Get Glogging

Here is a sample assignment for how glogging might be used to learn about literature, specifically about Nella Larson's Quicksand:

Some big questions to consider about Helga's experience of the educational system at "Naxos" include:

What is meant by educational "uplift"? What about Helga and about the other students and teachers gets cut out by the school in Naxos? Why is James able to get "naturalized" (7) to Naxos but Helga cannot? Who are they uplifting at the school? What are they uplifting them to? Why does Helga feel she must leave? How would Helga prefer the school to be? How would she like to relate to her students and colleagues? Why can't she?

To develop your answers to these questions, I'd like you to return to the opening chapters of Quicksand. Find a metaphor that Helga uses to describe the school. How does this metaphor make her frustrations with the school clear?

I would like you to create your own glog about this metaphor, that helps explain your answers to the big questions above.

For an example of how you might work on this, please take a look at my glog about W.E.B. Du Bois and education. As you will see, I've taken a quote from one of his essays and added an image and some of my thoughts about his metaphor of a "lever" to describe education. Also on the glog is a photo of Booker T. Washington, whose approach to education Du Bois criticized. With the photo, I've included some text about one thing I think the photo shows. I've also included a link to a blog post by a modern student and my brief explanation for how it relates to Quicksand. Finally, I've linked this glog to another glog with several quotes from Du Bois about education. Please click through to that glog and select a quote you think compares or contrasts with Helga's experience at Naxos.

For your own glog, you may use any of the kinds of approaches I have mentioned (finding an illustration, analyzing a photo, comparing it to another article) to talk about the metaphor you find in Quicksand. I will expect you to include:

1)At least one quote from Quicksand that includes a metaphor about how Helga understands the school
2)Your analysis about how the metaphor you find helps answer the big questions above
3)A quote from Du Bois that you want to relate to Helga's experience
4)Your analysis or questions about how this quote compares, contrasts, or relates to Helga's experience
5) An image you want to relate to Naxos or Quicksand
6) Your thoughts about that image's importance

It's a Glog

A glog, apparently, is a multimedia, web-linked kind of fancy poster. Below is my attempt at one, meant to relate to Nella Larson's Quicksand as a jumping off point for thinking about or researching the cultural conversations, practices, and controversies related to the idea of education as a means to cultural/racial uplift (the Naxos section of Larson's novel).

What I like about Glogging:

1. It's creative (in both senses: artistic/expressive and productive). Even though it is digital, you produce something concrete (in a sense), which is share-able and which allows a kind of pride of accomplishment in the creation.
2. It's interactive, which invites you to think about your audience (how will you design your glog so that the links, images, sounds, and video are interesting, useful, informative, etc. to your audience?)
3. It's curatorial, which offers a sense of the active construction of knowledge and history, as well as a sense of changing meaning by changing comparisons or contrasts (i.e. a glog on Du Bois has a different meaning than a glog on Du Bois and Garvey).
4. It's research- and discovery-oriented. This offers the chance to construct knowledge and make (sometimes surprising) connections yourself. Discovering things can be fun, too, which has to be good for the classroom, right? I'll admit I was absurdly pleased to realize the reggae song I'd chosen to go with my Garvey slideshow (made with animoto) actually used the words "you lift me up from quicksand."

Questions about Glogging that I'm still thinking about:

1. Can you assess glogs? Based on what criteria?
2. Are they best used for introductions to material, concepts, etc.? Or how might they be used for intermediate explorations? Final projects?
3. How do you design glog assignments so that they are more bacon than sizzle? Like the Word Clouds I posted about earlier, making a glog could easily become a hands-on/minds-off activity (especially if you just post links to lengthy material that you haven't read or don't understand yet).