Socializing Preliminary Literary Research

I'm a big advocate of integrating a social component into the writing and research process -- in the context of literary studies and beyond. To this end, I require my students to do social discovery until they get social proof on their topics and claims. This occurs in the formative stages of their research and writing, allowing them to get useful feedback (and often, specific references and sources) to help them feel more committed to their topics and more prepared to back up their claims.

But my students do need some structure and prodding to make this work. I've posted about this elsewhere in laying out a socially optimized research strategy. This post is a refinement of that process, helping think through whom to contact, why, and when.

So, here is some structure for doing social discovery and obtaining social proof.

Step 1: Make a "Who Might Care?" Graph

1. Put your semi-specific topic in a circle in the middle of a piece of paper
2. Divide the paper into four quadrants, labeling each quadrant as follows: HOMIES, PEERS, ENTHUSIASTS, and EXPERTS. For more of an explanation of these types of people, see the top of this post or the image in this post.
3. Brainstorm who could fit into these quadrants and why they might care

In seeking out peers and friends for feedback, I can obviously include people who will listen to me no matter what (thanks, homies!). But it's a good idea to target individuals among one's friends on the basis of their interests. So, think of the component topics or issues within your working main idea. In this case, I may want to seek out people who are interested in Shakespeare, interested in performance, or interested in virtual worlds, but not necessarily in all of these at once. (See my "homies" section in the image below to see how I've done that).

Skipping ahead to the fourth category of experts, I may also wish to segment various types of people to contact based on aspects of the topic I'm working on. So, I might consult a Shakespeare scholar, or a computer scientist -- even if the former doesn't care about computers and the latter only cares about virtual worlds.

Within the peers and enthusiasts areas, it is often helpful here to think in terms of various media within which these ideas are discussed. These are more likely to be social media than professional or scholarly sources, and the are more likely to be beyond your own personal interests or acquaintances and associated with various organizations, specific social networks, events, publications, and platforms.

For a list of possible points of entry to discover differing types of people by way of different media and categories, see the section on "Where can one do social discovery?" in this post.

Step 2: Make an Annotated Contact List

After doing the brainstorming above, you might want to type this up into an annotated contact list. To see examples of such lists, see the list near the top of this post on "Social Proof Successes by Students." 

Step 3: Make Contact

In general, the less developed one's idea, the more one will consult homies and possibly peers; the more developed one's ideas (and the more specific one's questions), the more one will seek out enthusiasts and experts. For different stages and for different audiences, a different approach is needed. For example, one can do a general query to one's homies as a simple question: "Is having students perform Shakespeare in a virtual world crazy?" To an expert, a more formal and detail approach would be more appropriate. See the examples case studies in contacting experts and of query letters in this post.

Memorization and Performance Assignment - Shakespeare

Shakespeare can be understood on a level otherwise unknown if students memorize and/or perform his words. As part of the final exam for this course, we'll enjoy one another's memorized words from Shakespeare. However, I will require the selection and memorization of passages earlier than the final so that the final is more polished (see calendar of deadlines below).

Students can choose from among these options:

1. Memorize 50 lines (give or take a few) of Shakespeare. This can be in the form of
1. a monologue (Hamlet's "To be or not to be"; Kate's final soliloquy in Taming of the Shrew; Henry V's St. Crispin's Day speech; etc.)
2. four sonnets (two of which must come from this set: 18, 29, 116, 130)
3. a set of important quotations of your choice from across Shakespeare's plays (from at least four separate plays or sources)
4. a scene performed with other students where each student has about 50 lines
2. Perform the above in one of the following ways
1. Private recitation to the instructor in his office
2. Video (posted either privately or publicly on YouTube - Doesn't have to be fancy)
3. Classroom performance

Deadlines:

• Nov 2 (Mon) - Create a blog post indicating your selections for memorization. Quote the lines to be memorized in their entirety, preceded by a short explanation of why these were chosen and how they will be performed (from the choices listed above)
• Nov 11 (Wed) - 25 of 50 lines must be memorized and recited in class this day (emphasis on retention, not performance)
• Nov 23 (Mon) - last 25 of 50 lines must be memorized and recited in class this day (emphasis on retention, not performance)
• Dec 9 (Wed) - Dress rehearsal for final exam performance
• Dec 18 (Fri) 3-6pm (Final Exam performance)

Final Exam: A Shakespeare "salon"

My students will be gathering for a final exam event to sum up their learning of Shakespeare this term. They will be put into groups of three and will come ready to ask and answer questions related to each of the learning outcomes for the course. They will have a prompt to assist them in recalling the categories of conversation required, and this will also serve as a place where they can record insights made by the two other peers with whom they are speaking during this salon.

In the spirit of Renaissance "sprezzatura," the goal is not to take turns giving a "what I learned" speech. Rather, the goal is to work into the conversation, as naturally as possible, the learning outcomes and other required conversation items listed below.

There will be four salon sessions during the final, each with a different combination of students, and based around each of the following questions (drawn mostly from the learning outcomes):

Bioshock, Shakespeare, and the Legitimizing of Video Games

I watched an eloquent review of the new video game, Bioshock Infinite by Adam Sessler. Sessler is enraptured by the aesthetic and narrative components of this vividly rendered game which is set in an alternate 1912.

I found myself drawn in by the amazing immersive, historical environment shown in the game trailer. I was also very interested in how Sessler emphasized the function of form, and how this related to the theme of agency that plays out in the video game (quote starts at about 2:25 in the video):

"It only can work as a game. The unique agency and complicity of the player in the game's narrative is part of its commentary. This isn't a game filled with player choice. But it is the best game about the choices we make as a person and a people, their consequences, and their uncertainty of absolution..."

How does this relate to Shakespeare? I'm thinking of discussions I've had with Paul or Britton about the status of video games today. They face the same thing that theater faced in Shakespeare's day -- they thrive as something immensely popular, but wither under the stigma of not being legitimate in mainstream society.

I may be hasty to say so, but if Sessler's review is to be trusted, something like Bioshock compares to what one of Shakespeare's signature pieces (like King Lear or Hamlet) did for theater: it makes you quit the conservative reactiveness to the medium and instead requires you to pay attention because something very important is going on here. I haven't bought or played the game, but I tend to agree with Sessler's prediction that this game promises to be ground breaking as a proof that video games are serious art, and not just play. As a teacher, I could see a hundred ways that the game could introduce serious discussion about history, ethics, identity, etc.

My teenage son seems pleased that I'm seriously interested in buying and playing Bioshock Infinite...

When posted this video trailer on Google+ recently, a colleague, Laura Gibbs, pointed me to a serious academic reading of the game by Roger Travis of PlaythePast -- a rather serious group blog about games, gamification, etc.

Are you taking video games seriously -- I mean, beyond the standard worries about waste of time or troubling content? Maybe Shakespeare would have been a game creator were he alive today...

Update (3/26/13)
Roger Travis pointed me to another post in which he's analyzed this game: "That Bioshock is Tragedy" on his Living Epic blog. He applies classical genres to critiquing contemporary video games and theorizes interactivity in some interesting ways. It's a lot to wrap my head around -- video games as a reprisal of oral culture with its improvisational and interactive qualities? Fascinating.

Outlets for Student Research

While blogging is an informal outlet for student research, there are more formal ways to present or publish such writing. Consider these categories:

1. Academic Archives
2. Academic Conferences
3. Academic Journals
4. Academic Blogging

The altruistic scholar

Kara V publicly thanked those whose
feedback kept her from a wild goose chase

I want my students to realize how energizing and interesting it is to do research and reading -- for others.

Writing an academic research paper is typically lonely, and often feels like drudgery. Wouldn't be cool if, out of the blue, someone came to you with a great source that really supports your thesis or advances your thinking? And then -- think about it -- once you'd received that help, wouldn't you feel a bit more serious about your project?

So, go ahead and give that very experience to someone else. Call it karma, call it whatever, but see how very efficient and enjoyable it is to be an altruistic scholar.

What, you don't have time? You can only budget time for yourself and your own heavy load? First, you don't realize how much a very little goes a long way, and you may not yet have faith that such other-oriented thinking results in tangible benefits to you.

But have some faith, take some chances. I find that when I take chances on people, the way that parents and many others have taken chances on me, I rarely regret such reaching out. Think I'm giving a Sunday School lesson? Think whatever you like. But all I know is that it works.

A Quick Example
Let me model to you my own process for doing this by showing you how simple it was to help someone else out.

The eBibliography: Annotated Bibliography in the Age of New and Social Media

Image: creative commons licensed by Moyan Brenn - Flickr

In preparing instructions for my students for completing an annotated bibliography assignment, it's occurred to me that what is evolving here is a different sort of creature than the more traditional bibliographies used in the print-oriented world of academic writing. I might have titled this genre "eBibliography."

How does the "eBibliography" differ from the regular sort?

As those instructions for my students show, this new sort of bibliography does not consist purely of sources from traditional scholarship. It includes a strong social component as well as a focus on new media.

This diversity of sources should help students focus both on developing their ideas, but also sharpening their sense of the relevance and currency of their ideas. By having to list and talk about one's "social graph" and various social networks, this makes students conscious of available avenues for what I call "social proof."

For more on social proof, see "Ignite Your Ideas with Social Proof"

In addition, by looking at and reviewing various new media, students can tap into current discussion and also expert networks.

Overall, this genre of bibliography is also an in-progress genre. It is not a Works Cited page, nor a formally published scholarly bibliography. Far from it. No, this exemplifies the value and importance of publishing process (see "The In-Process Post Genre" and "Burning Redwoods: The Lost Assets of Academia"). The long and short of that is that in the digital age, we are at our best when publicly documenting our processes of discovery and the curation and formation of our ideas. In-process knowledge might even be more important than more formalized varieties of knowledge production.

Returning to Primary Texts

In developing a research paper idea about a literary, it's important to circle back to that literature in light of one's developing thinking. Here's a suggested procedure:

• Summarize your current thinking, identifying one or two main directions, perhaps in terms of a question or two. With those in mind...
• Review key passages (noted by yourself or others)
• Analyze (a passage, a word, a pattern), often by using critical aids (like footnotes) or other tools (like concordances), looking for patterns (thematically, or in terms of language, form, etc.).
• Synthesize your current thinking in a brief post (which can narrate your process, not just articulate your claim or analysis)

Example from Twelfth Night

• Current thinking: What is the connection between the themes of madness and love in Twelfth Night? Is this kind of madness related to non-love types of madness?
• Key Passages
• "I am as mad as he, / If sad and merry madness equal be" (3.4.15-16)
• "But tell me true, are you / not mad indeed? or do you but counterfeit?" (4.2.107-08)
• Analyze
• I used Shakespeare Searched to look for mentions of madness in Twelfth Night. From this, it appears that madness is linked both to merriness and to sadness, and has both positive and negative connotations. Characters of all rank demonstrate various types of madness. It is associated with music, with mourning, with being lovesick, deluded, and with being either overly religious or with being overly loose in one's morals.

• Synthesize
• A repeated saying in Twelfth Night is "some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrown upon them."I am starting to see that one could say the same thing about madness. Some seem to be by nature foolish or crazy, some have events happen in their lives that bring about some kind of irrational behavior, and some become crazy because others drive them to it. 

11 Tips for Academic Blogging

Using tip #3, I inserted a picture
that compelled you to read this post
AND it is personal media. I actually met
this chicken while helping my
neighbor move its 1000-ton coop
(that's using tip #1, by the way)

An academic blog isn't like other types of blogs. It isn't a Mommy blog, nor a political blog, nor a personal diary blog. It is a blog devoted to developing and sharing ideas. However, at the same time, an academic blog is not an academic paper, nor is it a place to turn in assignments to a teacher (ack!) .

Recently I posted about using photos in blog posts, and more specifically, using creative commons-licensed images. That's tip #11. Ten others are outlined at "Ten Tips for Academic Blogging" and they include:

1. Be personal
2. Design your blog
3. Use media
4. Use subheadings and lists
5. Use the "jump break" to divide longer posts
6. Post frequently
7. Post your drafts, notes, and outlines
8. Blog about books
9. Blog about possible reading and research
10. Blog about others and their ideas.

When one is contributing to a group blog, "design your blog" (tip #2) isn't possible, but you can certainly design your posts.

Use photos in blog posts (with a Creative Commons license)

Shakespeare went to school here
(CC BY 2.0 license by Ell Brown, Flickr)

If you want people to read your online writing, you need to use pictures.

Maybe people could care less about Shakespeare's education. But I put a picture of the grammar school he attended and -- blam! -- instant interest. Well, at least more than if I just posted a large column of visually boring text.

This is the digital age, and that means this is the age of communicating with photos all the time. So find a photo to give your blog posts a hook.

But don't just use any photo that you can find! The best practice is to make use of content that has been published with a Creative Commons license, as I will briefly explain.

Research Unit Overview / Calendar

Today is March 1, 2013, and my current Shakespeare students are embarking upon the last six weeks of our semester. They have read many works by Shakespeare and have done self-directed learning and a lot of online writing within a private online forum in our learning management system. From here on out, however, they will become more public in their conversation as they interact with one another and with those beyond our class in proposing and refining their research questions, then developing and publishing their formal research papers.

Blogging

Each student will post three times weekly to this, our course blog, and will also post comments in response to at least two other students' posts. But the goal here is not simply to produce writing. The blogging is a vehicle to meet the larger goals.

Goals

As I explained to my students in class today, the goal is not simply to produce a high-quality academic research paper. The goal is to find and develop a topic about which they care, and about which others demonstrate interest. This requires both reflection and interaction.

Along the way, the goal is to develop improved abilities at conducting research and using online writing and networking. This includes consulting traditional sources of literary criticism, but it also includes researching by way of new media and by tapping into social networks and online communities where the topics in question are being discussed. The online tools (including blogging and some video production) are not ends in themselves; they are to improve student ability at clarifying and refining their arguments, and improving communication and collaboration skills within the drafting and beta states of knowledge (rather than focusing everything upon a final, finished academic product alone).

Rather than simply listing detailed assignments for each class period, I would like my students to have an overview of the process in terms of these goals, which I will recast as questions:

Using Twitter for Academic Research

I'm a big proponent of turning to new media and social networks when doing traditional academic research. If one goes straight to library catalogues or the indices of academic journals, this is problematic for two reasons: you are pursuing a less efficient, non-social mode of inquiry; and you are consulting only what I call "fossil knowledge": knowledge that has great value, but is not living because one cannot interact with it, and it has been taken out of discursive contexts where it can grow and develop.

Therefore, I'm training my students to follow a socially optimized research strategy that consists of four broad steps:

1. Tell people
2. Curate your research
3. Search new media and social networks
4. Search traditional scholarship

I have focused on the first two of these steps in a blog for another course. Here, I'd like to focus on the third step, searching new media and social networks, with an emphasis on using Twitter.

Production Schedule for Shakespeare Research Papers

My current Shakespeare students are creating research papers, using this blog to document and develop their research in conversation with others. Here is our updated production schedule.

Researching Shakespeare Socially

"Now, I am alone" -- Hamlet 2.2.558
"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers" -- Henry V 4.3.62

Why do those researching and writing about Shakespeare do so alone? Nothing could be more social than drama: the players, the audience, the great ensemble of people that come together to make and enjoy a performance.

Something changes when Shakespeare shifts from being entertainment to being a subject of study. Of course, classrooms are social environments, often lively with discussion, recitations, amateur soliloquies, etc. But when students and scholars get down to the serious business of writing and researching and writing, they are no longer (like King Henry's embattled Englishment at Agincourt) "we few, we happy few"; no, they are more like the introspective (and often melancholic) Hamlet -- left to themselves to ruminate on meanings in unhealthy isolation.

Should Shakespeare be studied collaboratively?

We live in a new age, a time in which it is more natural to be social than to be isolated, a time when it is unnatural not to be sharing constantly through the available social media through which we update ourselves and others, connecting through the rich variety of content so literally at hand today.

Sadly, too many students (and their teachers) segregate their socially mediated selves from their academic selves. But why should they? If via Facebook or Twitter I can express interest in current events or report to a network of friends about what gets my attention, why can't I (or won't I) narrate my encounters with Shakespeare (or any school subject)?