The Recreation of the ‘Classic’

 

In schools, the disconnection between students and text has become even more complicated, due to the ever-changing dynamics that students are exposed to by popular culture, especially social media. Social media has changed the way students look at literacy. In order to re-engage students, “teachers need to develop strategies to effectively construct these texts that result in social change” (Pardue, 2004). By recreating the classic mode of content by incorporating a popular culture form, such as social media, a student’s learning is improved as they are able to relate and engage with the context. This essay aims to explore how and why classic texts are failing in schools, determine how popular culture, in particular, social media can help, as well as look at ‘The Lizzie Bennet Diaries;’ a successful incorporation of classic text, ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ and popular culture .

As a teacher, I have found that classic literature, such as Jane Austin’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and Shakespeare’s work including ‘Hamlet’, are the most challenging texts to teach students about. Theorists have proved that there is a need for classic texts in our curriculum; Jago (2004, p. 6) defines classic as to “tell the truth about the human experience across both time and culture.” Herz and Gallo (2005, p. 7) agree stating that it should be “easier to persuade students to pick up [young adult books], a critical reading of classical literature results in a deep literacy that I believe is an essential skill for anyone who wants to attempt to make sense of the world.” Classics provide an ethical background that allows students to get “engaged with the world of story and teach them to deal critically with that engagement” (Booth, 1998, p. 48). These levels of engagement entice higher-thinking skills such as evaluating and synthesizing (Gregory, 1997, p. 54)—skills that educational theorists have placed at the top of the new Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy Pyramid as the highest levels of thinking (Krathwol, 2002, p. 218). Even though classic literature can achieve all this, there is still a struggle for students to understand, relate and engage in the learning experience. On top of all this, literacy has changed with popular culture. To be literate today often means being able to use some combination of “blogs, wikis, texting, search engines, Facebook, foursquare, Google Docs, Skype, Chrome, iMovie, Contribute, Basecamp, or many other relatively new technologies, including thousands of mobile applications, or apps.” (Leu et al., 2011, p. 6). Language and how we use it has changed. These struggles lead to definitions of classics such as a book that “requires a teacher to figure out a glimmer of what it says” (Gallo, 2001, p. 37). The traditional way of teaching classics via text, is just no viable and needs an overhaul.

Leu, et al. ( 2011) affirm that “the emergence of the Internet has brought about a period of rapid, continuous technological change and, as a result, rapid, continuous change in the nature of literacy.” This transformation needs to be implemented in our schools. Traditional classical storytelling methods such as asking a students to read a book simply will not work: “some students will choose to skim a text, SparkNote a book, watch a movie version, complete assignments based on teacher-led class discussions, or not bother to try at all” (Carlson, 2014, p. 2). Schools need to find ways for students to reengage in these texts. New technologies “open up new spaces for identity play and for reflecting on audience and process which are important for thinking of literacy” (Jewitt, 2008, p. 260). Social media offers “technologies that enable communication, collaboration, participation and sharing”(Hughes, 2009, p. 5). I have noticed that majority of my students use these technologies, this is how they keep informed. While there is no questioning “the scale of young people’s engagement with the internet in general, evidence suggests that engagement is biased towards consumption rather than production” (Horrigan, 2007). This consumption of information is gained on these social media sites and apps. “Kids are [even] telling us they’re learning in environments around collaboration, [and] social media gives you a natural way to create collaboration” (Julie Evans in Shein, 2014). By encompassing, what we already know about classic texts, with how students like to learn; a new form of storytelling, engagement and reliability is formed – one that will recreate the format of leaning.

Jenkins, Purushota, Clinton, Weigel, and Robinson (2006) believe that there is three ways that a learner can be benefitted by using social media to engage further into their study. The first is culturally, where learners’ can broaden their experience of different kinds of media form and content. Learners can also gain, critically; developing a learner’s critical skills in analysing and assessing media outputs. And finally, these media platforms can promote creativity; by developing learners’ creative skills in using media for expression and communication, and for participation in public debate. Of course when implementing this type of technology“…educators must help students enact legal, ethical, responsible, safe and advantageous online community practices” (Greenhow & Robelia, 2009, p. 136). The advantages in learning however, outweigh the possible disadvantages. From my experience, social media is something that students are constantly apart of, it is what they are trying to utilize when they are ‘secretly’ using their phones under their desks during class time. To have the conversation extended on these social media sites; I believe would outweigh any homework or study. Students may even start bringing their phones above the desk to share their experience, as it would be related to the learning. The potential for social media to support “new or extended forms of participation and collaboration that could promote learning is attractive to those who embrace student-centred ideologies, and those who believe that traditional structures of knowledge and power are loosening” (Burnett & Merchant, 2011, p. 41).

Social Media provide the wide, authentic audiences and purposes that readily engage students in reading, writing, speaking, listening, thinking and creating in way that schools often do not. (Routman, 2014, p. 106). By using the networks that students are already participating in, for example, “in chat rooms, games, robotics and social networking and they are creating blogs, zines, avatars, and comics using digital and electronic media” (O’Sullivan, 2012 p. 192), teachers would be able to continue the involvement of students in the text as well as encourage extended learning, conversation, collaboration and engagement.

 

Last year whilst I was teaching Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’ I stumbled upon ‘The ‘Lizzie Bennet Diaries’ a YouTube web series, which retold a modernised version Austin’s novel, created by Hank Green and Bernie Su (Green & Su, 2013). After I found it appropriate, I asked my students to follow the series, whilst we learnt the traditional (through the text) way in class. As the term and the series continued, my students started to get more actively involved, following Lizzie and her friends and family on Facebook and Tumblr. The interactive elements of the series included: “a twitter account and feed; Facebook account, Tumblr account, Google+, and Pinterest” (Green & Su, 2014). The students were impressed because they felt as if the story was occurring in real time. They were able to ask the characters questions, collaborate and chat to others online about what they thought would happen next, thus changing the entire experience. I continued to follow along with the series as well, it made a great tool for comparison between the text and the real time series. The series expanded, with spin off web series’ in which the audience was able to view other characters perspectives. “What better way to hook technology-saturated students into the complexities of period literature than doing what any good teacher does–tie it to what they know” (Carbine, 2013). This show was a teachers dream!

Green and Su (2014) have stated that ‘The Lizzie Bennet Diaries’ started out as an “experimental video to start a new era of storytelling. The series broke down the communication barriers, telling people stories in a way that has never been done before.” The ‘Lizzie Bennet Diaries’, combined with social media sites “to create a transmedia story, provides students with a way to build understanding and become interested in material in a format that students are comfortable with” (Carlson, 2014, p. 34). Vaill (1996, p. 42) deems that “learning must be a way of being – an ongoing set of attitudes and actions by individuals and groups.” By using a means that students are already familiar with, learning is a continued practice. ‘The Lizzie Bennet Diaries’ supports what Vaill is saying and also proves that “learning needs and theories that describe learning principles and processes should be reflective of underlying social environments (Siemens, 2005, p. 6). The “multiple levels of immersion in a literary work and how the unmediated interactive experience through the social media channels enhanced this immersion” (Francus, 2013). This new type of leaning through “the media sphere-constructed, interconnected, and distributed through ICTs and digital rnulti modalities has become as equally powerful as the official discourse of schooling, shaping how students learn, what they choose to learn, and how they view themselves as learners”(Beach & O’Brien, 2008, p. 777). Students had the option to choose how they followed the program, if they wanted to they could go further than just the YouTube channel. As mentioned earlier they could interact, or they could just watch, either way the experience enhanced their learning. ‘The Lizzie Bennet Diaries’ proved to be so successful that my students continued to watch and contribute even after the ‘Pride and Prejudice’ unit had been completed. It gained further recognition when it won an ‘Emmy Award’ in 2013 (O’Sullivan, 2012 ).

The changes in popular culture, in particular social media have changed literacy and what it means to our students today. With this, the classic texts that we hold dear in education, and are proven to be of benefit to our students, are failing to convey their intended messages in the classroom due to the language and lack of reliability. The incorporation of classic texts on a multiplatform or transmedia scale has proven to be more effective than ever before, with the YouTube series of the ‘Lizzie Bennet Diaries.’ The series has opened up a path for further incorporation of this new type of media with other classic texts. A recreation of the classic text, if you will. Who knows what we will see next – the possibilities are endless.

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