The Janus Project aims to enhance the English department by bridging traditional literacy and modern digital practices in teaching and learning. It advocates for innovative instruction methods, course materials, and assignments while promoting participatory learning and the effective use of technology. The project envisions a transformed English department that encourages student engagement and critical use of new media.

2. The Janus Project
working to create…
A MORE PERFECT ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

3. JANUS
THE ROMAN GOD OF GATEWAYS AND
DOORS, HE LOOKS TO THE PAST AND THE
FUTURE, WHILE WATCHING OVER THE
PORTAL TO BOTH TIMES.
THE PAST THE FUTURE
The Age of Literacy The Age of Digitality
WHERE/WHEN DOES ENGLISH STAND?

4. THE CHALLENGE

5. Is this the answer?

6. Our
MISSION
 to open the gate between
the past of literacy and
the future of digitality to
create a more perfect
English department

7. How can UW-English get there?
 We must change the way English literature is
taught, including:
 Instruction
 Course Material
 Assignments
 We must change the way English literature is learned
by students. We must innovate:
 their interaction with the material
 their forms of discussion
 their modes of production

8. OUR ULTIMATE IMAGINING
We want to help you transform the way English is
taught by professors, but also the way it is learned
by students. We plan on helping you create an English
department that encourages students to be more
participatory and to use new modes of production to
become innovative creators.

9. The Department Itself: a good start

10. The UW-English Facebook: underutilized

11. “I had [a Canterbury Tales professor] who
used Learn@UW for more than just
“+”
posting the syllabus. We had weekly online
discussions and she posted links to outside
info all the time. She also spends time
talking about Middle English attitudes
towards media (texts!). ”
“[My one professor]
loves technology. He
holds extra online
office hours and
usually shows and
discusses YouTube
clips from film
adaptions of the
works we read.”

12. “-”
•The linear, paper-based syllabi
•The small, cramped discussion
rooms of the Humanities building
•The 7-10 page essay, double
Out-dated spaced, Times New Roman essay
Trends in for every assignment
•The communication gap between
UW- professor and student
English •The ineffective use of technology
in the classroom

13. Your Typical English Syllabus

14. An Interactive Syllabus

15. With
Visual, Ani
mated
Cues

16. Learn@UW Discussion Forum
too much like outdated email systems

17. Popular and Successful Forums
engaging, instant, aesthetically pleasing, interoperable

18. The most pedagogically
effective learning
experience is one that
stimulates the
senses. Modern
technology has opened
the door to mixing
media in classrooms to
help engage the
students in what they
are learning. Like a
successful website, a
successful lecture must
include visual and
audio, must be
aesthetically
designed. Mixed Media in the Classroom

19. Classroom Environment
The Humanities Desk The English 2.0 Classroom
 more desk space
 easily moveable
workspaces
 reading circles
 technology podiums
 comfort
 windows and outside
world

20. All of Shakespeare‟s works are
available on Kindle for under $3.00.
The heavy Riverside Shakespeare
textbook assigned for several
Shakespeare classes retails for $14495
on the net.

21. The Relevance of a Bachelor‟s
Degree in English is…

22. Mixed Media Assignments
Technological Experience Challenge the Students
 Tim Williams (UW Class  Regularly assigning
of „08) works as a projects that push
publishing intern for
Bloomsbury. When students to incorporate
reflecting on his English different forms of
degree, he told us that he media will push them
“had to learn how to use in new directions while
the relevant digital giving them valuable
technology—no, all
digital technology— experience with
outside of the relevant tools of
classroom.” technology.

24. New Media: opportunity, not obstacle