Literature: A Lifeline in the Sea of Digital Culture

Literature is a great way to come to terms with digital culture -- and I'm just talking about novels that explicitly deal with technology or its consequences, though there are some good ones of that sort. No, I mean the classics and I mean popular fiction. I mean travel literature and romance. I mean detective fiction and postcolonial fiction and all the rest. Digital culture is a swelling ocean that engulfs us, and works of literature can be our lifeline.

Coping with digital culture -- its novelty and utility, its efficiencies and distractions, its marvels and its tedium -- is a major theme of this blog and of my course in Digital Culture. To help in this regard, I've offered ideas on digital literacy; tools for better consuming information like Google Reader and diigo; as well as thoughts on using the new media with purpose, creativity, and for exploration. Consider literature one more strategy.

Miranda and Prospero from a seaside
production of The Tempest
(creative commons licensed by pyrogenic)

Literature, as it happens, provides a particularly rich mode of making sense of our brave new world.  This blog is called "brave new digital" in imitation of Miranda's comment in Shakespeare's play, The Tempest, when she first meets people on her enchanted island:

O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't!

The name Miranda literally means "ought to be beheld," and the idea of wonder pervades Shakespeare's play: there is magic, spectacle, and surprise throughout. Much of this comes from her wizard-father, Prospero, whose powers have come about through what? Books.

Books have always been associated with secret knowledge, and they can unlock benign powers (like Prospero's) or more corrupt sorts (like those of Dr. Faustus). Like the new media of our day, the Renaissance's new medium, the printed book, spread the hope and vision of new worlds (Thomas More's Utopia), or it indulged in the scandalous, the trivial, and the ridiculous. Literature has always been a coping medium and a conceptual vehicle -- providing lenses that help us to shape our responses to changing circumstances. It seems more than appropriate to make use of its powers now.

Beyond the Book Report: Better Book Practices in the Digital Age

This is a post against that oh-so-common school assignment, the book report, and an argument in favor of better book-reading practices now available to us. What's more, I'm going to argue against the digital book report, that half-breed that gets posted into a learning management system (LMS) or onto a blog, but is essentially no different from a paper book report turned into a teacher in the 1950s.

In the digital age, there is no excuse for book reports (either from teachers or students). Books --and our individual and communal experience with them -- are just too important, and the book report is more likely to kill engagement with that book than it is to invigorate one's literary experiences. So let's be done with it, replacing it with better practices.

Why I Can't Stand Book Reports
Where is this coming from? Well, one of my students, assigned to write a book review for my Digital Culture class, dutifully posted his on his blog and then linked to it with the phrase, "Book report time!"

That really bugged me. What is this, 7th grade?

It bugged me in part because as a parent, I've suffered through many a book report my children have belabored--usually at the last minute. And as a teacher, I've suffered from reading so many superficial or tedious responses to books or other readings. But mostly, it bugged me because it meant I had failed to get across to my students the more consequential ways that books can be part of their learning nowadays. So, I'm going to try to fix that, and I'm going to do so by arguing against the book report genre.

Creative Commons Licensed
Flashy Soup Can - Flickr

The Classic Book Report

1. Student reads the assigned or chosen book
2. Student writes a response that partly summarizes, partly analyzes the book (sometimes using a prompt from the teacher).
3. Student turns in book report to teacher.
4. Teacher grades book report, using it as evidence that the book has been read and its ideas understood.
5. Rinse, lather, and repeat

What is wrong with this picture -- especially given what books can be in the digital age? Let's take a look.