We are inside a traditional storing house of information.
All the memories of the world, all the records of our culture,
have been arranged in orderly fashion.
As consumers of knowledge, we have the privilege
of entering the past, selecting a portion
which we may think useful.
We remain anonymous in the face of this vast accumulation.
Our consumption has a pleasing passivity to it.
Of course, no storage mechanism is perfect.
We face a very simple problem: the decline of literacy.
Which anyone can see in the latest test scores.
Students who are ill at ease with language, or just plain
scared of poetry.
They realize it's a particular and specialized form
of discourse.
The irony is that it may be the best
way to help them sharpen their skills.
But you can't coerce them.
We have other problems of our own, of course.
It's not simply the student's problem.
We're short on resources and manpower.
We cannot give students the individual attention that might
help them over this difficult spot.
And we also have not been really good at inventing
new techniques in the classroom that
might make poetry more attractive
to the timid student.
At Brown we're trying a new solution
using a system developed by a computer scientist, Andy van
Dam which can take poetic materials
and other associated things and store it
in a cross-referenced manner, which will enable students
to have access to a poem itself, to background
materials, other poems related, poems
from the tradition of poetry, critical materials.
Things that will help the student
to see the poem in a full context
and understand it in its roots and its ramification.
Using this system we hope that we
can take some of the fear of poetry out of the student,
and also that we can solve some of our own problems
of communication, and innovation in the classroom.
That we'll be able to put students in contact
with one another through the system
about the poetic materials.
And that instructors and students
will also achieve a higher level of communication
and a greater understanding of the materials involved.
In preparing for the computer-based course,
the first step is to gather the raw materials: the primary
and secondary texts.
The instructor selects manuscripts and portions
of manuscripts that relate best to the central themes
of the course.
Then the material is organized, given an initial structure.
The poetry course material is broken
into 12 units, each of which concentrates
on a particular poem.
The students will have three sessions with each unit.
At the first session they will view only the poem
which is central to the unit.
At the second session they will view material
to place the poem in context.
This material includes biographical
and genre information, other poems by the same poet,
and poems by other poets which influence or have been
influenced by the central poem.
At the third session, secondary source material will be added.
After reading some or all of the material in each session,
the student will add his or her comments
to the information available at the next session.
The instructors and students will all
have an opportunity to add comments and questions
to evaluate and critique each other's work.
Each new arrangement of a text provides
the opportunity for something greater than simple
transmission.
If various texts can be interestingly rearranged,
juxtaposed, fitted with each other,
and play off against each other, the process of reading the text
can be made concrete.
And the text itself may no longer be isolated, pristine,
and inviolate, but manifold and pluralistic.
This web of interrelated texts is called a hypertext.
The computer system we use to create and manipulate hypertext
is called FRESS.
FRESS, which is the computer system being used in the poetry
course, takes no particular training
in order to operate it beyond an ability to type.
And we use the keyboard to specify commands
to the system, which set up questions,
insert comments, and browse through the system in a manner
to set up dialogues.
A dialogue not only with poetry, but also with professors,
and with other students in the course.
This dialogue feature can be used as little or as much
as possible at the student's own behest.
And he can use initials of himself or of other students
to browse selectively through a particular set of comments,
or a particular set of questions.
And furthermore, what is really exciting
is he can blaze a new trail by looking at themes or images
in a set of poems and entering his thoughts
into the hypertext for others.
This kind of selective browsing and adding
to the creative graffiti, you might call it,
we hope to use to develop a different kind of community
with professors and students working together to develop
a true process of learning.
Using the system is a straightforward procedure.
A student identifies himself and types
in the session name and the unit number.
And then lets the computer subdivide the screen
into up to four sections, which we call windows.
The main poem then appears in one of the windows,
and it is as if were on a scroll.
The reader can cause the computer
to move the text in through the window.
Now, when he comes to a spot in reading where there
is a reference to secondary material,
a special marker appears, and a little teaser
next to the marker which explains what would be
seen if that option were taken.
The instructor can control how many of those
options actually appear on the screen,
but the student has the choice of which to follow
and which not.
Now it's a little bit like choosing a good Chinese meal.
A student can stick to the tried and true,
but we, of course, encourage him to be
as adventurous as possible.
In the same manner that he does browsing
he can also use the light pen and the keyboard
to enter in a response or ask a question.
We're aware that some students might actually
revel in the gymnastics of a sophisticated writing
and retrieval system like this.
Now, we don't want to subordinate material
to the system.
Nor is the system merely being used to provide an alternative
to a classroom experience.
What we are striving for is to make a flexible system
with lots of interesting materials
so that we may serve the needs of a genuinely contemporary
student.
Now notice that an equal burden falls to the system,
and to the student.
The student cannot be passive.
The system responds to student, and after awhile,
the technical machinations do disappear.
But for the system to function, to really function,
it needs animating human presence.
I don't know how you feel about it,
but being an English major, or a humanities major of any sort
I guess, I have, I guess, some prejudices
about using a computer and using all the scientific jargon
and all that.
I think the technical aspects of it
introduce-- it's fun in a lot of ways
to do all the little stuff that has no relation to poetry.
And I've also come to think since I've
completed the course, that there is something aesthetically
pleasing about those little green lights
on the screen don't you think?
We started out thinking of the hypertext system, the FRESS
system, as a way of organizing materials for the student that
might be more efficient than a combination of textbooks
and library reserve book rooms and all that kind of thing.
We discovered as we were using the system
that what we had here was a communications
instrument of extraordinary richness and subtlety.
Something that changed the whole dynamic of the course.
That was one of the questions I had about poetry.
I didn't see how they could get a course that I thought
was emotional and sensitive, and combine it
with a computer, which I thought was so cold.
You said something about that before,
and we've talked about it in class,
about how you read it out loud when you can.
Yeah, I started doing that.
Did you?
Did you find it helped?
Yeah.
A lot.
It sounded pretty good
One of the things that we accomplished
that I think is so rarely accomplished in poetry courses
that it's almost an embarrassment,
was that we, I think, in most cases,
freed the students of fear of poetry.
Their gains in confidence which show in the way
they wrote about poetry, and the way they talked about poetry,
were extraordinary.
And this confidence is a direct result
of all of that intercommunication.
Well, there wouldn't be so much response,
and response to your response from the instructor,
kind of thing.
Individual attention?
Yeah.
It kind of puts you in a position where you definitely
have to sit down and say, now what
do I think about this poem?
Well, in another situation you might be given the assignment
to prepare it for class and be ready to discuss it,
or write one paper, let's say, for the week on this.
And here, you really develop and have to think it over,
and over again.
I found that pretty helpful.
I think one thing that really makes this course great
is the fact that you don't have to go to the library
and dig out all types of research materials
and reference books, and one thing and another.
It's right there.
Make your little jump up and you're all set.
I liked that.
The amount of material in there is staggering.
When you think about all the sessions that we've had,
and all the junk that are in there.
It's more than you could ever even think of using
and I don't know, it amazes me.
We've been getting more work from students
than they normally would perform in comparable courses, I think.
And I doubt seriously if it's possible to get
more work from students without faculty putting in more work
to meet that.
Because the students have written so much,
we have had to read so much and write so much in response
to the students.
If our comments on their responses
had fallen short at any point, or had been inadequate,
or seemed perfunctory, I doubt if the caliber
of their responses would've continued
to improve as it has over the course of the semester.
The course in that respect, demands a good deal of time.
What we save on classroom time we
put back in in response time on the system.
I also find that I read much more quickly when
I am on the using the hypertext because I just
know that I have to get to a certain amount of material
in two hours, and I really force myself to concentrate on it
and pace myself.
Of course, given the kind of system we had,
we know who used what, and how much they used it,
and what kind of use they made out of it.
We also know what kind of comments
all the instructors involved made
in responding to the students.
We just know much more about what
happened than we ever know of what
happens in any ordinary course.
And I have a feeling that if we knew
what happens in some courses that weren't taught
on this system that we would be appalled
at the actual result of those courses.
My whole attitude towards poetry has changed quite a bit.
It used to fight me to look at poetry
and I'd never know where to begin.
And I always felt it was above my head.
But now when I read poems I have a general process
about how to begin.
And I think of the sessions and questions that were brought up,
and I feel much more sure about it.
And I really love it.
We can expect to teach much better
and to produce students who are better readers of poetry
and feel more confident about poetry.
I think that's a sufficient justification
for what we've done.