On Wed, 5 May 1999, Cindy Wambeam wrote:
If, for instance, several of the people on this discussion list are now interested in incorporating the study of hypertext into their classrooms, where might they begin? Cindy
One of the places I have used to help people start is with Hypertext Haiku. I use it in my Cyber English class http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/28.html and I use it often in workshops.
I like it because it incorporates form and content, or theory and practice. I always like to use poetry to start things in a high school English class because it is a neat little unit of lit and can be handled in a class period, read many times, and provide a complete lesson. It helps segue to other genre. It also allows me a quick and dirty lesson on hypertext. After introducing the haiku through hypertext links, the scholars write five urban haiku for me. The scholar then selects four words in each haiku which will link to the other four haiku. the link to the other haiku should make sense by definition or association which becomes clear upon linking. The n the scholar begins the task of writing the five separate files for each haiku which has the coding for linking to the others. A front page is created which has their definition of haiku based on their research, links to the lesson and resources and to the haiku. The reader can navigate at will through definitions, resources or the scholarly created haiku. It's short, quick and very effective in getting my scholars up to snuff on the intricacies of hypertext, while dealing with haiku, and other mystical things which happen during this process.
On the link above you will find links to some folks who went through a two week online practicum with me on NCTE-Talk a couple of years ago doing this hypertext haiku thing. It was cosmic to say the least. If you investigate, you will see their work and the archive of our conversation during the process.
Now Nancy Patterson, who I hope will tell us more, did a real cool thing before she had computers. She used string and paper in her classroom and her scholars created a web in which they got all tangled up.
Ted Nellen