Writing the Remix

For the past year and a half, both as a teacher and a graduate student, I have been focusing quite a bit of my energy on digital technology, the internet, and what it means to learn.  This past spring, I completed an MA thesis exploring this issue, which has led me to think deeply about the way I engage my students.  I think cognitive dissonance pretty well sums up what I have been feeling.  And this is particularly acute with writing instruction.

            I just cannot shake the concern that I am teaching students 20th century skills for the 21st century.  True, there are certain elements of writing instruction that will always require mastery: how to write compelling and concise sentences, for example.  After all, it does not matter what format students are writing in or for whom--as writers they should always aspire to convey their ideas as powerfully as possible.

            Instead, my struggles occur as I consider the types of assignments I use.  Looking over my curriculum for junior English, I am struck by two recurring attributes: most prompts revolve around "literary analysis" and the prompt language emphasizes "originality."  A typical assignment asks students to explain what a writer says about a certain theme or idea, like "love" in Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried," or "self-determination" in Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God."  Of course, students are instructed to select the theme that they find most important and/or interesting, but essays keep a tight focus on how the author manipulates and comments on the chosen theme.  In terms of "originality," my prompts place a premium on "insightful thesis statements" that illustrate an idea "a reader might not see on his or her own."  Tall order for a 16 year old, let alone a 36 year old. The big question becomes, "what is original for an inexperienced reader with considerably less knowledge about life?"  Clearly, students should be able to move beyond a simple observation in a thesis statement, but what should insight look like for a teenage writer?  This is where I now find myself struggling the most.

            Is this fair to ask my students, a number of whom are only reading a given text because they are compelled by the need to get good grades or at least not get in trouble with their parents?  Given that the majority of my students will not be English majors, or even liberal arts majors, how often in the future will they be asked to write something resembling a thesis driven essay? Particularly one that is "assessed" in part according to the originality of their idea and how well they borrow from other texts in order to support it?  Probably not often.

            So what skills, besides the aforementioned need to write well, do people need in our information saturated digital world?

            Maybe my students would benefit the most at this point from investigating an idea by remixing or assembling what others have said, and approach supported by a number of composition theorists (Selber, Johnson, DeVoss, Porter, Webb).  According to these researchers, at least some writing assignments should ask students to focus less on their own ideas and more on how informed thinkers have engaged with a question, problem, or theme.  Whereas traditionally borrowed material provides support for a student’s argument and proves to a teacher that the student has read a given work, writing as remix encourages a different approach.  In essence, borrowed material becomes the focus as it is brought together from different sources in thought-provoking ways.   

            The curation site Storify provides an interesting model.  Writers create stories on a given topic by scouring the web and pulling together relevant information and ideas, while adding in their original commentary.  The writer weaves together these pieces of text, which can come from text based sources like blogs and newspaper articles, as well as from video and image based sites.  By considering movement between the artifacts and employing techniques like juxtaposition and divergent-convergent thinking, the writer does more than just recapitulate what others have said.  There is an editorial function that allows the writer to shape the story in dynamic ways.  As I mentioned, the writer is able to include her own thoughts and questions between the borrowed artifacts.  And this is where Storify’s remix model could be powerful for students.

            As I was completing my MA thesis, "The Kids are Online: writing and reading in the Digital Age," my adviser constantly reminded me that there is already a robust conversation taking place regarding my topic.  Yes, ultimately I wanted to add my voice; however, his point was that I should "be a reader before a thinker" and get a sense for what others were saying, how ideas interacted, and what questions inevitably arose.  In other words, I should not try to immediately transform the field with some ingenious and original concept.  I found this advice both liberating and reassuring.  It made me feel less pressured to be the expert and more willing to simply listen and reflect on the incredibly rich debate already in progress.  In some ways, my whole MA thesis could be viewed as a remix of ideas by some brilliant people: Larry Lessig, Henry Jenkins, Clay Shirky, Roland Barthes, Jane McGonigal, and many more.  Undoubtedly, I found places to add my own perspective.  But my role was to analyze and synthesize (remix, assemble), not revolutionize. 

            I thought about my students often and wondered if similar instructions would make them feel more comfortable and even engaged with the texts we read.   Currently, the onus for a great idea is on the student.  As I mentioned, the expectation is that the student will generate and articulate a penetrating, novel idea and usher key moments from the text that prove the prescience of the student’s reading.  Pretty high stakes stuff. For example, an intriguing question raised by O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is “how do soldiers deal with the guilt from seeing their fellow troops die?”  The “original thesis” approach requires students to analyze and explain O’Brien’s answer to this question, and to do so while being “insightful,” i.e.: not imitative or clichéd.  Hence, “soldiers use violence to deal with the guilt from seeing their fellow troops die,” will not cut it.  Instead, the follow-up question they must entertain from me is “why?”  So then most students will add a “because” statement meant to complicate and introduce some complexity: “soldiers use violence to deal with guilt because they are frightened and embarrassed to show other emotions.”  And there is a continuous back-and-forth between the student and me until “we” reach a point where “we” think the student is adequately insightful.  At which time the hunt for support and quotes begins. 

            As I mentioned, this is the opposite of the approach I have pursued in my own thinking and writing.  What if, instead, students started with a question raised by the author of a text, but then explored how this question appears elsewhere.  They would still need to practice higher order skills: analysis, evaluation, synthesis.  Not to mention what Howard Reinghold calls "crap-detection".   But it could also relieve them of the high stakes, anxiety inducing requirement to be the expert on the book.  To be the reader who has mined a novel for the hidden gold missed by other readers.  And it can give students a fuller, more nuanced understanding of a question or idea by bringing one author’s perspective into relief against what others have said.

            Increasingly, this feels like a lesson I need to share with my students.