Novels on MySpace
September 21, 2007
So, as tech-savvy as it is to maintain an educational Blog, there’s still one online phenomenon that I have yet to explore – social networking sites. Setting up a facebook or Myspace account has been on my list of things to do for the last few years (maybe I should call it, “things I might do”). I just haven’t gotten around to it. Meanwhile, as I’ve procrastinated, more than one billion people, according to PCpro online , subscribe to some form of social networking sites, which account for roughly one quarter of all internet traffic. (full brief here) Here in the United States, a recent Pew Survey indicates that,
“More than half (55%) of all of online American youths ages 12-17 use an online social networking sites, according to a new national survey of teenagers conducted by Pew Internet & American Life Project. “ full survey here
That’s a very significant number of American middle & high school students maintaining their own pages on the internet – sounds like a naturally occuring literary behavior to me, and a perfect opprotunity for literary instruction.
The idea of social networking sites for literary instruction isn’t new; Bethany Erikson and David Knapp presented the idea at last years Bright Ideas Conference at MSU. (link to the screen cast here) They set up myspace pages for characters from two novels, Jay Gatsby from ”The Great Gatsby” Titus from M.T. Anderson’s “Feed”. The pages didn’t just include these main characters, but other important characters from the novels were added to their ‘friends’ list. It’s a very interactive way to explore the relationships between characters, and when students construct their own character pages, an excellent way to engage them in the ‘world’ of the text. And it’s an idea that’ s actually making it’s way into classrooms, according to a recent article in the Republican Herald;
Last year seven students in Kelly Crowe’s advance-placement literature class at Minersville Area High School created a MySpace page for the main character from J.D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye” with the goal of having 25 people add him as their friend.
“After two weeks, Holden had 50 friends,” Crowe said. “It spread to the point that we had kids from other schools adding him because everyone recognizes him. He is the epitome of a teenager and a timeless character.”
full article here
I think beyond a sort of recreational standpoint, that having students create their own character myspace pages is a great way to encourage the kinds of writing we want from our students: we want them to think in depth about the characters & their relationships, to think within/extra-textually about what motivates those characters, to have an audience in mind when they write. Structured in the proper way, a student produced community of novel characters could, in my opinion, be as rigorous the kinds of in-class writing instruction we already do.
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September 23rd, 2007 at 6:15 pm
I never thought about incorporating Myspace sites into a learning environment until I read what Nathan had to say. I actually caught myself saying, “Wow, that’s a great idea.” Since Myspace is huge among youth, and now becoming popular among the older generation, why not incorporate it into learning since ‘everybody’ uses it anyways? I think that by creating a Myspace for characters from a book is a great idea, and it would be fun. Myspace sites let you add backgrounds, fonts, pictures, links, music, videos, and much more. By allowing students to create their own page for characters in a book, it would not only help the student in better understanding the book, and the relationship amongst the characters, but they will also be allowed to be creative by adding their own touches to the site. This might actually be something I’d be interested in doing with my own classroom as a group project. Students can have fun with this, since it’s something most do already, and it’s also a great learning opportunity. And who knows, it may even give Myspace a better name…
September 24th, 2007 at 9:41 am
By starters I think it is great how this article has achieved two purposes. I used it for a blog on literature and reading, but here it shows up for a social networking idea. Since I wasn’t focused on the MySpace reference in it, I didn’t see the other merit. I like the idea of teachers or students creating MySpace pages on great characters of literature. I will admit I am not the most savvy at these social networks or even technology for the matter, but it is a great idea none the less. If I was a high school student and my homework was to go to MySpace and read the bios on the characters from lets say “Grapes of Wrath”, that would be a pretty cool assignment. Also, these socail networks of fictional characters can be used a posting sites for other students who have questions on the story. It would be a nice place to have student q and a when their at home for the night.
September 25th, 2007 at 12:01 am
You’re a lot like my brother: he’s a nineteen-year-old freshman in college who also no social-networking website (unless you count the myspace account his girlfriend set up for him…I mean his ex-girlfriend). He’s doing an essay on facebook for one of his classes. I mean, an essay ABOUT facebook. It couldn’t be written on facebook, because he’s not planning on starting an account. I think it’d be interesting to see his take on facebook without being a user. I’ll probably direct him to this article, in case he finds it helpful.
Also, your post makes me want to utilize the writing components of facebook more. I’ve written a couple of notes, but now you’ve inspired me! I’m also friends with Prince Hamlet, now, which is kinda cool. His favorite music is the harp (whatever that means) and under “Favorite Movies” he says “I know not this word, word, word.”
September 25th, 2007 at 12:13 am
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December 4th, 2007 at 1:08 am
There has been a lot of talk about incorporating social networks such as MySpace and Facebook in the classroom. I just wrote a little bit about it on my blog. It doesn’t really suprise me that more than half of american teens online have an account on one of these sites. Educators should really pay attention to these kinds of things that students are interested to try and incorporate it into the curriculum. Bethany Erickson and David Knapp’s idea is very creative and sounds like something that students could really get into.
December 4th, 2007 at 1:19 am
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