These are the formal learning outcomes I expected to glean from this course over the semester. I will either link an outcome to a post I feel meets that outcome, link to a series of posts in brackets, add a dash and explain how I felt the outcome was met (if there is not a post to describe it), leave a blank if I feel like I could have better met this outcome somehow, or do a combination of some of the above.


1. Gain “Shakespeare Literacy” : Demonstrate mastery over fundamental information about Shakespeare’s works, life, and legacy

• Breadth (knowledge of a range of Shakespeare’s works) [Sonnets, Tempest, Henry V, Merchant of Venice, Othello, Love's Labour's Lost]
• Depth (more thorough knowledge of a single work) [Read ebook, listened to audiobook, and read comic version of Hamlet - lame I can't find any posts of mine about it; also Othello]
• Performance (stage and screen) [Henry V, Merchant of Venice, Love's Labour's Lost]
• Legacy (history, scholarship, popular culture) [Hamlet scholarship, I also read a comic version of Hamlet (pop culture), Shakespeare and Folklore scholarship, folklore]

2. Analyze Shakespeare Critically : Interpret Shakespeare’s works critically in their written form, in performance (stage or screen) and in digitally mediated transformations. This includes

• Textual analysis (theme, language, formal devices) [Tempest, Othello]
• Contextual analysis (historical, contemporary, cultural) [Merchant of Venice]
• Application of literary theories [This is the one thing I feel I didn't really do at all.]
• Analysis of digital mediations [Hamlet, ebooks]

3. Engage Shakespeare Creatively

• Performance (memorization, recitation, scene on stage or video) [stage, video]
• Individual creative work (literary imitation, art, music, etc.) [trailer 1, trailer 2, trailer 3]
• Collaborative creative project [peer editing, helping Ashley, connections] 

4. Share Shakespeare Meaningfully (This includes engaging in the following:)

• Formal Writing. Develop and communicate your ideas about Shakespeare clearly in formal and researched writing. [Conference Paper/ Proposal 1, Conference Proposal 2, Conference Proposal 3, Conference Proposal 4, 
• Informal Writing. This mainly means through regular online writing [See my blog and all these links to my informal writing]
• Connecting. Share one’s learning and creative work with others both in and outside of class. [tweethis, see also connect under outcome 5 for all the social proof - this was me sharing my work with others and their responses.]

5. Gain Digital Literacy: Students use their study of Shakespeare as a way of understanding and developing fluency in 21st century learning skills and computer-mediated modes of communication. Those skills are grouped under the following categories.

• Consume - Effective and independent selecting, searching, researching, [Twitter, Resources, Contact list, Twitter list]
• Create - Producing content that demonstrates learning and which can be shared for others to profit from. [Favicon, Mobile Blogging, Folklore, Research 1, Research 2, Research 3, Trailer 1, Trailer 2, Research 4, Research 5, Trailer 3, Trailer 4]
• Connect - Engage with other learners within and outside of the class to develop thinking and share more formal work. [Social Proof 1, Social Proof 2, Social Proof 3, Social Proof 4, Tweethis 1, Tweethis 2,  Tweethis 3, Tweethis 4, Social Proof 5, Conference proposal, Social Proof 6, Social Proof 7, Social Proof 8, Social Proof 9]

Upgrading Folklore for the Digital Age Final Trailer Video and Repurposed Project

Digital Folklore needs to be more widely studied in order to better understand contemporary culture. 

Here is the link to my final AFS2012 submission. 

My 90-sec Trailer Video

I'm Soooooo Nervous

I Take it Back... THIS is my Final Submission

Upgrading Folklore for the Digital Age

The Internet has become our primary mode of communication. On the Internet, people participate in multiple communities by remixing and sharing information. Because of the remixing and sharing functions of the Internet, traditional folk tales, beliefs, legends, and material culture have been given new life. The Internet not only preserves and enhances traditional forms of folklore, but also gives rise to emergent genres particularly suited to the medium. This repository of lore lays virtually untouched by the majority of folklore scholars. The remixing and sharing of traditional folklore and the new genres emerging on the Internet deserve more scholarly attention.  

Traditions require creativity in adapting to current situations. Eleanor Long’s research on personality types of performers of folklore highlights the need for creativity. When passing on a joke, preservators too often forget the punchline. Integrators use validating formulas to make the joke funnier to their audience and recreators create a whole new joke, following the original’s pattern. This creative alteration of tradition keeps it alive, as opposed to killing it by losing essential elements.

Creativity is not just characteristic of face-to-face interactions. When folklore is adapted into literature, it often undergoes great change, such as the contemporary spin Shakespeare put on folktales about moneylending in his play, The Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare differentiates his version from earlier tellings by casting a Jew as the moneylender and making his story an oikotype of the Elizabethan Era when Jews had been expelled from England and folk superstitions surrounded them (Rogers).

In like manner, when people share texts or materials online, they often change or add details that make them relevant to their community: a phenomenon they refer to as “remixing’. Items of traditional folklore are remixed by many hands as they are shared online. The remix culture of the internet is the perfect venue for the creative preservation of tradition.

There are also emergent genres of folklore particular to the Internet. Examples of these genres are memes, photoshops, hashtag jokes, and items folklorists have yet to label like viral videos and their remixes. These genres are what Howard calls “amalgamations of institutional and vernacular expression” (192). As early as 1990, John Dorst asserted a collapse between consumer culture and the vernacular (188-89). His assertion challenges traditional conceptions of the definition of folklore, but this “penetration” of the vernacular is inherent to the nature of participatory media on the Internet and does not diminish its creativity (Dorst, 188).

In Folklore and the Internet, Trevor Blank writes, “Creativity is at the center of folkloristic inquiry, and the manifestations of online identity formation, artistic expression, folk religion, and the social dynamics of community construction are all important venues for analysis" (12). “Folkloric expression [on the internet] is reflective and serves as a 'mirror' of [contemporary] societal and cultural values” (Blank,4). It is this mirror that folklorists ought to be studying and teaching about if they want to keep the field relevant into the digital age.

Sources:

Dorst, John. "Tags and Burners, Cycles and Networks: Folklore in the Telectronic Age." Journal of Folklore Research. 27.3 (1990): 179-190. Web.

Folklore and the Internet: Vernacular Expression in a Digital World. Ed. Trevor Blank. Logan: Utah State University Press, 2009.

Howard, Robert Glenn. "Electronic Hybridity:  The Persistent Processes of the Vernacular Web." Journal of American Folklore. 121 (2008): 192-218. Web.

Rogers, Jami. “Shylock and History.” Masterpiece Theater: Merchant of Venice Essays and Interviews. PBS. Web. 25 Jan. 2012.

Proposal Submission TODAY!

Submitting this 500 word proposal to the American Folklore Society Conference in one hour. (The first paragraph is my 100 word abstract as well as my intro paragraph.) I know I'm my own worst critic but I think it's terrible. Wish I had more time to do background research before I submitted. I feel sick.

"The Internet has become our primary mode of communication. On the Internet, people participate in multiple communities by remixing and sharing information. Because of the remixing and sharing functions of the Internet, traditional folk tales, beliefs, legends, and material culture have been given new life. The Internet not only preserves and enhances traditional forms of folklore, but also gives rise to emergent genres particularly suited to the medium. This repository of lore lays virtually untouched by the majority of folklore scholars. The remixing and sharing of traditional folklore and the new genres emerging on the Internet deserve more scholarly attention.

Traditions require creativity in adapting to current situations. Eleanor Long’s research on personality types of performers of folklore highlights the need for creativity. When passing on a joke, preservators too often forget the punchline. Integrators use validating formulas to make the joke funnier to their audience and recreators create a whole new joke, following the original’s pattern. This creative alteration of tradition keeps it alive, as opposed to killing it by losing essential elements.

Creativity is not just characteristic of face-to-face interactions. When folklore is adapted into literature, it often undergoes great change. Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice draws on folktales about moneylending in exchange for flesh that probably came to Europe from the Orient during the Crusades (Ryan, 28).  Shakespeare differentiates his version from earlier tellings by casting a Jew as the moneylender. This makes his story an oikotype of the Elizabethan Era when Jews had been expelled from England and folk superstitions surrounded them. Changing this detail of a popular folktale made Shakespeare an integrator.

The Internet is a culture of sharing. When people share texts or materials online, they often change or add details that make them relevant to their community. When this process of alteration is done online, it is called remixing. Items of traditional folklore are remixed by many hands as they are shared online. The remix culture of the internet is the perfect venue for the creative preservation of tradition.

There are also emergent genres of folklore particular to the participatory media of the Internet. These genres are what Howard calls “amalgamations of institutional and vernacular expression” (192). As early as 1990, John Dorst asserted a collapse between consumer culture and the vernacular (188-89). This “penetration” of the vernacular is particular to the nature of participatory media and the Internet (188). Examples of these genres are memes, photoshops, hashtag jokes, and items folklorists have yet to label like viral videos and their remixes.

In Folklore and the Internet, Trevor Blank writes, “Creativity is at the center of folkloristic inquiry, and the manifestations of online identity formation, artistic expression, folk religion, and the social dynamics of community construction are all important venues for analysis" (12). “Folkloric expression [on the internet] is reflective and serves as a 'mirror' of [contemporary] societal and cultural values,” a mirror that folklorists ought to be studying, if they want to keep the field relevant into the digital age (Blank, 4).

Sources:

Dorst, John. "Tags and Burners, Cycles and Networks: Folklore in the Telectronic Age." Journal of Folklore Research. 27.3 (1990): 179-190. Web.

Folklore and the Internet: Vernacular Expression in a Digital World. Ed. Trevor Blank. Logan: Utah State University Press, 2009.

Howard, Robert Glenn. "Electronic Hybridity:  The Persistent Processes of the Vernacular Web." Journal of American Folklore. 121 (2008): 192-218. Web.

Ryan, Patrick. Shakespeare’s Storybook Folk Tales that Inspired the Bard. New York: Barefoot Books, 2001. Print. "

Comparable Work - Annotated Bibliography of Books and Articles about Digital Folklore

Primary Text: 

Folklore and the Internet: Vernacular Expression in a Digital World. Ed. Trevor Blank. Logan: Utah State University Press, 2009.  

Suggested to me by Dr. Eric Eliason. The introduction by Blank himself is great and the articles inside are a good sampling of what kinds of things folklorists are looking at on the internet. 

Early Works:

Dorst, John. "Tags and Burners, Cycles and Networks: Folklore in the Telectronic Age." Journal of Folklore Research. 27.3 (1990): 179-190. Web.
Sent to me by Lynne McNeill and suggested as background knowledge of my subject. 

Howard, Robert Glenn. "Electronic Hybridity:  The Persistent Processes of the Vernacular Web." Journal of American Folklore. 121 (2008): 192-218. Web.
Sent to me by Lynne McNeill and suggested as background knowledge of my subject.