I drafted this document in collaboration with NML's Content Analyst Katie Clinton, with assistance from former CMS Research Associate Debora Lui and from MIT Senior Lecturer and Melville Scholar Wyn Kelley. I'm posting it here because I think it offers a sense of what we hope to accomplish with this first guide and because I would love to hear any feedback on the ideas contained within this introduction.

"And what are you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too?"
    --Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

Overview
It's not news that today's 15-year-old is less likely to read a classic novel than was the 15-year-old of a generation ago. We know that teens and pre-teens spend more time on MySpace and other social networking sites than they do reading books, for school or for fun. This fact has led to a fierce debate over the effect of "screen time" on students' ability to read--and by extension, their ability to think critically and thrive intellectually.

This guide changes the terms of the debate. Instead of asking what effects, positive or negative, the emergence of digital technologies has had on kids' reading skills, we ask: How can we draw on the skills and mindsets young people are developing in their use of digital technologies in order to enhance their engagement with traditional texts?

To answer this question, we must first consider how young people are spending their time online. A recent study by the Pew Center for the Internet & American Life found that the work young people do with technology is inherently creative, collaborative, and social: Online, it's possible--and common--to remix video and text, to pull and cull information from a variety of sources, and to connect to networks and communities in which members are encouraged to develop and share personal interests, passions, and knowledge.

Rationale
These new participatory practices, far from being an anomaly, are in high demand in a culture that values creativity, resourcefulness, and collaborative problem-solving. Indeed, the creative and social practices in which young people engage are increasingly being taken up within a variety of disciplines, and the disciplines themselves are shifting to accommodate these practices.

In line with this shift, we came to wonder how a traditional model of teaching classic texts might be enhanced through an interdisciplinary approach to literary analysis. Specifically, we draw on the mindsets, tools, and approach of Comparative Media Studies in order to enact a conceptual shift toward a participatory model of reading.

The key premise of this shift is that "reading" is an umbrella term for a variety of critical and creative practices. In a traditional model of reading, the emphasis is on reading to understand authorial intent, and on writing to demonstrate mastery. The participatory model emphasizes that understanding 'authorial intent' requires a broader lens. From this perspective, literary works are seen as artifacts that both shape and are shaped by historical and contemporary media practices--and writers, in the words of literary critic John Bryant (2005), "dance along with and in resistance to a culture."

The theory of learning informing our participatory model of reading pivots on the notion that in any classroom interaction, there are always two experts and two novices (Yowell & Smylie, 1999). As expressed by Hickey and Schafer (2005):

Youngsters are the experts in their social environment. They understand the contingencies of their behavior in ways that are not shared (or sharable) with the adult "novices." On the other hand, adults are experts in the long-term consequences of actions and strategies that promote learning, motivation, and identity.

We might expand upon this to suggest that teachers and students possess expertise in different kinds of digital practices, and that, ideally, classroom practices would draw on the expertise of both.

Description of the guide
The Teachers' Strategy Guide: Reading in a Participatory Culture is our response to this new social and cultural landscape. The guide recruits new media literacy practices for teaching classic literature. In the guide, we use Herman Melville's Moby-Dick as our model text, and Ricardo Pitts-Wiley's Moby-Dick: Then and Now as an example of a contemporary theater adaptation. The guide has been customized to teach these texts, but the thematic units are intended to be applicable to all or most classic or contemporary texts.

We chose Moby-Dick because it's a heavy book. This novel enjoys a weighty status not only as an iconic text--one whose themes and motifs have been taken up by a variety of media sources, just as Melville drew on a variety of sources in crafting the work--but also as the Great (Unread) American Novel. We figured if we could do it with a book that has for so long been considered the Sacred American Text, we could do it with anything.

How to use the guide
Though this guide embraces traditional literacy practices, it also encourages engagement with a classic text in ways that differ from traditional reading methods. Put very simply, this guide does not require a linear, deep, thorough, or complete reading of a text--and, indeed, suggests that there may be benefits to applying discontinuous reading strategies.

We want to underscore the above point: You do not need to read all of Moby-Dick with your students in order to implement this guide. The guide contains a central unit entitled "Motives for Reading," which introduces the key concepts and strategies adopted throughout; we recommend you begin with this unit. The other three themed units of the guide contain lesson plans that introduce a main theme and then branch into two tracks, each exploring aspects of the theme. Though the guide in its entirety represents our participatory model, each unit is designed to stand on its own. The lesson plans align to New Media Literacies (NML) competencies, as well as to Massachusetts ELA Framework Standards.

The guide makes use of a variety of multimedia sources, most prevalent of which is video material from Ricardo Pitts-Wiley's theater adaptation and documentary video including interviews of the cast and crew of Mixed Magic Theatre . These materials are available through the guide's home page at www.projectnmltsg.ning.com. Registration is free [note: this site is open only to pilot teachers for now; we hope to open the community to more members in a future phase of the project.]

This site is also intended as a social networking space for teachers who are piloting the guide. Our goal for this space is to develop a knowledge-building community--a place to share ideas and concerns, and to communicate developing understandings around the text.

The guide also works to integrate a variety of secondary sources, including web tools, resources, and applications. One key resource is Project NML's Learning Library, which is in development. This online library houses documentary and interactive video materials, as well as learning activities that introduce new media literacy practices and practitioners, and opportunities for exploring and practicing the NML skills.

Expert Voices
This guide is informed by four expert voices. Henry Jenkins, Chair of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT and Principal Investigator of Project New Media Literacies, is a media scholar whose work has focused on fan practices and media analysis. Wyn Kelley, Melville Scholar and Senior Lecturer in Literature at MIT, is a literary scholar whose work embraces multimedia approaches to textual analysis. Ricardo Pitts-Wiley, Artistic Director of Mixed Magic Theatre in Pawtucket, RI, has written and produced several adaptations of canonical texts, including Moby-Dick: Then and Now, which inspired our model for creative engagement with texts. These three expert perspectives provide the bulk of the supplemental material included in the "Expert Voices" section of the guide.

In working with Ricardo, we were introduced to Rudy Cabrera, a cast member of Mixed Magic Theatre. Rudy stood out for us as a talented and articulate performer whose empowered relationship to classic texts--"I have a responsibility as an actor to understand things word for word," Rudy said in an interview--became invaluable to our process of envisioning the kind of student engagement that we seek to foster through this guide. Rudy is our fourth expert voice. As a self-motivated and socially adept performer, both onstage and off, his ability to negotiate identity in a variety of contexts makes him a role model for successfully navigating digital culture.

One final note: Our design-based model of research requires teachers and students to participate as co-researchers. We are grateful for this opportunity to collaborate on this project with you, as we together revise and refine the general principles of the participatory model of reading and the specifics of its implementation. The true test of the guide's success will be the extent to which it is usable in actual classrooms--and the extent to which it is usable will largely depend on creative implementation and honest critique.

References

Bryant, J. (2005). Versions of Moby-Dick: Plagiarism, Censorship, and Some Notes toward an Ethics of the Fluid Text. Variants 4, 257-285.

Hickey, D. T., & Schafer, N. J. (2005). Design-based, participation-centered approaches to classroom management. In C. Evertson & C. Weinstein (Eds.), Handbook of classroom management: Research, Practice, & Contemporary Issues (pp. 281-308). New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan.

Lenhardt, A. & Madden, M. (2005). Teen Content Creators and Consumers. Pew Internet & American Life Project. November 2 2005. http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/166/report_display.asp.

Yowell, C.M. & Smylie, M.A. (1999). Self-regulation in democratic communities. Elementary School Journal, 99, 469-490.

Plz to contakt meh kthxbai
Okay, that's it. I'd love to hear what you think--please feel free to email me with comments, questions, or suggestions at jennamc_at_mit.edu.