December 12, 2021

r/LitWiki covid-19: day 625 | US: GA | info | act

LitWiki now has its own subreddit: r/LitWiki. OK, don’t ask me what I intend to do with it, but several uses spring to mind. I really dislike using the forums on D2L—they are cumbersome, like the software was designed by second-rate Microsoft engineers: excruciating to manage, read, and evaluate—but I feel like I must have students writing on—responding to—the literature they read in online courses. The forum is hard to beat for this purpose. Even though I don’t think many students read their peers’ posts, I do think having them available is a good idea, as many do have strong analyses and research to share. I like the idea of a reading journal a bit better than a free-for-all forum. Maybe I can use the great discussion medium of Reddit to facilitate an even more targeted approach the emphasizes journal but leaves room for engagement.

Maybe I can tie this in to a sort of preliminary space for actually getting students to write on LitWiki. This was a disaster in 1102 last fall, which I don’t want to repeat. Instead of a research paper, maybe I can make a final project an annotated poem or a study guide. I don’t know if sophomores are ready for this. I’m not sure seniors are for that matter.

So I have two in-class World Literature sections, one online 1102, one online session 2122 this spring. Ugh. I wish it were reversed. Why is it that when I have an excellent, proven 2111 class ready to go online, I have to have that face-to-face. 1102 online will be a totally new class. I can recycle much of 2122 from this fall, but I would love to have this as an in-class course. As of today, the 1102 has 22 registered (out of 25) and the 2122 has 12 (out of 30!). Neither of the F2F sections of 2111 have more than 3. Hm. Could I get all online, please? Obviously students till want online courses, but since the government of GA is pretending the pandemic has ended, we are compelled to push on-campus classes.

So, I need to think about this. I hate to have students get Reddit accounts, but maybe it would be worth it. I still have a little while to decide.