This article represents what I would call a Defense and Illustration of MOO-Based English Pedagogy. In order to prove that MOOs can be serious, effective environments for the teaching of English, I discuss how I have used Diversity University MOO in English composition and literature courses. After giving a brief introduction to the MOO as a writing environment, I describe one way I have used DU MOO in my composition classes. In several classes of first-semester composition, I have paired my students with peers at another college campus, holding synchronous class meetings on DU MOO. Since writing becomes the primary means of communicating with a synchronously present audience, students learn that writing is an important, powerful act--a way to influence one's peers and to convince them of the validity of one's views. I have also used the MOO as a creative, literary environment. By recreating literary worlds in the MOO (such as a MOO version of Dante's Inferno), students learn skills of close reading, while gaining a greater appreciation for the richness of Dante's descriptive detail. In a utopian literature class, furthermore, students can draw upon their readings throughout the semester to represent their own ideal worlds on the MOO. Through such a creative project, the students involve themselves in a process of active learning, in which the goals of the project reinforce the goals of the course: to determine the most effective political and social institutions for an ideal world, and to assess critically our current institutions as the students create their own utopian communities.

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OOs and English Composition

iterary Microworlds: Using MOOs to Teach Literature

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