My summer holiday was marked by the absence of screens. No mobile, no laptop, just lots of books and beach. But unlike other holidays, many of which have offered up more time to read, this year it was the absence of screens rather than the presence of books that made being away from ‘it all’ palpable. The state of being disconnected – literally – from day-to-day work, the 24-hour news cycle and, above all, e-mail, made for a very good holiday. It also revealed to me, with startling clarity, how profoundly my habits, our habits, of work are reliant on screen-based technology.
This fact is so obvious for most of us that it may seem odd to comment upon it. But within English, Creative Writing and English language we sometimes only grudgingly acknowledge how critical digital technology in particular has become to our teaching and to our research. Casual conversations about it are more apt to be the occasion for a mild moan about e-mail (see above) or proud revelation that one is a Facebook ‘resister’ rather than anything particularly positive about how one or one’s students have made technology do something useful or fun. Whether you are a technophobe or technophile, or somewhere in between, I think you will find this issue of WordPlay provocative.
In our cover story ‘The Subjects of English? Communities & Communication’, Louise Marshall and Will Slocombe discuss what is exciting and important about the fact that technology sits at the centre of English Studies. Our use of technology to facilitate quotidian tasks (post syllabi, reading lists) or to encourage student participation (online blogs, diaries and discussion groups) is just one part of the picture. Do we realise, Marshall and Slocombe ask, how fully technology has become the sinew and bone of the subject community? Through 'shared experiences, practices and approaches… in relation to language/literature, historical period, literary theory or pedagogy,’ they write, technology at once enables our community to function and binds us together. Furthermore, it is the key to the vexing task of getting our students to grasp the value of English and succeeding in getting them to join our subject communities as they both learn and develop its practices.
Many of the other articles in this issue showcase new digital resources, examine new ways to use existing resources in our teaching or explore the habitats in which our subject community evolves and expresses itself. Candice Satchwell’s interview with Ron Carter is a prime example of the latter. Much of Carter’s work over a long career has been about joining up various English tribes, whether literature and language, higher and secondary education or, pedagogically speaking, the creative and the critical sides of the subject.
The First World War Poetry Digital Archive, at the University of Oxford, is a grand example of how technology can anchor a community while also enabling it to grow. Freely available, students and teachers can browse delicate and crumbling manuscripts, and their variants, while a plethora of contextual material, like photographs, video materials, letters and journals can also be browsed and searched. The archive also boasts supporting educational materials for higher education (and the compulsory sector) alongside a series of online tutorials. Read more in the article by two of its creators, Stuart Lee and Kate Lindsay.
Katharine Cockin writes about another digital archive and the fascinating lives of two theatre women, who happened to be mother and daughter: Ellen Terry and Edith Craig. Her article is full of ways to use their lives and work as part of interdisciplinary studies in literature, theatre, gender studies and material culture.
The Higher Education Academy, as part of a larger HEFCE initiative, is staking out some of its own territory in the world of Open Educational Resources (and if you’re not sure what that means, read the article). Charged with making sure English is included even in this pilot stage, Brett Lucas, the Subject Centre’s learning technologist, describes the goals and challenges of HumBox, a place where you can deposit, extract and customise innovative teaching materials.
Elsewhere in the issue you can read Barbara Bleiman’s article about the New A-Levels in English and English language now that one cohort has completed them; discover journalism’s shared territory with Creative Writing and how it’s being taught at Strathclyde and receive some practical ideas about incorporating YouTube into your regular box of teaching tools. Dave Ellis makes a case for improving assessment and helping students see their own work patterns using a tickbox form; while a Subject Centre mini-project has yielded the latest online resource (and journal) for Creative Writing.
If you would like to contribute to WordPlay or have an idea for a topic we should cover, please let us know. In the mean time, enjoy the issue.
Nicole King
Editor
