I thought this article was a super interesting read, although I have no idea what to say about it here. It's not about a specific technology so much as it is about the "participatory culture" that technology fosters, one where:
there are relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, where there is strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations with others, where there is some form of informal mentorship whereby what is known by experienced community members is passed along to novices, where each member believes their contributions matter, and where they feel some degree of social connection to each other. This description captures what is striking about a world where more and more people have the capacity to take media in their own hands and use powerful new tools to express themselves and to circulate their ideas to a public beyond their immediate friends and families. (99)
It was, however, a riveting discussion of appropriation and remixing (this one, I think, would have been good to read before the other article about remixing.) I really appreciated Pitts-Wiley's remark, "before you take something, understand it" (110). It was in line with Jenkins's first piece of advice, "to stay honest to the original text. Put a value on that, understand it, appreciate it, and then start the remixing process" (111). The idea that in order to create an effective remix requires a deep reading and understanding of the source, that remixing falls within the literary tradition of allusions was for me extremely worthwhile. I loved the idea that:
Seeing remix as another way into thinking about allusion suggests an answer to a question we often receive from teachers: How can you tell if a remix is good? How can you tell if an allusion is good? An allusion is good when it is generative, when it extends the original work’s potential meaningfulness, when it taps the power of the original source to add new depth to your emotional experience of the current work. The same claims would hold true for other kinds of remix practices: as a general rule, a remix is valuable if it is generative and meaningful rather than arbitrary and superficial... (109)
I also appreciate the dialectic between critique and creation that Jenkins puts forth. He writes: that:
Schools have historically taught students how to read with the goal of producing a critical response. In a participatory culture, however, any given work represents a provocation for further creative responses...we look at the world differently in a participatory culture; we look at it through the eyes of someone who can participate. Just as ...we read for different things depending on our goals, we also watch for different things depending if we want to use the experience of reading as the starting point for writing criticism or as a springboard for creative expression. At its worst, reading critically teaches us to write off texts with which we disagree. At its best, reading creatively empowers us to rewrite texts that don’t fully satisfy our interests. (112)
I know I'm going crazy with the block quotes (which, for the record, I was unable to indent) but I just found all of these KERNELS so compelling! I was also really interested in how subtly they shifted from talking about the tradition of allusion and the new aesthetic of remix as creation or response into writing as a fan. The idea that we might encourage our students to approach canonical texts as fans rather than critics blew my mind. There was really only one mention of how we might use this approach in our practice but I definitely want to try it. Fans, Jenkins writes, "generally focus on characters and their relationships as their point of entry" and "look for worlds that are richer, have greater potentials, than can be used up within a single story. They are particularly interested in back story—the untold narratives that explain how the characters became the people we encounter within a particular story" (114-5). That we, as teachers, might "find that students respond well" to looking at literature through this lens got me itching to try it. Here's how Jenkins suggests approaching it:
there are relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, where there is strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations with others, where there is some form of informal mentorship whereby what is known by experienced community members is passed along to novices, where each member believes their contributions matter, and where they feel some degree of social connection to each other. This description captures what is striking about a world where more and more people have the capacity to take media in their own hands and use powerful new tools to express themselves and to circulate their ideas to a public beyond their immediate friends and families. (99)
It was, however, a riveting discussion of appropriation and remixing (this one, I think, would have been good to read before the other article about remixing.) I really appreciated Pitts-Wiley's remark, "before you take something, understand it" (110). It was in line with Jenkins's first piece of advice, "to stay honest to the original text. Put a value on that, understand it, appreciate it, and then start the remixing process" (111). The idea that in order to create an effective remix requires a deep reading and understanding of the source, that remixing falls within the literary tradition of allusions was for me extremely worthwhile. I loved the idea that:
Seeing remix as another way into thinking about allusion suggests an answer to a question we often receive from teachers: How can you tell if a remix is good? How can you tell if an allusion is good? An allusion is good when it is generative, when it extends the original work’s potential meaningfulness, when it taps the power of the original source to add new depth to your emotional experience of the current work. The same claims would hold true for other kinds of remix practices: as a general rule, a remix is valuable if it is generative and meaningful rather than arbitrary and superficial... (109)
I also appreciate the dialectic between critique and creation that Jenkins puts forth. He writes: that:
Schools have historically taught students how to read with the goal of producing a critical response. In a participatory culture, however, any given work represents a provocation for further creative responses...we look at the world differently in a participatory culture; we look at it through the eyes of someone who can participate. Just as ...we read for different things depending on our goals, we also watch for different things depending if we want to use the experience of reading as the starting point for writing criticism or as a springboard for creative expression. At its worst, reading critically teaches us to write off texts with which we disagree. At its best, reading creatively empowers us to rewrite texts that don’t fully satisfy our interests. (112)
I know I'm going crazy with the block quotes (which, for the record, I was unable to indent) but I just found all of these KERNELS so compelling! I was also really interested in how subtly they shifted from talking about the tradition of allusion and the new aesthetic of remix as creation or response into writing as a fan. The idea that we might encourage our students to approach canonical texts as fans rather than critics blew my mind. There was really only one mention of how we might use this approach in our practice but I definitely want to try it. Fans, Jenkins writes, "generally focus on characters and their relationships as their point of entry" and "look for worlds that are richer, have greater potentials, than can be used up within a single story. They are particularly interested in back story—the untold narratives that explain how the characters became the people we encounter within a particular story" (114-5). That we, as teachers, might "find that students respond well" to looking at literature through this lens got me itching to try it. Here's how Jenkins suggests approaching it:
-Encourage students to find examples of Kernels, Holes, Contradictions, Silences, and Potentials.
-Ask them to consider what purposes these elements play within the original novel.
-Invite them to speculate on how these elements might provide the basis for additional stories.
-Tell them to find other passages that shed insight into the core character relationships here.
-Discuss what elements would need to be in place for a new story to feel like it belongs in this fictional world.
-Have students write stories reflecting their insights.
-Share stories between students, especially those working with the same elements, so that they have a sense of the very different ways writers might build upon these same starting points. (115)
This is not only super rad, but hella rigorous. Such metacognition would definitely require A LOT of practice, but if you worked to support students in using this lens from the beginning of the year, I think it could be enormously beneficial to our students' attitudes and approaches towards literature.
Eh-vAUGHn (that's my Arianna impression),
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I thought UNTIL this week that I wasn't able to indent on the Blogger platform. Turns out, it just has a different looking icon. On Blogger, you can indent your block quotes by highlighting them and pressing the icon that looks like quotation marks. Couldn't say if Blogspot has something analogous, but I thought it worth mentioning just in case. Certainly blew MY mind. (Quotation marks for block quotes--revolutionary.)
But speaking of your block quotes, you chose some real winners. I too loved that description of a cooperative environment. I feel like I should have encountered it elsewhere, but upon reading it, I realized I hadn't. So well said.
I also loooooved the potential for super creative and critical work inherent in Jenkins's idea of the remix. Now, I just need to figure out how in the world the same skills required for it could be made explicit for my students and transferred to other academic practices in ways that would benefit them in more conventional work as well. If YOU have any suggestions, we should talk those out on Wednesday.
Evan,
ReplyDeleteThere was no other tech article this semester that also made me want to quote from it so extensively! Just like how you felt this Jenkins’ piece was not about a specific technology so much as it is about the “participatory culture that technology fosters,” I found this piece more helpful for considering the practice of teaching English overall. I also found the connections between remixes and allusions particularly memorable, “when it taps the power of the original source to add new depth to your emotional experience of the current work.” Prior to this reading, I wouldn’t have seen the analogy between the remix in music and allusion in literature. If we can frame rhetorical devices that might sound dry to seem akin to other concepts that are more accessible, then we have a wider range of strategies to make curriculum engaging. I definitely would want to re-read this piece next school year to see if it triggers thinking for my units, like the example you cited about asking students to find Kernels, Holes, Contradictions, Silences and Potentials.