September 7, 2023: Fall Semester Previews: American Lit Online

[This weekmarks the start of the Fall 2023 semester and my 19th year atFitchburg State. So as ever, I’ll kick off the semester with preview posts, thistime focused on ongoing challenges and leading up to an update on my currentbook project!]

EverythingI wrote in yesterday’s post certainly holds true for today’s subject as well—indeed,it’s in my online courses that I’ve seen the most examples of ChatGPT/AI-aidedpapers. (FYI, if you use ChatGPT to write a paper about a text, it will quiteliterally invent characters and plotlines that are not present anywhere in thattext. Just saying!) But along with those newer challenges, I continue to face alongstanding challenge in my asynchronous online lit classes (one of whichI teach every semester, including Am Lit II this Fall): sharing historical andcultural contexts with the students as a secondary but relevant layer to ourprimary texts/readings. I’ve tried Word documents discussing such contexts(asking students to engage them somehow in their weekly Blackboard posts), andI’ve tried short videos of me doing so (ditto), but I’m not convinced that moststudents are taking a real look at them, or at least that they’re trulybecoming part of our conversations. It’s too close to the Fall semester for meto come up with a radically new way of presenting the contexts this timearound, so a combo of documents and short videos it is. But I’m very open toother ideas, for my Spring online course and for the future of my teaching inthis medium.

Lastpreview post tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Fall previews you’d share?