Title

Digital Literary Studies in the High School Environment

Authors

Eric Rettberg, Illinois Mathematics and Science AcademyFollow

Document Type

Conference Paper/Presentation

Publication Date

6-28-2018

Keywords

digital humanities, digital pedagogy, high school curriculum

Disciplines

Curriculum and Instruction | Digital Humanities | Educational Methods | English Language and Literature

Abstract

In my time today, I’ll discuss some of the challenges and opportunities of adapting a college-level digital-centric course for the high-school classroom. The two courses in question are a class called Literature in the Digital Era, which I taught as a postdoc at the University of Virginia in 2014, and a class called Digital Literary Studies, which I’ll teach at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, a state-run boarding school for high schoolers talented in math and science, in Spring 2019. While there’s been a lot of continuity in the design of the two classes, teaching high school does present new challenges for digital work, and at the end of the paper I’ll offer up some problems for us to consider in the Q and A. As a way of thinking about a couple larger questions, though, I’ll start by addressing two potential problems that don’t much worry me—that is, “will my students be able to do interesting digital work,” and “will it be good for their humanities educations?” My answer to both is already a confident yes. The reasons why get to the larger questions in the conversation of this panel—why is it desirable to teach classes with a heavy digital humanities component to high school students, and more broadly, what should a high school English curriculum look like in the first place?

Comments

Presented at Digital Humanities 2018

Roundtable: Digital Humanities in Middle and High School: Case Studies and Pedagogical Approaches

Chair: Jonathan D. Fitzgerald

Alexander Gil¹, Roopika Risam², Stan Golanka³, Nina Rosenblatt³, David Thomas³, Matt Applegate⁴, James Cohen⁴, Eric Rettberg⁵, Schuyler Esprit⁶

1: Columbia University Libraries; 2: Salem State University; 3: Trevor Day School; 4: Molloy College; 5: Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy; 6: Create Caribbean, Inc., Dominica

Recommended Citation

Rettberg, Eric, "Digital Literary Studies in the High School Environment" (2018). Faculty Publications & Research. 14.
https://digitalcommons.imsa.edu/eng_pr/14