Three

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


No Dead Author

I am buried here


First, the computer-expert students and most of the students who were gaining regular As settled down to explore the text. The computer savvy wanted to know how 'it' worked. In the process they read many text blocks and acquired both a practical and textual knowledge of the piece that turned into a valuable archive for the rest of the class. The more expert readers and writers quickly adapted their skills to the succession of text blocks.

A second group connected hypertext to the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books they had read as children, which quickly domesticated the concept. As JM wrote, "My first thought was how silly I was to get worked up about this new kind of novel. Wondering where the beginning and end were, and how I was going to find them, when in reality I had been reading these types of books all my life…Patchwork Girl was a glorified version of the books I had found so exciting as a child."

A third group rationalized the assignment as a step into the future. JT claimed, "It makes me feel as if I'm living in the future of the Jetsons." O felt, "I was reading the book of the future." MC wondered aloud in class if this would be the way her children would read books. This provided a motivation for continued reading, even if it did not guarantee pleasure.

As the students worked out how to cope with this artifact of the future, they also started to take control of it. I saw this control much more clearly than the students did and would, if I taught the text again, discuss earlier coping strategies, and focus more class discussion on how the students felt their own relationship to the text, the technology, and their peers changed as they read.

While the final essays were rich in this reflection, the class had already dissipated, leaving no feedback loop for its collected wisdom. I particularly regretted this. Not only had the reading of Patchwork Girl already started to destabilize the established power relations within the class but it had also encouraged students to claim authority as teachers