teaching methodology

In the United States, a student in the 20th percentile reads books for 0.7 minutes per day, while a student in the 98th percentile reads 65 minutes per day (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1998). For the last four years, with 300 children from Title 1 schools and the Boys & Girls Club, we researched how to create digital texts that better cognitively engage struggling readers using psychophysiological sensors, eye tracking, and co-creation. This research led to the creation of Wonder Stories. Wonder Stories’ texts motivate students to critically think by immersing students in frequent, story-based questions. As a response to children’s low motivations during COVID19, we added a social competition to Wonder Stories – answering questions correctly gave points in a trivia-like game. When struggling readers were given Wonder Stories, students mentally showed up: their participation increased, readers were more cognitively engaged with the material, and students were critically thinking about the text more often. This study suggests that interactive, question-based reading shows great promise to increasing children’s participation and engagement in middle-grade reading.

(Source: The work's own abstract)

This research shows a diagnosis of teaching methods of poetry writing used by teachers at some high schools in Mexico City. At the initial stage of this research, teachers of three different types of high schools were given a questionnaire using Google Forms. This included general questions regarding the teachers´ working conditions, their literary preferences, the sections in their Study Programs containing the subject matter of study, and the activities and methods used for the writing of poetry. The results were analyzed with the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). It was found that within the Study Programs of three different types of high schools, poetry is approached studying its essential characteristics: the fundamental interaction of form and content, its rhetorical figures, its contrast with others genres, appreciation, analysis and criticism of texts, but a specific systematic method for the teaching of writing of this genre is missing. Only two study programs included a small section for poetic writing but was not systematic and it did not had specific activities. Therefore, didactic sequences of poetic writing are proposed progressively so that students develop the ability to write poems practically and consecutively. Teachers can create variations of them either in terms of structure or in the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Each one of the sequences is based on a poetic resource such as alliteration, epithet, metaphor, comparison, among others with the purpose that students can create their own texts and at the same time consciously be aware of some of the resources that are used when writing poetry . It is proposed that the writing exercises be done first and later on the teacher explain the concept of the poetic resource that were used to compare it with the finished product. What is intended is that the student does not learn the concept of the resources used in isolation and without meaning, but with the modeling in practice they can better understand and assimilate each concept. The sequences are based on the use of videos, audios, programs or specific applications that young people use in their daily lives.

The aim of this article is to show what feminist electronic literature can contribute to the study of gender theories and feminist literature. The study of feminist hypertext fictions and the use of hypertext as a teaching tool are facilitated by the intrinsic characteristics of the electronic medium, complementing the electronic medium and providing alternative possibilities in the learning process: collaborative authorship, multivocality, textual openness, non-hierarchical and rhizomatic structures, neo-kathartic effects and open publishing. Teaching feminist electronic literature using the hypertext offers the possibility of updating and discussing gender through a medium that permits rearranging the hypertext, better organized analyses of intertextuality and fostering the study through association and connections, which is the way the human brain works. The teaching method proposed pursues the objective of studying narratives about gender taking advantage of the new technologies without losing dialogues in class as intuitive learning process.

This document contains the report on a curricular unit for ‘Provas de Agregação’ in the area of Modern Languages and Literatures, in accordance with the provisions set in paragraph b) of Article 5 of Decree-Law 230/2007 of 19 June. 'Kinetic Poetry' is divided into three parts: (a) introductory contextualizing reflections on the research and teaching of electronic literature [pp. 9-23]; (b) detailed description of the course syllabus and of its teaching methodology, including semestral plans, class topics, and evaluation assignments [pp. 25-79]; (c) a final study on Jim Andrews, one of the algorithmic authors whose work is especially relevant for this seminar’s argument [pp.80-103]. This report contains a CD-ROM, DigLitWeb: Digital Literature Web, a pedagogical website that I have designed and maintained between 2005 and 2010 (http://www.ci.uc.pt/diglit/). In terms of structure and content, DigLitWeb aims to integrate my research and teaching at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. ‘C de Cinéticos/K for Kinetic’, one of the sections of DigLitWeb (http://www.ci.uc.pt/diglit/DigLitWebCdeCineticos.html), includes a survey of digital works that are part of the ‘Kinetic Poetry’ syllabus. Except for a bilingual introductory note, all text is written in English (cf. Article 18º of Decree-Law 230/2007 of 19 June). The use of English as language of instruction is a contribution to the international profile of the MA Program in Poetry and Poetics, recently established at the Faculty of Arts at the University of Coimbra. 10 ECTS credits have been allocated to the ‘Kinetic Poetry’ semestral course, with 3 weekly contact hours.