Using Elit 101in a Class
Showing Work
Translations
Order of Reading

Secrets Revealed
Materials Needed for Paper Experiments
Skills Needed for Online Experiments and Exercises
Stuff in the Hopper

Using Elit 101in a Class

Each node in Elit 101stands alone and can be used as a class module. Elit 101can be used:

• As an entire class syllabus: Use one module for each class.
  
• As extra assignments: Allow students to choose a module to work on and to complete the exercise or the experiment. These exercises should take about 5 - 20 hours for a student to create, depending on how elaborate the student makes the assignment and how well skilled the student is. Exercises are kept short for easier translations.

Elit 101can be used in many different classes:

• English Literature course: Choose Links as a basic intro to electronic literature and a way to think about connections. This will help students analyze printed works--ask them how they would link or connect pieces in other works that your class reads.
  
• Electronic Literature course: Use the works listed in Elit 101as part of the syllabus, or ask students to identify these rhetorical devices in the other electronic works that they study.
  
• Composition or writing course: Use the experiments to prompt writing exercises. This is particularly useful in the first few classes to spark imaginations and get students thinking and writing their own materials. You can also use these exercises to help students create a traditional print essay--use these as the brainstorming part and then discuss how to organize the pieces they have into a linear essay format.
  
• Multimedia design course: Use the exercises as starting points for a multimedia piece. Concentrate on design elements such as typeface, imagery, presentation. The exercises make it easier for students as they do not have to come up with text or images on their own, thus saving time to concentrate on design.
  
• Multimedia software course: Use the exercises as starting points for a multimedia piece using the techniques students have mastered in the software course. Concentrate on software execution--how well the students rendered the exercises in the multimedia tool.

Order of Reading

Order in an electronic piece usually doesn't matter. Writers should anticipate readers accessing nodes in different orders--and even interrupting a node to follow an interesting link in the text. However, your classes are in a linear, calendar order. Moreover, some of these ideas and experiments build on each other. If you are using electronic literature in a composition or creative writing course, then I suggest using simply:

• A Plea for Connections: Links convey meaning
• Drowning in the Distance: Tone and meaning within images
• Echoes of Connections: Sounds carry the harmony

This will give your students a basic understanding of the building blocks--text, images, and sound and a way to link them together.

I suggest the following order for a course:

• A Plea for Connections: Links convey meaning
• Drowning in the Distance: Tone and meaning within images
• Echoes of Connections: Sounds carry the harmony
• This Sentence is False: Contradiction in multiple voices
• In Your Arms: Changing contexts via node paths
• The Spaces Between Us: Spatial placement and meaning
• Wheels within Wheels: Collage and layering
• By the Letter: Fonts create a mood
• The Ghost in the Machine: Secret nodes and hidden text
• Passing Your Constraints: Generative and random texts

Showing Works

The more pieces of your students' work that I can show on this site, the better. I will show all suitable works (keep it safe for a classroom to use). Please email me to send your works in and I will put them up.

Students learn from seeing other people's works. Students can discuss what they like and what they do not like. If they like a work, they can copy it or adapt it. Be sure to talk about why they like it and what about it works well. If they don't like a work, analyze why. This is a great way to show what will work and what won't to hone your students' skills.

Translations

All of this work is designed to be translated, so that we can have a wide range of works. I'd love to have a lot of translations of the same materials--that way students can see different variations on the themes. Please email me and I will send you the Photoshop titles--or email me the titles and I will transfer them (diacritical marks, ideograms, and all) into Photoshop.

When translating, please rename and remake the characters into your culture. Please keep the same names--when you translate "Joey" to "Jose" or "Ichiro" or... please keep that name the same in all of the nodes--please don't translate "Joey" as "Ichiro" in one place and as "Kenji" in another.

Secrets Revealed

Yes, there is a rather obvious hidden agenda to this work. I hear the news and see the violence and feel helpless. Sure, I go to the antiwar protests, contribute to campaigns, etc. But on a personal level, I feel helpless. I can at least--in this work designed to translate in to many languages and to be the basis for developing the thought processes needed to read elit--put in my own small plea for peace.

There is a tightly interwoven story in most of the nodes. Your astute students will pick up on the story--ask where else these characters or these images appeared and what are the relations? Connections do not have to be tangible to be real.

Also, there is a hidden node in this piece.

Materials Needed for Paper Experiments

I have designed the experiments to be done with a minimal amount of material and a maximum amount of substitution. When you substitute, think about how you will use the piece your class creates. Will you need to transport it for a class recital? Will you dismantle it immediately after the class? Will you put it on the board as an example of your classes' creativity? Will you send it home with a student? Adapt your materials according to your needs.

I am also keenly aware of the lack of money and supplies that teachers and students face. So I am trying to keep the material demands to a minimum.

I call for:

• Posterboard. Most of the works call for posterboard. This is the basic canvas to put your works on. You can use anything that is flat and will hold pieces of paper, images, objects, etc. This could be a wall, a painting, old wallpaper, part of a fence, an old desk or table, etc.
  
• Decks of cards. These are usually easy to get, and they make great experiments. Tarot decks come with their own images that students can write about. You can also use index cards, stiff pieces of paper cut to the same size, lids from cans, etc.
  
• Paper. Paper, unfortunately, is essential. This is the node space, the place for the text. If you don't have paper, try for slates, lines in the sand, etc. Any substitutions may be hard to put on boards or rearrange easily.
  
• Cardboard. This provides a hard backing for the paper so it can be moved easily. It can be from old boxes, corrugated board, etc.
  
• Glue and tape. Basically, you need to attach paper to the heavy paper or cardboard somehow. You can also write directly on the cardboard.
  
• Images. These can be cut out of magazines or advertisements, drawn by the students, photographs, etc.
  
• Sounds. Assign a sound to a particular part of the work (entry screen, section, node, element) or to the entire work. Use instruments, sing, or play tape recorders, ipods, cell phones, or other electronic devices that make noise.

Skills Needed for Online Experiments and Exercises

Unfortunately, electronic literature has a high bar to cross--the tools are not easy or intuitive. They take an immense amount of work. That is why I have created paper experiments for each rhetorical device--that way students can understand the concepts involved without having to scale the heights of multi-media software.

On the other hand, having the skills to use Flash, Dreamweaver, and other tools will make your students much more marketable in the real world. So encourage them to learn these tools.

Stuff in the Hopper

This is beginning to get a little out of hand--every time I think I've gotten it all, I think "oh wait, I need to talk about this..." So here is a list of nodes that will be up someday when I am well and have the time. Any other devices or suggestions would be appreciated.

More Rhetorical Devices

• Branching and expanding
• Disputed Territory: Maps and spatial navigation
• Community and participation
• Language manipulation
• Layouts
• Colors
• Motion and montage
• Navigation
• Structure (this differs from navigation as it discusses the entire structure of the work)

More Writing Hints

• Archiving
• Types of media