Reading together

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Time photoOur course invites you to work with data collection and analysis, readings, and discussion around the field of literacy studies

Remixing Moby-Dick a study of a study

Remixing Moby-Dick a study of a study

In the class room there seems to be a sort of demanded reading process; a strict analytical read that focuses on a specific element that the teacher, school, or bureaucracy believes to be of the utmost important. Reading in A Participatory Culture: Remixing Moby-Dick in the English classroom is study of a new manner of education, one that is more open to the culture around the student in an attempt to relate the text to them as opposed to said student relating the text to the government instituted correct interpretation. The book is a collection of studies that hopes to encourage a more digital literate classroom where a teacher helps and educate the student in how to use the digital world to their advantage. Largely, however, it is about individual interpretation and creation.

Individual interpretation, anything we read is inherently subject to our own individual understanding. Our experiences help us relate to things in a personal and unique level yet in the classroom a specific unnamed Master claims the right of the correct interpretation. This ‘correct’ interpretation has stood the test of time and has been accepted by the ‘experts.’ All must fear and obey this interpretation once in the four walled room of English, all must accept without question the ‘correct interpretation.’ This process of education is suitable and understandable for indoctrination and limited worldly communication but to accept this as the only interpretation is to do a horrible disservice to the world. Pitts-Wiley, a man who remixed his own play interpretation of Moby Dick–named Moby-Dick: Then and Now–spoke of interpretations from his students, they were told to write their own interpretation of Moby Dick. This particulate group of students find themselves in a hard, real, world filled with violence and drugs, thus their interpretation and reliability reflected that, “(H)e worried he was now a threat to the great omnipotent WhiteThing.” Individual interpretation is unavoidable, Reading in a Participatory Culure: Remixing Moby-Dick in the English Classroom is about recognizing our own individuality and creating off of that.

The study focuses a great deal on creating in the modern world. Specifically–though not limited too–fanfiction. This was an intriguing element because fanfiction is a common reality in the digital world. If there is a fictional world then you can find fanfiction of it. The study works hard in making the argument that fanfiction is the ultimate understanding of any given work. To create a narrative withing another world, paying tribute to another world, and creating honest interpretation of that worlds characters is something to be respected not vilified. Not to mention that these are “works of love,” these authors are not receiving recognition for their works, their work is due to the love of the original work alone. The study wants to encourage this sort of devotion for other works such as Moby Dick for students to better understand the world that these authors sought to create.

So how does this work help improve our understanding of literary studies? Well Mr. MacGuffin, it seeks to expand literacy beyond that of the traditional study of novels to match a more digital world. The talents of the younger generation added into the study of older works in order to make the work relate to them in a more individual level. With such an understanding, students may be more willing to not only read for the classroom but read for their own benefit as well.

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