If You Build the House, You Should Get the Keys

As technology dependent as my new class is, some groups
still return to the classics - in this case, a chalk board - when
planning their next week's story lines and concerns. I love it.

If I’m honest with myself, I think my hybrid fiction class is built, at least in part, on a small amount of petulance on my part. It never fails that I have a few students each semester, generally those unhappy with their grades, who tell me they wish they had more control over the coursework and experience.

It usually sounds a bit like this:

“You know Dr. Clark, I think I struggle because I don’t get to choose anything about what we do.”

Snarky comments about overreaching word choice and hubris aside, I think my response is this class. You want some control (which, if they were paying attention, these students would realize they’ve had all along), well let me make you very, very aware that you’re in control.

Hence the 9-week, self-directed small group writing process in which my students, in collaboration with the other groups in the class, are writing a novel-in-stories that I will publish electronically after the semester ends. With their names on it.

As I expected, this was at once and exciting and sobering, “you-got-what-you-asked-for” moments. But it has also led to inventive solutions on the part of my students who feel the need to jailbreak even a system designed to give them almost all of the creative control. And I love what I’m seeing as they work outside the systems and platforms I provided or required.

Some groups have created their own SMS repeater groups so all their texts automatically go to every group member. Others have created their own Google circles for the class, enabling the use of Hang Outs for meetings if they want to work remotely or if a group member is unavailable in person. They’ve even tried gaming the story constraints I put on their work (if I have to kill one more zombie storyline…).

In total, I left some gaps in the process to see what they’d do, and it has paid off in a number of ways, some of which I’ll likely build into the next iteration of the class. I can’t wait to see how the next group looks to break the system productively.

This is another entry regarding the student-driven hybrid fiction course I’m piloting at the moment that is testing both my notions of teaching and my students’ understanding of how the classroom is supposed to look. From time to time, I’ll reflect here on what I’m learning along the way.