Planning for both Review & Hypertext Assignments

Last night each of you spoke up for the texts from the Electronic Literature Collection that you wanted to review. We looked over the Review Assignment Sheet (posted on this blog) to cover the expectations for the assignment, and you spoke up for the following pieces:

Review Assignment Schedule
March 5  "Savoir Faire" - Luis; "The Cape" - Peter
March 19 "Faith" or "Dawn" - Debbie; "In the White Darkness" - Heather
March 26 "Fitting the Pattern" - Stephanie C; "Like Stars in a Clear Night Sky" - Vanessa
April 2 "Whom the Telling Changed" - Joe; "Girls Day Out" - Andria
April 9 "Inanimate Alice" - Kimberley; "Nio" - Susan
April 16 "Strings" - Esther; "Red Riding Hood" - Stephanie M.
April 23 "Show of Hands" - Rafiqa; "Galatea" - Maria
**Julio - You still need to identify your text for review, and we will settle upon an appropriate date for your presentation.

We discussed Disappearing Rain - noting how the exhaustively clear navigation both eliminated the frustrations and ambiguities we experienced reading some of the other hypertexts, and (as observed both by the class and critics) seemed to make this work more like print text - in that it could be read clearly from beginning to end with little doubt about how the pieces fit together. We agreed it was easier in this text to apprehend an overall "map" of one's own reading experience.  We collectively expressed that we didn't experience the immediate disorientation (feeling of becoming "lost") like we might of experienced with our earlier hypertext readings.  A reader of DR might easily identify which links were visited, which one's had yet to be explored, etc.  But despite these important observations, we also noted that a clear sense of narrative closure was not really apart of our overall reading experience.  There was still a lingering sense of a mystery unsolved, .... much was left unresolved.  In this way the reading did have similarities with our earlier hypertext examples.

Here is a summary of the structure of the hypertexts we've read for class so far:

-12 Blue presents a home page with links to eight pages, each of which have 12 links. There are also links embedded within the texts on the 12 linked pages that take the reader deeper, and may cross to one of the other eight pages (in limited ways).

-FAQ about Hypertext, like Disappearing Rain, allows the reader full access to all available links. In contrast to Disappearing Rain, some features that gives this text increased electronic literariness is that it parodies both an existing electronic genre, and critical traditions for discussing those genres.

The Jew's Daughter is not really a hypertext - but a flash document that gives the illusion of a linked text. The structure is pretty much linear/overlapping, though the reader has freedom (as in a print text) to read forward and back by screen.  Heather and Maria shared an important account of their reading experience of TJD.  They read as "partners" in a collaborative and playful fashion.  They stated that their tag-team approach to exploring the text definitely aided them both in opening up more meaning in the text.  Through an informal comparative consultation, they shared their reading strategies with each other, and in the process they seemed to gain more appreciation for the overall complexity and nuances of the text.  Reading as partners can be both fun and helpful in the textual discovery process.

Disappearing Rain is an example of networked fiction, in that the story connects the reader to the internet itself both in its plotline and in its form (though since the work is old - most of the links are broken).

We ended class with a consideration of your Hypertext Assignment (Project One).  I have asked you to continue to think about how you might approach your hypertext piece. We reviewed the assignment requirements.  At the close of class I suggested you proceed by developing two working elements while building your hypertext project:

1.  A file which contains all your creative "lexia" docs.  This is your creative writing file which should include some of the writing pieces you will eventually include in your overall textual puzzle (i.e. written texts, "lexia", or textual elements you might link together in some way).

2.  A Demo GoogleSite - so that you can play around with creating a website with a particular infrastructure that might facilitate your eventual effort to create a hypertext narrative.  Your demo site will be a space to explore and discover the various features of GoogleSites.  You need to learn the capacity of GoogleSites, and the best way to do this is to play around with a demo site first.
_________
For next week:

Do some work on your hypertext! Keep the requirements of the assignment in mind as you work. In class you will have some time to talk about your project - and to work on it - so be sure to have your files & demo site ready to explore with in class.

Blog:  Write about your work on the Hypertext Assignment thus far.  Post a map of your site (so far) and your writing/plans for how you are going to create your hypertext. The more you post - the more your classmates and I can give you feedback on.

Next week's class will be a workshop. I strongly suggest that you work as far as you can - to a place where you are stuck - or would like to do something more elegant but don't know how.  Then in class you can network and hopefully someone will have your answer.

Reminder:  I will be formally reading/providing feedback for your blogs after next week's class - if Blogs 1, 2, 3, & 4 are not posted by next Tuesday, you probably will not be getting full credit for your blog thus far.

Continuing to Contemplate Hypertext Fiction

The Jew's Daughter, her advocates and her relatives.....

If you felt frustrated about not being able to find the "meaning" or "story" in Twelve Blue, I am guessing that The Jew's Daughter is not a "good read" for you.  As a way to think about how to "read" TJD, you might take a look at Lori Emerson's "My Digital Dickinson" in Vol 17.2 of The Emily Dickinson Journal (available through Project Muse on the Kean Library databases). Emerson suggests that digital reading strategies (such as those demanded by TJD) are pervasive and that they are changing the way we read texts in general.

Or you might consider TJD's ideology and focus are descendants of movements from both print (the Nouveau Roman) and film (French New Wave or Le Nouvelle Vague).

In the Nouveau Roman, writers such as Claude Simon, Michel Butor, Alain Robbe-Grillet more or less ditched traditional narrative lines and characters and devoted themselves to creating works that explore context, effects of time and space, and the form of the "novel" itself. (For example, see Michael Delahoyde's discussion of Robbe-Grillet's Jealousy.

Within film, the French New wave movement also moved away from standard story forms. According to Craig Phillips discussion of New Wave on Green Cine, the form favored:
"jump cuts: a non-naturalistic edit, usually a section of a continuous shot that is removed unexpectedly, illogically; shooting on location; natural lighting; improvised dialogue and plotting; direct sound recording; long takes" and other representational innovations that created a different "reality" that what was being set forward by Hollywood. These new film-making techniques placed new demands on viewers and were the impetus for new interpretive conventions = conventions for going with the flow and making the kind of local, particular interpretations that fit with postmodern texts and readings. 

You might also take a look at screen 402 in TJD - for a "summary/outline" of events. You might shift the paradigm in your own approach by "playing" with the text - as opposed to "reading" it. For example - try placing "page numbers" in the search box above the text. It goes way too fast but it can give a quick overview of the "shape" of the text.

Confessions regarding my own reading experience of TJD- Even on this second read, I come away with images and ideas, but I have a hard time remembering the text (words) that engendered those ideas. Taking notes (or building a map) feels counter intuitive (the wrong way?) to track a text that "flows". . . please let me know what you are coming up with by blogging about your own experience.

For next week:

Hypertext assignment: The link for the hypertext assignment is on this blog's home page under "Course Materials & Assignments".  Please take note of the important dates on the bottom of the assignment   If you have questions - bring them to class or post them on your blog.  Remember - this is an English class - not a Technology class - so if you can plan your site - we will work together to get it onto the screen. What is important for you to do now is to do some brainstorming, freewriting, talking to friends about ideas for a hypertext project. Try to plan something that you could not do as a paper (non-hyperlinked) text. The link structure needs to be essential to your meaning or the experience of your work.

For next week, we will continue reading examples of hyperlinked texts - and talking about the kind of "writing" you will do for Project 1.  Keep working on your idea/concept for your hypertext piece and post your writing to your blog. You might begin to map out scenes or think about how many links you will have and how you will use them. Remember - this is primarily a hypertext piece - like we have been reading so far - which means it is "texty" and that the users primary interaction will be through choosing links. The more writing you have the farther along you will be when we get to the "doing" part.

1.  Read Disappearing Rain. http://www.deenalarsen.net/rain/ We are reading this work as an example of hypertext - and to think about some of the issues of networked fiction (see Larson's discussion with "unsolved mysteries" about linking their site to her story ).

2.  Please familiarize yourself with how to use Google Drive and Google Docs - here is a free online tutorial that takes you through the basics: http://www.gcflearnfree.org/googledriveanddocs .  In addition, we will start to explore "Google Sites" in anticipation of the hypertext assignment. Here is a  comprehensive guide to Google Sites including video tutorials, and here is another link to different Google Sites Tutorial.  You are encouraged to experiment with Google Sites- i.e. create your own "demo" site and play around with the possible infrastructure/links- use links to some of your Google Docs (which should be located on your own Google Drive).  For further directions for Google Sites, you can click the help button, or check out http://www.steegle.com/Home. The "How to" and "FAQ" links may be useful. In many ways using software is like reading electronic literature - you just have to spend some time with it.  I realize this is the first foray into using tools to create text.  Have fun, spend some time exploring, and we will follow up with all of this next class.

3.  Blog:  A) Post your early ideas for the Hypertext Assignment (Project 1).  B)  Post your experiences with your demo google.site thus far - try to identify what kind of help you are going to need.  C)  Also, start to collect images you might want to incorporate into Project 1.  Think of this week as the "image blog" -start collecting images on your Google Drive.

Reading E-Literature

"12 Blue Isn't Anything, Think of Lilacs When They are Gone." 

Twelve Blue = a reading experience; a "story"; a conceptual exploration.

• Themes/Motifs: reading & flowing; water- upstream/downstream, stillness & turbulence, fluid and changing; memory; color; nature/seasons; traces; generations (young vs. more mature); history; perception (looking); multiple paths/multiple meanings; "skyways" (routes, infrastructure, mobility); self-referencial elements
• Character, plot and relationships: there are relationship "networks" but there was definitely some confusion - and each of us had information that the rest of us did not have.
• Reading strategies:   Some of us decided to follow a particular thread, some chose to click on threads or the hyperlinks randomly, some decided to stick by a certain thread color, others discovered the titles for each of the lexia and used this as an attempt to "frame" possible meanings.  Some attempted  basic "note taking" and/or "mapping" in an attempt to discern patterns or meanings.  We all expressed early frustration, and many felt a sense of exploration and discovery emerge after some more time spent with the text.  We all recognized an "overall flow" in the experience of reading, and some of us agreed it was pleasurable once the initial resistance was let go.  That said, we all speculated on the effect of a lack of any discernible ending or closure.  
• Assessment: 12 Blue reminds us all of the active role of the reader in creation; Reminds us of abstract art; some likened the reading experience to wandering through the MOMA; We all shared an awareness of an underlying structure that cannot/couldn't be apprehended; We struggled to apprehend an ending (lack of closure was deemed truly unsatisfying); Some of us agreed there is true beauty in the fragments.

I would like to share with you some critical/review articles. These articles give you an idea of how critics/scholars write about a text like 12 Blue:

• Selected Bibliography of Hypertext Criticism:  http://journals.tdl.org/jodi/article/viewArticle/115/114
• Postmodern Culture, Volume 8, Number 1, September 1997
• Don't Believe the Hype: Rereading Michael Joyce's Afternoon and Twelve Blue by Anthony Enns (2001 in Currents in Electronic Literature)

In class we discussed the "E-Lit review assignment" which is available on this blog in the "Course Materials & Assignments section.  Please explore ELC vol. 1 & 2 to identify a few texts you might like to review.  You  will all be "signing up" for both an e-lit text and a presentation date over the course of the next two class periods.  The first presentations of your E-lit reviews will start on March 5th.

Our conversation about 12 Blue was truly smart and engaging.  Unfortunately, the time remaining did not allow us a chance to read Frequently Asked Questions about Hypertext.  I thought I would include here some material prepared for class.  Below are some questions generated to prompt your reflections on this text.  If you are so inspired, you can check the text out on your own time (please note this is not a requirement for next class)-

• What does "FAQ about Hypertext?" do?
• What is it about?
• What information do you have to be familiar with to "get" it?
• If we read FAQ about Hypertext as narrative - what do we come up with?
• If we read this as a conceptual statement - what is the concept?
• How does the "experience" of this text contribute to its meaning?
• If we try to read this as parody, what is it parodying?

Theory:


FAQ about Hypertext may well be best appreciated by lit crit nerds who read journals such as: Criticism, The Journal of Popular Culture, and Diaspora

For next week:

1. Continue exploring the ELC Vol 1 & 2 and come to class ready to talk about some of the pieces that interest you for the Review Assignment.

2. Read approximately 60 screens of A Jew's Daughter.

3.  Blog #2:

• Write about some of the pieces you have been exploring in the ELC.  
• Also, create an imagined "self" or character and develop at least three scenes and two discussions/reflections that will reveal layers of the character or "self".  Make an outline. (This will be the beginnings of a basis for Project 1.)
 

Thanks for another great class and see you next week.

Introduction to E-Lit "genres"

We talked through Hayles classification for Electronic Literature. There are probably lots of systems for classifying these texts. Hayles identifies: hypertext fiction, network fiction, locative narratives, installation pieces, "codework," generative art, and flash poems. If you use these terms to search the table of contents of the Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 1 you can find more examples. Please take a look at the "keywords" list in the ELCv1 to learn more about the world of electronic literature. What we covered in class tonight represents the genres that Hayles decided to foreground, but there are many more aspects of e-lit to discover and the keyword list there is helpful as a discovery tool.

As we talked about the classification, we also began a discussion about reading strategies - and we agreed that if we bring our expectations from print literature to electronic literature - we are going to feel frustrated. Electronic texts often have meaningful elements in the images, sounds or movements; they are not necessarily text or even word-based, and "what electronic texts are about" often connects to the experience of "reading" rather than to what is read. Many electronic texts are interactive - or connected to the network or the physical world - in ways that print texts are not. The reader's interactions may simply determine the organization of the text - or they may operate in some ways to *create* the text by limiting or changing the possibilities for further interactions. Clearly - the participant's choice of reading strategies will influence his/her experience of electronic texts.

For Wednesday - read Navigating Electronic Literature by Jessica Pressman. Though we have covered much of this in class discussion, her essay pulls together some of what we said - and gives you some examples from outside our collection.

I asked you to "journal" some of your initial reactions to these different categories of e-lit, and to consider for the kind of text you might like to create for your final project (whether or not we can cobble together the technical skills to do so). Whatever you choose - we will find a way to create some approximation of your idea using the software we as a class can figure out.

For next week:

1. Set up our own blog for the class on Blogger and send me your link (mzamora@kean.edu). I will place all of your links on our class blog so you can read each other's commentary/work.

2. Read Pressman's article (link above).

3. Spend some more significant time reading/exploring Michael Joyce's Twelve Blue.

4. Blog assignment #1: Describe some of the strategies you used to "read" Twelve Blue. Indicate what you did + what you hoped to achieve - and what you got out of doing whatever you did. I am hoping you will dig around in this text long enough to try out more than one strategy.

In class next Tuesday we are going to talk about both what the text is "about" and what it was like reading it, and how and whether the navigation - and the larger experience of reading this text - work together to create its meaning.

The #elitclass twitterfeed is off to a fantastic start! Let's keep up this commentary throughout the course of the semester together. Remember that every class throughout our semester is an open invitation to tweet reflections about our ever-evolving discovery of e-lit. In addition, you can tweet an #elitclass comment anytime you feel compelled to (outside of our class time together). See you next week!

 

Some technical support for this week:

   
Here is a clear YouTube tutorial for setting up your own blog on blogger:

Another Blogger Tutorial:  http://danielcraig.wikispaces.com/file/view/Blogger+Tutorial.pdf

Wondering how to use Google Drive and Google Docs?  Here is a free online tutorial that takes you through the basics:   http://www.gcflearnfree.org/googledriveanddocs