English 30: That Sony Reader

My favorite part of this term, by far, was teaching English 30: honors first year rhetoric and composition. My students were thoughtful and hardworking, and we were part of the Sony Reader pilot project, which involved my students doing most of their reading on the Sony Reader. For the most part, students didn’t seem to care for it as an academic reading device, but using the Reader afforded us an excellent opportunity to discuss literacy practices and literacy technologies. I meant to write and reflect on the class on this here blog a lot more than I did, so I’ll just briefly run through a few important things that are on my mind right now.

1. I’ve never had such a great batch of final papers from my students. I think having an honors class helped, but I think the thing that helped the most was turning the final paper into a three-paper process project—an approach I stole from Lisa Ede (she describes it as well in Situating Composition). We started the research project with an “Isearch paper” that asked for an exploratory introduction to their topic. My major requirements were that it was interesting, showed their exigence for wanting to research this topic, and explored some of the questions they were interested in. Students shared their papers with each other, and wrote “valentines” to each other, praising each other’s work. I think this was one of the best days of the term. Students read their valentines from each other and we talked about what they liked about each other’s papers. Students expressed that they had a lot of fun, and I think it helped build a classroom community. (We did this in one of Lisa’s classes when I was at Oregon State, and I loved it as a student as well.) The assignment was fuzzy to a lot of students, because I didn’t have examples, but I think they did fairly well.

The second paper was an “Entering the Conversation Essay,” where students reported to me where they were in their research process, what the conversation was surrounding their topic, and where they thought they would wind up positioning themselves in that conversation. This paper helped a lot, I think, in getting students to think about academic arguments in terms of conversations with people taking different positions and positioning themselves with and against other ideas. And their final papers! Overall, more well researched than I’ve ever had, more clear positions that were well argued than ever before, more clear “what’s at stake” than ever before, more well cited than ever before (though this, I’d say, was the students’ own responsibility, as I barely covered this in class), more lively prose than ever before. Just a great group of final papers overall. I had a lot of fun reading their work all term.

2. My students final presentations were on the Sony Reader. Most either chose to give a presentation “to students” discussing how they could use the Reader in their academic lives, or “to Sony” discussing how to improve the Reader. Some really great insights, and some entertaining presentations as well. While many of the presentations covered what others did (this was expected), they were overall still enjoyable and different enough from each other to be worth it. I think the librarians and English faculty who visited the class last week also got a lot of information (and joy) out of the presentations.

Coursework

I took two rhetoric classes outside of English this term, which was great, because I got to see how Communication Arts and Sciences approaches rhetoric. Lots of overlap, but also different reference points. I got some access to materials and ideas that I wouldn’t have otherwise, I’m sure, and I’m still trying to digest the whole term. For the first few months, the term was rocky because I didn’t feel like I was a part of a learning community like I did last term. Last term, I was hanging out with my classmates outside of class, we were discussing course materials and our writing a lot, and I felt really connected. The first half of this term I felt a lot more isolated. But then I started getting to know the CAS grad students better and hanging out with them outside of class, and I felt a lot more connected. I had a lot of fun in my English class, on literacy and technology, as well, and feel like I got quite a bit out of it. The term wound up being pretty successful.

I’m excited for next term, though I’m also glad that it’s a few months away. It’ll be my last term of coursework before gearing up for the comprehensive exams. Also, it’ll be the last time I have to write three seminar papers at once again, which isn’t fun. (Well, it is in some ways, but it definitely hurts the quality of my writing and my sleep schedule.)

Summer is (virtually) here

And it should be packed. I’ve got a few things to revise for possible articles, a collaborative article to co-write, a course to teach (which I’m super excited about), the RSA Institute, and working on my talk for Feminisms and Rhetorics in the fall. I might take an article-writing class (mostly for motivation, time structure, and peer review), but I’m uncertain at this point.

Final Reflective Commentary on Sony Reader

• While in NYC, I visited Printed Matter, a great store with all sorts of zines, old books, artwork, prints, and magazines. I picked up the book Queer Zines, which is a catalogue of various zines with some articles about queer zine practices, history, and theory. I’m excited to read it, if I can ever get through my homework.

• Teaching went really well today. We had a great conversation about cultural assumptions regarding literacy technologies. I think students are starting to pick up on what I’m talking about for their second paper — though we still need to discuss narrative in more detail, among so many other things. Writing classes = trying to cover too much, as always. Even with a theme, I find it impossible to fully narrow down the scope. It’s like my own writing: too much too much too much. Narrow, focus, and define!

• Something really interesting was said in one of my graduate seminars today, but for the life of me, I can’t remember it. I remember thinking: I want to blog about that! I didn’t write that down, so I am not blogging about it. Plato was right: writing hurts memory. Plato was wrong when he claimed this is a bad thing. Writing is memory! (So it doesn’t actually “hurt” memory.)

• I feel that this blog needs a new look and feel to it. Also, in case you missed it, this blog is boring. Roger Wilson says so.

• I’ve been thinking about audience recently again. Perhaps I should focus my paper for 584 (Postcritical Perspectives in Literacy Studies) on audience instead of my previous topic (authenticity, related to Sennett’s The Fall of Public Man. Not sure. But how does audience change in electric/digital writing — that is, does our (composition studies’) conception of audience need revisited, post Ede/Lunsford? Not sure…

How is the Sony ebook Reader going? Eh, I’m not impressed with it. My students are frustrated by the slow page turning rate when they read pdf’s, as am I. In fact, for the graduate course I’m in, I barely read on the machine anymore. I print off the journal articles that we are “supposed” to read on the Reader so that I can have paper in front of me and mark it all up. It’s easier to read on the Reader when we’re using an ebook, such as Everything, which actually reads nicely, I think. My problem is that when it comes to reading on the reader, I read too quickly because I can’t have a pen in my hand to slow me down and make marginalia. I like marking in the book, not saving notes elsewhere, because I inevitably lose those notes or forget about them, whether I hand-write them or type them.

This post is becoming more about my reading habits than my students’ and my class, so I’ll make one last comparison about my reading habits. I bought an iPhone on Friday, and so far, I am using it a lot and getting a lot out of it. (Went to New York City this weekend — not sure how I’d get around as easily if I hadn’t brought an iPhone with me, esp. in New Jersey, where I parked my car but had trouble finding the parking lot because New Jersey’s road signs are so awful.) Last week my students read Sloane’s “The Haunting of Story J” from Passions, Pedagogies, and 21st Century Technologies. Sloane argues that new literacy technologies are not completely and radically new, but that instead we bring prior habits and expectations from previous literacy technologies, as well as our own personal history and cultural assumptions, even if they are “wrong” or not useful. My students on Friday started discussing some of the prior activities that “haunt” our use of the Reader (including, interestingly, the Nintendo DS and the iPod). This view, a genealogical one, allows us to understand that there isn’t a linear transformation of literacy technologies, from the scroll to the hand-written codex, to the printed book, to the eReader.

How is my use of the eReader “haunted” by my prior and current literacy activities, as well as my own assumptions and personal beliefs and experiences with literacy technologies? I keep comparing the Reader to my print reading activities, but I think the biggest frustration comes from how I have more expectations of a screen than the Reader can cope with. I expect to be able to click on a screen and move through ideas. I expect to be able to highlight and annotate in some fashion, even if it’s copy and pasting text. I’m used to being able to listen to music on the same machine that I read, and to be able to quickly and easily flip over to my music to change the song. (On the Reader, songs play in alphabetical order and you have to leave your reading, go back to the main menu, and then go to the music section to change the song you’re listening to.) On my laptop, where I do lots of reading and writing, I don’t even have to go to iTunes to change the song, but can instead use the function keys at the top of my keyboard.

The Reader seems limited in so many ways because it doesn’t attune itself to the reading and writing practices of web2.0 users — it’s not so much that it fails to remediate the book (though it does fail this in some important ways). Imagine if Apple had made this ebook reader. You’d be able to zoom in by using your fingers; you’d be able to select text with your fingers and a keyboard would pop up (which is close to what happens on the newer version of the Sony Reader, though you use a stylus); you’d be able to quickly and easily change music you’re listening to; pdfs would be easier to read and not load so slowly. One thing that is nice about the Reader is its eInk that doesn’t burn out my eyes as I read, but this doesn’t seem very important because of how impatient I am with the Reader. I’d rather read on my iPhone, which has a much smaller screen but that might actually burn out my eyes more quickly.

I read on the Chronicle that Northwest Missouri State is part of a similar project with Sony. Results? Mixed. An excerpt:

Students were initially fascinated with their readers, said Dean L. Hubbard, the university’s president, but they soon became frustrated with the devices’ limited interactivity capabilities — which made it impossible to highlight passages, cut and paste text, or participate in interactive quizzes.

“This is a tremendous attention getter; it’s not as good an attention holder,” said Mr. Hubbard of the Sony Reader. But Mr. Hubbard added that he thinks similar devices will be extremely popular in the long run, once their features have improved.

I like how Hubbard frames the device as an attention grabber, but not an attention holder. In fact, the device’s lack of functionality has led me to pay less attention to it. It goes days in my backpack untouched, except to move it out of the way to pull out a book.

My students are reading the first few chapters of The Whale and the Reactor by Langdon Winner this week and next, on the Reader. It’s not in ebook format — instead, it’s a pdf, so there’s even more limited interactivity with the text (you can’t even zoom in and out with this one!).

It’s been an exciting two days so far. We haven’t started with the Sony Readers yet, because the students are getting the books next week, but we’re starting the term off with a critical analysis unit on the non-neutrality of technology and design. We discussed Jennie Winhall’s “Is Design Political?” today in class, which was fruitful. Students are most excited (I think) that they don’t have to buy textbooks this term (and I don’t blame them — in fact, that was part of the reason I was excited). My students so far have been talkative and great and offered some interesting ideas and perspectives.

The thing that I’m most frustrated with at this point is the course blog. The teacher of the other section engaged in this project and I decided that rather than traditional journals or posts on ANGEL (which I loathe almost as much as Blackboard) that we would have class blogs. I set up a Movable Type blog on my PSU webspace (figuring that it would be best to keep things on PSU server space) and started immediately running into problems. I can’t invite students to the blog until they’ve taken an online questionnaire showing they “understand” copyright laws and PSU policy for their webspace. We did this in class today, but there is a 1-3 business day turnaround for their registration to go through, so I’ll have to wait to invite them to the blog. And I’m not used to MT (I’m a WordPress blogger, for certain), so it was a bit of self-teaching and information seeking in order to set comment moderation the way I wanted, to incorporate links in the sidebar, etc.

I’m not sure how much privileges I’ll be able to give students on the blog. I want them to have quite a bit of control to play with the blog, including adding links to the sidebar, should they feel so inclined, but I’m not sure what MT will allow for users who don’t “own” the blog. Guess we’ll find out.

What’s most exciting about this experiment is that it’s obviously an experiment. I view all my teaching as an experiment (like a pragmatist), exploring what works and what doesn’t, and what works in what situations. But this term, I’m doing so much that’s just new to me and to students. It’s probably going to take up a lot more of my time than teaching did last term, but that’s okay.

Additionally, we’re using the Sony Reader in one of my graduate courses, which is exciting, so the eleven of us will also be exploring the tool as we discuss literacies and technologies.

¹ The course catalog and ANGEL (our Blackboard-esque software) call it Honors Freshman Composition — a term I am not too fond of because of the gendered “freshman” and the lack of “rhetoric” in the title. Our non-honors sections are titled Rhetoric and Composition.

I also just bought my textbooks for next term. Well, my textbooks plus a few other rhetoric, theory, and feminist books I saw for other courses. All told expenses: about $700. I should just write down what books I need and want and order them online, but I still have an attachment to bookstores and the immediacy of buying the book and the newness of books. Plus, I’m not a “digital native.” I think the first thing I bought online was in 2000 or something, which made me 20 before I engaged in this type of activity. No, I still like the tactile (and immediate) gratification of having the book in my hands and flipping through them.

Fantastic. I rescheduled my flight to leave State College tomorrow morning instead. But the benefit? I found out that I can pick up the Sony Reader I’m using next term for English 30 today, which means I can carry it on the trip to do reading and planning for next term, instead of carrying so many books! Woot!

rating: 4 of 5 stars
In Everything Bad is Good for You, Johnson attempts to de-bunk the popular narrative that the culture industry is making us stupider, by feeding us more and more banal television shows, video games, and movies. He argues for understanding a Sleeper Curve in popular culture that is actually making texts more complicated over time. That is, many video games, television shows, Internet sites, and movies are making us smarter by challenging out mental faculties: we have to make more mental and social connections, these texts leave out information that we have to figure out, and they rely on delayed gratification, and we have to figure out the rules of the game/text because they aren’t told to us explicitly.



Johnson shows that IQ tests scores have been improving over the last few decades, and while it’s problematic to compare IQ tests across cultures, races, and locations (because the tests probably are biased), it’s not as problematic to compare them across generations. (He readily admits that IQ tests don’t actually test all of our mental capacities, but rather serve as an indicator that at least gives us some data.)



I think Johnson provides some pretty good nuance to his book and gives some pretty strong evidence for his case. A lot of the first half of the book reads like James Paul Gee’s What Video Games Can Teach Us about Learning and Literacy, though without the methodological explanation and some of the depth. Additionally, Johnson is clear to explain that he’s not advocating quitting reading books, and that books do provide a kind of intellectual work unique to them. He’s less likely to see declined book reading as a threat to culture, because he notes that all sorts of activities are in decline (television viewing, movie going, etc.). Also, he’s not advocating playing video games 24/7, and he cautions that his book is not about the effects of texts’ contents (e.g., violence, sexism, etc.). He argues that “[t:]he work of the critic, in this instance, is to diagram those forces [neurological appetites, economics of culture industry, changing technological platforms:], not decode them” (10).



Overall, this is a pretty good read and makes a convincing case. I am inclined to agree with him, though I do wonder more about the economic effects of all of this, and who benefits and who is left out of his narrative. Johnson, defending himself against critiques of his book that he is supporting capitalism, notes that some of the effects of gaming culture have been to question capitalist notions of private property, and also states that he sees himself as “much more of a technological determinist than an economic determinist.” He doesn’t want to ask “What is capitalism doing to our minds? Rather, the question is: What is the reigning technological paradigm — combined with both market and public-sector forces — doing to our minds?” (205). While I don’t see myself as much of a determinist, I do think there is much to be said of the economic consequences (who is getting rich, and who is “feeding” those that get rich). Additionally, what does it much matter if we are getting cognitively smarter when most those energies are focused on perpetuating a capitalist system? Okay, that’s cynical. It matters. But, from my vantage point, systems analysis needs to be coupled with an imagination for what’s outside the system: what other worlds are possible, and how can they be achieved? Perhaps this is best left to follow up work to Johnson’s text.


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Liz Losh shares the story of the alternative reality game The Truth About Marika, which seems to exemplify Johnson’s point even more than many of the examples in his book. One argument that Johnson makes is that these popular and stimulating “commodities” are so popular because they are interactive, providing clues and not filling in all the blanks for viewers participants: participants must engage with the material to even understand what’s going on. Whereas older television shows, or current, less engaging television shows, used big pointing arrows to alert viewers of important information, now participants must decide what material is important and what is just filling in space. There’s a lot more cognitive work going on.

The Truth About Marika seems fascinating.

There’s a lot going on here, of course. Losh mentions the lines between fact and fiction being blurred, and some participants unsure of fact or fiction. This is, I think, interesting. But I also wonder about how authenticity (what is “fact” or “real”) is questioned — or perhaps even the questioning isn’t as interesting as the ways in which authenticity is appealed to. The way this show hooked participants through claiming there was an authentic Marika is fascinating.