The Same Old Circle

Here’s the same old circle

Some Web evangelists say children should be evaluated for their proficiency on the Internet just as they are tested on their print reading comprehension. Starting next year, some countries will participate in new international assessments of digital literacy, but the United States, for now, will not.

Clearly, reading in print and on the Internet are different. On paper, text has a predetermined beginning, middle and end, where readers focus for a sustained period on one author’s vision. On the Internet, readers skate through cyberspace at will and, in effect, compose their own beginnings, middles and ends.

Young people “aren’t as troubled as some of us older folks are by reading that doesn’t go in a line,” said Rand J. Spiro, a professor of educational psychology at Michigan State University who is studying reading practices on the Internet. “That’s a good thing because the world doesn’t go in a line, and the world isn’t organized into separate compartments or chapters.”

Some traditionalists warn that digital reading is the intellectual equivalent of empty calories. Often, they argue, writers on the Internet employ a cryptic argot that vexes teachers and parents. Zigzagging through a cornucopia of words, pictures, video and sounds, they say, distracts more than strengthens readers. And many youths spend most of their time on the Internet playing games or sending instant messages, activities that involve minimal reading at best.

Much of this is the equivalent of a ripped, jumbled map, where “you are here” is positioned at random.

So much has been written on hypertext. But are the “experts” reading?

Another New Deal

As I write this big budget cuts are coming and will hit Connecticut Higher Ed pretty hard and, of course, everyone else. Indeed, slender funds will hurt much of my plans for the coming years on the subject of hyperdrama and hypertext literature.

It’s been bugging me that nationally the country has yet to be thinking deeply about infrastructures that will take us deep into the century. The current campaign business is pure typicality. I read things here and there about electric cars, about mass transit. I’d love to take a train or a bus to work. What about national commitment? Real knuckles to the wrench sort of thinking.

I’m reminded that Tinderbox is infrastructure.

On another note, John has set up a You Tube area for the mashup students and the student videos will be going up very soon.

Also, a link to the Watchmen trailer.

Poetry and Form

The poetry is moving along and we’ve passed the half way mark in the 100 Images challenge. Somewhere near the 50 mark I hit a transition with one of the weaving characters in the under narrative of the poems, a woman who deals with some sort of identity issue. I have no desire to go into the characters, as the poetry deals with them, but I did note a relaxation to the tone and relationships after the narrative arc hit.

The male character is taking over now. His weave comes with an old woman, around whom the man seems to circulate, and Carianne’s work is gluing the images together and inspiring their shape.

It’s time to work on some Jintishi forms. These, in English, are almost impossible to resemble from the Chinese as this Tang Dynasty form is heavily built around Chinese character limitations and I don’t know of any relevant English equivalents. So, I’ll be working with a 7 to 10 syllable line and eight lines broken into two quatrains and estimating with the tonal considerations of the form.

Poetry Boost

Whenever I need a poetry boost, I take up Frank Stanford. His language forces the brain into interesting tilts. He teaches the eyes to swim faster.

For example, from Their Names Are Spoken:

We dream on
Now night a cool moss
On the undersides of the cold ground
Keeps growing on the stones

This is amazing. To position night like this is to take a common element and make it live again. Stanford makes you want to run and write poetry. One measure: if it makes you want to write, it’s a keeper. The writer’s writer makes you want to write.

Trimming

Soon it will be time to do some trimming around here. The lists are getting long and some in the link lists have gone on to other endeavors.