Teaching Literature in A MOO

Perhaps the greatest advantage teaching in MOOspace has over the traditional classroom is the possiblility for projects requiring active student engagement with the material. MOOs are designed for text-based "building" and object creation and design that require the application of concepts and principles, not their regurgitation. For example, you can provide students with a story-telling robot during a unit on fiction. After talking with students about plot, for example, you can start them off with a "story" they can add to. I created Ichabod, the bar-tending robot, for this activity. When students turn Ichabod on and ask a question, Ichabod responds, "Wa'll I reckon you must be kinda thirsty. Purdy hot and dry out there. I recollek when days like this one stretched out so long, people took to. . .wa'll I reckon some things are jest better left unsaid. Days so hot and drah, the earth itself seemed to suck out yer blud through yer boots. Why, I recollek one day, raht here . . . . My students couldn't wait to add to the story. They knew immediately what things could follow, what couldn't. They saw directly how openings of stories affect and constrain the kind of fictional world that can be developed, the ideas that can possibly come out of such a setting, and the kinds of characters that could inhabit this fictional world. Rather than my telling them the influence of setting on plot and theme, they discovered it themselves. Rather than hearing about how an author manipulates reader expectations, they experienced it when it came to making their contributions. This kind of interactive engagement with literary art is just not possible in a traditional classroom on an ongoing basis.


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