Exercise

In the seminar of Spanish language electronic literature of 22nd of April 2014 Maya Zalbidea Paniagua used the reader-response methodogy inviting the audience to write a review of the works she had shown and explained previously in the classroom. The students had to interpret the symbolism of the works.

“One of my projects as Canada’s Parliamentary Poet Laureate is to produce a series of short videos to help make contemporary Canadian poetry more accessible. These recordings illustrate a range of poetry that reflects the identity, places and modes of poetic writing in Canada.” – Fred Wah

Visit Poetry Connection on YouTube to view the Poet Laureate’s video series, and download the PDFs below to learn more about the featured poets and their work. The PDF files also include the text of the poems, as well as discussion topics and writing ideas.

English 214 – Culture and Technology was offered for the first time at Capilano University in Fall 2008 in conjunction with the Year 2 CultureNet core courses.  The primary text was the Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 1.  We explored the work of dozens of writers and enjoyed the firsthand pleasure of working with three of the writers anthologized in the ELC1: J.R. Carpenter, Donna Leishman + Brian Kim Stefans.  One year later, we are doing it all over again with Megan Sapnar Ankerson, Sharif Ezzat + Chris Joseph.

In its first two incarnations, the E-Lit Forums have been a three-part process:
1. Guest writers post a meditation on their work in advance of  the class devoted to their pieces. We arrive in class ready to discuss the post with reference to the writers’ work anthologized in the ELC1 and elsewhere.
2. The posts lead to animated provocative in-class discussions and the students generate three to five questions for the guest writers, which are posted to the blog.
3. The writers then respond to our questions in a final post and a discussion of the responses is woven into the following week’s classes.

We have been thoroughly impressed by the generosity of our guest bloggers.  Their observations and insights have suggestively expanded our sense of this emergent genre and its place in the literary landscape of the twenty-first century.   The sense of being a part of an emerging literary critical conversation is  magnified when we received shout outs in the artist’s own blogs and websites (as we did from Chris Joseph).
We look forward to repeating this digital twist on the traditional author’s visit and sharing the meditations and conversations that follow with fellow avid readers of electronic literature and digital poetry in the next fall.  In the meantime, what follows below is a series of links to the 2008 and 2009 E-Lit Forum posts.

FALL 2009
Guest 1:  Sapnar Ankerson + Meditation + Student Questions + Responses
Guest 2: Sharif Ezzat + Meditation + Student Questions + Responses
Guest 3: Chris Joseph/Babel + Meditation + Student Questions + Responses

FALL 2008
Guest 1: J.R. Carpenter + Meditation + Student Questions + Response
Guest 2: Donna Leishman + Meditation + Student Questions + Response
Guest 3: Brian Kim Stefans + Meditation + Student Questions + Response

The timing of this exercise is a two hours session in the computer room of the university. It can also be an e-learning or blended learning activity. In that case the student would follow the process of the activity by reading the instructions published on the Virtual Campus of the university and having an online communication with the instructor. In the first place the teacher would briefly explain what is electronic literature and which are the main genres in Hispanic Electronic Literature:
1. La narrativa hipertextual
Subgenres: A) Escritura colaborativa B) Narrativa hipermedia
2. La ciberpoesía
3. El ciberdrama

In the second place the website of Literatura Electrónica Hispánica would be visited: http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/bib/portal/literaturaelectronica/presen…

In the practical part of the session students are invited to analyze and criticize a Spanish literary work about young and social issues which students can find interesting. The sections of the critical analysis are:

1) Read/Watch one of the following works:
El diario del niño burbuja de Belén Gache
Wordtoys de Belén Gache
Heartbeat de Dora García
Pinzas de metal de Tina Escaja
2) Make a Power Point indicating:
Genre: narración hipertextual interactiva, hipermedia or blog novela
3) Write what electronic literature provides that the printed cannot
4) Analyze the elements: characters, speaker, conflict, style, tone, background and themes

To conclude the student sends his project to the professor by the university virtual platform

Assignment where students read a choose your own adventure book, map it out in detail, identify which of Marie-Laure Ryan’s “Structures of Interactive Narrativity” fits the book best, and write about 500 words discussing the particular choose your own adventure as cybertext.