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THanks!!
______
This is the meat of a proposal to somehow integrate hypertexts into the
community college curriculum. COuld anyone advise, revise, add to, edit, or
help� in any way? THanks, Deena Larsen ([email protected]).
Benefits of Hypertext
Conventional text
s can be compared to a two-dimensional line-the reader reads from one page to
the next. Hypertexts,
on the other hand, offer a third dimension-the reader can choose his or her
path among a range of possibilities. This third dimension of hypertext opens
up a new world for students. Students can for
ge their own links through a text, pursue their interests, and interact in a
webwork of ideas.
When students forge their links through a series of documents, they learn to
connect ideas quickly. For example, Dickens Web lets students explore the
work of Dickens through various links. A student can read about the tangled
legal affairs in Bleak House and turn to an actual court document from that
period. Or a student can trace the Reform Act from the Act itself through
all the mentions of the Act in Dickens' w
ork.
Students become much more motivated in exploring literature when they can
pursue their own interests. By following their own interests, students more
readily see the connections and comment
ary of the literature on their own lives.
Conventional texts allow a one-way road of communica
tion-the book speaks, the student listens. Hypertexts offer an interactive
alternative to this "lecture" method. Students can leave their own paths
through documents and their own comments for other students. The text
becomes a true dialogue, a meeting place for minds. Thus courses with
hypertexts would promote the participatory teaching methods Red Rocks
advocates.
Possible Courses
Literature Analysis
Course
This course would teach the fundamentals of analyzing literature, and could
be an elective for students continuing in professions that demand analysis
and research (teaching, law, writing, etc). Students would need access to
MacIntoshes, System 6.0 or higher. Dickens Web would cost $50 for
each student (we can lower this cost with an educational discount).
Using Dickens Web, this course would analyze connections between ideas and
commentary. Students could follow threads between different works of
Dickens. Final student projects would be to analyze one element in Dickens'
work (e.g., social commentary on the Reform Act or humble" characters
throughout the works) and forge a path betw
een documents that other students could follow.
Creative Writing Course
This course would cover the fundamentals of creative writing: characters,
plot, language, tone, and audience as well as providing a place to practice
analytical reading skills, cooperative creation, and teamwork. This course
could be aimed at students who wanted to explore creative writing in a
secure, preplanned environment. Students would need access to MacIntoshes,
System 6.0 or higher. Students would also need Storyspace, a h
ypertextual word processor. This program would cost $600 for ten site
licenses.
The class would be given a "blank hypertext" that portayed a situation, such
as Notell Motel, developed at Brown University. This work provides the
setting, a hotel. Students would people the hotel with their own characters
and have their characters interact with other students' characters. Thus the
class hypertext would allow the reader to enter this world and to follow a
character or situation through the hypertext. (e.g, the reader could go to
the lobby of the hotel to see who had done what there, follow a character
through his or her stay at the hotel, or branch off to follow another
character). Since the work is nonlinear, no strict order must be followed.
Thus students have free rein to create and to add situations. Also, the
computer setting will allow students to change the work at will. Students
would meet to discuss the work and resolve contradictions (e.g., the
bartender has red hair here and has black hair there or would the manager
actually do such and so), thus learning to create as a team.