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.
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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.