What Writing Students Get From the Net: Using Synchronous Communication
to Develop Writerly Skills
Student Responses to Character Creation Unit
Some students did not have great success with this unit. Typically, the
unsuccessful students found it difficult to "be creative." They resisted
experimenting with alternate identities and thus had trouble collecting
evidence that would serve as content for their essays. They often admitted
that they had nothing to "contrast" with their "everyday self" because
they were essentially "themselves" no matter how they described their characters.
These students were usually the ones most committed to the idea that they
have one "core self" that never changes, and they were in almost every
case the ones who most obviously displayed discomfort with the idea of
playing around with identity and disbelief that anyone "normal" would ever
enjoy such activity (these comments were elicited most often during discussion
of Turkle's essay).
Below are student responses culled from journal entries that represent
the greater majority who enjoyed the experience, followed in some cases
by my comments.
Dependence on Language/Text for Meaning
| This was an interesting experience, and also being able to pose
as someone else was cool. People just take you for what you type,
and not on appearance because they simply can not see you. |
Option to Communicate with a Broader Audience
-- see Ability to Observe
Responses related to Unit
Goals:
Experimentation with the concept
of multiple selves
| What was really interesting about the experience was the way I became
someone completely different. I was so into my character -- I had
hobbies, likes and dislikes...just like a real person. ... Generally,
I found that in MUSHes and the like, you can completely change your identity.
You can be someone else, and no one can tell the difference. |
My follow-up question to this student would be: If you no one can tell
that you are not who you say are, then have you really "completely"
changed your identity?
| The strange part is that I was more a part of the action when I
was a character instead of myself. ... I also realized that it is easier
to pretend to be something totally unreal than to change human form.
I found that being Excalibur was easier than trying to be an African-American
male. When we attempt to change our personalities, we often confuse
our identities. I had a lot of trouble separating my RL self with
my net character. |
Even though these students seem to be saying two entirely different
things, really they are struggling with the same problem: how we project
parts of ourselves differently, or through different "faces" or "personas".
Many characters were created based at least in part on aspects of personality
students found interesting or attractive, either in themselves or in others.
In foregrounding these aspects in their online characters, students very
often discovered they could "ventriloquize" with ease. However, when there
was too much difference, students often felt uncomfortable and anxious
in their masks. These experiments led to interesting discussions about
the nature of self.
Ability to observe the effects
of language choice on audience
| [Because others in the MUSH had only my words to go by], people
that I ran into in this world spoke with me in different ways and about
different things. |
| People really responded to me differently when I was my character.
I found that people talked to me a whole lot more, and the whole conversation
pretty much revolved around "Steve". ... |
| I described myself as beautiful and left it at that. Once
my description was set, I just had to think and talk like someone from
the female sex. I did notice a change when I became a woman in the
MUDS. Predominately only men talked to me. They were very aggressive
and sexually suggestive and it made me feel very uncomfortable for obvious
reasons. It was very disheartening to realize how men feel that they
can talk to women. |
Discussing these examples with students can often lead to connections between
audience, purpose and ethos. Students can see how, when there is only text to
mediate between reader and writer, audiences depend on any clues they can get
to form a mental picture of the author, and then respond appropriately and differently
to that persona.
Real-time feedback on success
and failures in authorial voice/tone/ethos
| I talked to people by the names of Rainbow, Daisy, Lollipop, Leala
(from Canada, not class), HelloHapi, Piper, Meth, Jewel, and Butt.
I know that at least six of those people were in our english class.
They were telling me all about Delaware and the assignment...everything.
I could even hear people in class saying that they were talking to some
guy, Steve, from Arizona. It took a lot not to laugh. I couldn't
believe that I had them all fooled. ... At first, they were a little skeptical,
but after awhile they all believed "steve" was real. ... I don't think
anyone thought that I was a girl, let alone a girl IN THEIR CLASS! |
This young woman got positive feedback on her ability to take on the
"voice" of a different person; the audience believed in her persona, created
entirely through language choices.
| I do believe that how you are perceived depends on where you are.
If I logged onto nexus as Excalibur, people would probably label me as
strange. |
Through her MUSH experience, this student has discovered that context has an
enormous impact on the kinds of personae an author might choose; an author's
voice depends on the audience's expectations and the purpose of the communication.
Although this student hasn't articulated her discovery in exactly this way,
it would not be difficult to point it out in class discussion.
| My first character that I slipped into was Jonathon. I made
Jonathon a fourteen-year-old boy who is super intelligent. Jonathon
was a sophomore at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There,
he is studying Astro – Physiology. To tell you the truth, I do not
know if there is such a field of study, but it sounded intelligent so I
convinced the others in the MUD that is my major. This was my hardest
character by far. People flocked to me, marveling at my intelligence.
It was difficult to trick the MUD users because I do not know how a child
prodigy thinks. Overall, the other MUD users seemed impressed, but
I could not keep up the character for very long... |
Students most often failed at convincingly portraying their "simple"
opposites because those characters were farthest from anything the students
considered to be "self." This student illustrates the problem with taking
on an inappropriate "ethos" -- although the audience was impressed, the
student quickly realized he could not sustain this particular mask because
he did not have enough information to be credible. This is a useful example
for students working on ethos in research papers.