The document discusses using blogs for teaching and interpretation exercises. It introduces Ivanhoe, a role-playing game where students interpret and discuss literary works on a class blog. Blogs allow risk-taking, informal discussion and linking ideas. They also serve as a gateway to social media. Twitter is recommended for its discipline of short posts and real-time feedback on teaching. Blogging experiments with voice and transparency in and outside the ivory tower.

1. Playing with Blogs Jason B. Jones Associate Professor / English jonesjason1@ccsu.edu

2. Why Blogs? Blogs are about writing , reading, quoting, and linking .

3. Why Blogs? Informality permits risk.

4. Why Blogs? Blogs are a gateway drug for social media.

5. Playing with Blogs Part I: Ivanhoe , a game of interpretation Part II: Why Twitter? Because I’m too old for Facebook

6. Ivanhoe: What I wanted More frequent, lower-stakes assignments

7. Ivanhoe: What I wanted A relaxed way to practice interpretation

8. (Interlude on Interpretation) Can think of interpretation as a series of moves Look to biography, to various contexts Look at form Rewrite or repopulate the text Challenge its assumptions . . .

9. What Is Ivanhoe? A game invented at U of Virginia Role-playing game centered on a literary text Need not be played on a blog.

10. My Version of Ivanhoe Groups of 4-5 Students play on a blog Is usually first in the following sequence: Ivanhoe  explication paper  critical paper

11. Examples Wilde/Shaw Dr. Seuss Jane Eyre I Jane Eyre II

12. Ivanhoe: Advantages Students read / re-read the text! Masks give different students voice. “ Trivial” ideas bear surprising fruit. Blog format makes it easy to keep track of contributions

13. Part II: Why Twitter? Because I’m too old for Facebook

14. What is Twitter?

15. Why Twitter? 140 characters = good discipline

16. Why Twitter? Real-time feedback about teaching

17. Why blog? Experiment with voice.

18. Why blog? If you talk about it, they will find you.

19. Why blog? Make the ivory tower transparent: To one another To students To parents/alums/prospectives To citizens

20. What do I need? Blogs are free—Blogger, WordPress, etc. RSS reader / blogreader / news aggregator

21. Is there a test? http://jbj.wordherders.net On Twitter: jbj On Delicious: jbj On Flickr: jbj