided to move to the Web forum for discussions a few weeks into the semester. My technology partner from the Multimedia Center cobbled together a forum which did not have word wrap, editing (after posting) or spellcheck capability (when we went to Netscape 2 late in the semester we did have word wrap). As a result, students were often rather careless about their writing, not proofreading soon enough, and paragraphing was difficult with line breaks so erratic. This is a Writing-Intensive course, so inability to edit posed real problems. In addition, I was embarrassed that some students seemed to have no problem posting poorly thought-out and written responses publicly (they didn’t seem to realize just how public it was).

I should note that I am not very technologically literate, in spite of my abilities to manipulate software for pedagogical purposes. Most of my students are even less adept with computers. Fortunately, I could work independently with the GUIDE and CONNECT programs and they were fairly easy for students to navigate. Setting up the course on the Web, however, required a great deal of technical help and effort. VCU now offers teachers (drawing partially from my experience) the “Web-Course-in-the Box,” as freeware at http://madduck.mmd.vcu.edu/wcb/wcb.html. Not only does it have a better forum which may be easily adapted for any class, but it offers templates for teachers to copy and paste class materials as well as a variety of interactive discussion formats, such as chat groups, all without the faculty having to learn html, just needing to copy or type in boxes (or forms).

Students did do their formal papers, which needed feedback and revision, on CONNECT and that worked very well. For the processes of re-reading and re-writing, however, the Web Forum was totally inadequate and too public. Except for the informal discussion of works, we needed the full editing apparatus offered by WORD.

There were other unexpected drawbacks. The Colorado class had only occasional access to computers and the e-mailing of papers had to be funneled through their professor. They did not have Web access as a rule, and only twice were able to go as a class to a computer center to join our forum discussion.

We also encountered the usual computer glitches, especially at the beginning. Students had to learn four different sets of logins and passwords at the beginning of the semester: to sign on the network, for e-mail, for CONNECT, and for the Web site. Even if they could remember which was used for which program, sometimes they didn’t work right. This was an avoidable nightmare! Add to that a wide range of computer skills and computer phobia, often accentuated in the very students who would sign up for a course in nature writing, and the first two weeks were totally chaotic. In addition, we were reading Emerson and Thoreau, two extremely complex authors. Though students learned how to multi-task quickly and toggle among programs on the computer, it required three people--myself and two computer experts--running around the room and putting out multiple fires for several weeks. I had forgotten my own prime rule of computer survival: learn only one thing each day, but learn something every day! Unfortunately, my second rule of computer survival, each one teach one did not work well that semester, because I had few “repeaters” and an unusual number of “computer newbies.”

We did survive, or at least most of us did, but after each class we were often exhausted, and I had few chances to sit down at the computer during the class and join the electronic discussion. Therefore, I would have to join in later, and by then, the discussion might have taken a very strange tangent and veered far away from the text. Though I don’t like to control the discussion tightly, I discovered that I do need to be very present electronically, especially at the beginning of the semester, to help the students see just what ways of approaching a text are most productive and to keep them close to the text.

This was a rough beginning, one that taught me a lot about pacing and eliminating unnecessary barriers. Also, I learned more about how to prepare my students. I posted some survival tips on the Web (which I printed out at the beginning of the semester), and I paid closer attention to them myself. The next semester I used the Web in a much more limited fashion, and did not introduce either it or e-mail as an essential part of the course for a month or so (although knowledgeable students were already using it). For the course on Women Writers (http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/eng384/main.htm) I posted essentials: the syllabus, links to sites on the writers we were studying (which grew during the semester), and an e-mail communication center. The electronic discussion was totally on CONNECT, and there was no password protection for the Web site. The GUIDE syllabus and hypertext materials were on our local network and posted on the Internet; students with Internet access (and some comfort in using computers) were given GUIDE browsers so they could access materials at home, as a few students did.

4. Issues and Opportunities.

Teaching through a networked environment presents a multitude of challenges, both technically and pedagogically, which cannot be met without teachers changing their usual habits of working alone. No one, including computer experts, knows enough about the technology, especially busy teachers. We must keep our eyes steadily on the pedagogy, not the keyboard, and share what we learn about both.

Collaboration with other faculty using technology is essential, and it may require outside help since many “early adopters” are isolated within their own departments. I began as part of a grant-supported faculty development project involving 5 area schools, where I had to articulate my pedagogical goals to faculty in other fields and could explore software possibilities with more knowledgeable people. When that project ended, several of us English folks convinced better-connected colleagues to apply for an Annenberg grant for collaborative learning about computers and writing. The result was the Epiphany Project, which now creates workshops and collaborative materials based on a Web site (http://mason.gmu.edu/~epiphany/)and involves more than 45 associated university sites all over the country, an active e-list, and a Web-based field guide. Perhaps soon I will have more colleagues in my own department to work with, but that is taking time.

Teachers must also develop their own technical support network. The collaborative model, which I want for dealing with literary interpretations, applies to working with computers as well. One rule for survival that we and our students must understand is that when something isn’t working right, ask--and keep on asking--until you get an answer. If you don’t, frustration will build until you won’t be able to learn. Teachers should build a network of “experts,” with a fair idea of their area of expertise, and call or e-mail them after giving a reasonable amount of effort and thought to solving their own problems. I have been particularly fortunate; my department has an instructor managing our computer center who is a teacher and poet, and an amazingly patient person. He gives me the tools and helps me solve problems, but he doesn’t do the work for me (no matter how much I beg). Every teacher or team of teachers needs at least one technologically-literate buddy (who may be a student.)

About ten years ago I decided to learn German, starting from scratch. Perhaps the best lessons I learned were in how to learn something that I knew absolutely nothing about. As an experienced teacher, I often forget, for example, just how confused I was when I first read Emerson and Thoreau. Learning to use the computer (when you can feel totally dumb at any point, even after years of learning) is another valuable exercise in understanding what learning is all about. Learning from others, being willing to make mistakes, finding logical patterns, learning what you need to know when you need to know it, knowing how and when to consult resources, working through confusion--every teacher needs to be reminded of all this. As Thoreau asks in Walden, “How can he remember well his ignorance--which his growth requires--who has so often to use his knowledge?”

There are many pedagogical issues a teacher must wrestle with as well. The teacher’s usual authoritative role in the classroom changes radically in this environment; however, what we give up in authoritarian control can come back in lively class negotiations of texts. Students perceive us more as guides or coaches than “teachers,” telling them what they should think about a literary work. The first few weeks students would ask me what I thought about a work (little did they realize that there were clues in the hypertext materials), but I held back, saying I wanted them to develop their own interpretations, ones which would stand up to objections raised by students with other interpretations. Soon they stopped asking me what I thought a work “meant” and enjoyed thinking more for themselves. It isn’t that they respected my interpretation less; it is that they learned to respect their own more. As my colleagues tell me, they have been empowered as readers, and they are presenting well-argued interpretations in other classes now.

The computer presents surprising pedagogical challenges. The public nature of the discussion in the open Web forum affected my students in ways I had not expected. Some seemed to be more reluctant to write publically than in class-limited discussions, and others were clearly “showing off.” One woman was contacted by e-mail by someone who had found her name in a Web search. The medium evidently carried other mixed messages. The visual impact of writing in boxes made the discussions fragmentary and undeveloped. I wanted serious responses to the reading, and I often got incoherent chat and little textual analysis. My classes have conducted much more serious electronic discussions with CONNECT; the coming CONNECT.NET program will allow privacy, editing, and a “spaces” which invite more serious responses but will have the advantage of being on the Internet.

Another major issue has to do with timing; can a dynamic course discussion be asynchronous? In my judgment, the more synchronous it is, the more interactive and lively discussion is. My students want response when they write something, then and not in a week after we have gone on to discuss another work. There can be analysis of the discussion later, but the discussion itself must take place in a very limited time. Perhaps a less interactive format could be asynchronous, but interactivity is the heart of my pedagogy. Unfortunately, students will often interpret electronic discussions as meaning that they can do them at any time, no matter what guidelines you set up. With CONNECT, I can make a discussion inactive so students can no longer post their responses, and I do after about 2-3 days. If they are not “in” the discussion, they lose course points. It’s hard, but necessary for the less disciplined students. However they still have 48 hours to join the discussion, far more than they would have in any other class.

Access is another crucial issue. Students with their own computers and access do have (unfair?) advantage, especially if there is not enough computer access at the university (and there isn’t yet at VCU). One advantage of Web materials is that some students can access them out of class; the disadvantage is that some cannot, especially if they have limited time to get to school computers. I have had to be very pro-active at my university about student access, although I would prefer to just teach my courses quietly in the computer center and not spend hours with administrators and committees. Such is the price of being an “early adopter.”

There are many challenges in teaching in an interactive computer environment and unexpected rewards. I have come to appreciate more the insights my students bring to works I have read for years; I too am learning as I never have before, about collaboration, learning, technology AND literature. As long as technology enables rather than controls pedagogy, both students and teachers can learn in ways more exciting than we have ever imagined.

eaching through a networked environment presents a multitude of challenges, both technically and pedagogically. I could not handle the technical aspects of computer teaching, though, without my friends, and a realization that almost everyone learns by trial and error, even the most experienced technicians. I have been particularly fortunate; the English department hired an instructor to manage our computer center who is also a teacher and poet, and he is an amazingly patient person. He is also an excellent teacher--he gives me the tools and is there when I get stuck, but he doesn’t do the work for me (no matter how much I beg).

Collaboration with other faculty has been essential, and it may require outside help since many “early adopters” are isolated within their own departments. I began as part of a grant-supported faculty development project involving 5 area schools, where I had to articulate my pedagogical goals to faculty in other fields and could explore software possibilities with more knowledgeable people. When that project ended, several of us English folks convinced better-connected colleagues to apply for an Annenberg grant for collaborative learning about computers and writing. The result was the Epiphany Project, which now creates workshops and collaborative materials based on a Web site (http://mason.gmu.edu/~epiphany/)and involves more than 45 associated university sites all over the country, an active e-list, and a Web-based field guide. Perhaps soon I will have more colleagues in my own department to work with, but that is taking time.

Teachers must also develop their own technical support network. One surprising discovery is that even the most “expert” computer person has specialized knowledge, which means ignorance of other areas about the computer. Also, when people learn something, anything, about the computer, they are very willing to share, especially if you share some tidbit that you know. The collaborative model, which I want for dealing with literary interpretations, comes naturally for working with computers as well. Another rule for survival is, then, when something isn’t working right, ask--and keep on asking--until you get an answer. If you don’t, your frustration will build until you won’t be able to learn. Build a network of “experts” in your e-mail address file, with a fair idea of their area of expertise, and don’t hesitate to call them after giving a reasonable amount of effort and thought to solving your own problems. Generally computer problems come from simple errors and just trying to go too quickly. Another rule is: sometimes the best thing to do is to reboot and start over, or change to another computer.

About ten years ago I decided to learn German, starting from scratch. Perhaps the best lessons I learned were in how to learn something that I knew absolutely nothing about. As an experienced teacher, I often forget, for example, just how confused I was when I first read Emerson and Thoreau. Learning to use the computer (when you can feel totally dumb at any point, even after years of learning) is another valuable exercise in understanding what learning is all about. Learning from others, being willing to make mistakes, finding logical patterns, learning what you need to know when you need to know it, knowing how and when to consult resources, working through confusion--every teacher needs to be reminded of all this. As Thoreau asks in Walden, “How can he remember well his ignorance--which his growth requires--who has so often to use his knowledge?”

There are many pedagogical issues a teacher must wrestle with as well. The teacher’s usual authoritative role in the classroom changes radically in this environment; however, what we give up in authoritarian control can come back in lively class negotiations of texts. Students perceive us more as guides or coaches than “teachers,” telling them what they should think about a literary work. The first few weeks students would ask me what I thought about a work (little did they realize that there were clues in the hypertext materials), but I held back, saying I wanted them to develop their own interpretations, ones which would stand up to objections raised by students with other interpretations. Soon they stopped asking me what I thought a work “meant” and enjoyed thinking more for themselves. It isn’t that they respected my interpretation less; it is that they learned to respect their own more. As my colleagues tell me, they have been empowered as readers, and they are comfortable presenting well-argued interpretations in other classes now.

The public nature of the discussion in the open Web forum affected my students in ways I had not expect. Some seemed to be more reluctant to write publically, and others were clearly “showing off.” One woman was contacted by e-mail by someone who had found her name in a Web search. The media evidently carried other mixed messages. The visual impact of writing in boxes made the discussions fragmentary and undeveloped. I wanted serious responses to the reading, and I often got incoherent chat and little textual analysis. My classes have conducted much more serious electronic discussions with CONNECT; the coming CONNECT.NET program will allow privacy, editing, and a “spaces” which invite more serious responses but will have the advantage of being on the Internet.

Another major issue has to do with timing; can a dynamic course discussion be asynchronous? In my judgment, the more synchronous it is, the more interactive and lively discussion is. My students want response when they write something, then and not in a week after we have gone on to discuss another work. There can be analysis of the discussion later, but the discussion itself must take place in a very limited time. Perhaps a less interactive format could be asynchronous, but interactivity is the heart of my pedagogy. Unfortunately, students will often interpret electronic discussions as meaning that they can do them at any time, no matter what guidelines you set up. With CONNECT, I can make a discussion inactive so students can no longer post their responses, and I do after about 2-3 days. If they are not “in” the discussion, they lose course points. It’s hard, but necessary for the less disciplined students. However they still have 48 hours to join the discussion, far more than they would have in any other class.

Access is another crucial issue. Students with their own computers and access do have (unfair?) advantage, especially if there is not enough computer access at the university (and there isn’t yet at VCU). One advantage of Web materials is that some students can access them out of class; the disadvantage is that some cannot, especially if they have limited time to get to school computers. I have had to be very pro-active at my university about student access, although I would prefer to just teach my courses quietly in the computer center and not spend hours with administrators arguing. But as a tenured professor with years of committee service and many contacts, I don’t have a choice here. Many teachers who use computers for teaching do not have that base, and may fear professional repercussions with good reason.

There are many challenges in teaching this way and unexpected rewards. I have come to appreciate greatly the insights my students bring to works I have read for years; I too am learning as I never have before. There is an excitement in the “student-centered” interactive computer classroom rarely encountered in more traditional settings. Most students leave these classes justifiably confident in their own abilities to read, willing to speak up and to ask for the grounds of other interpretations. Emerson would be proud, and probably very surprised.

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