Lesson 1.1
Hello! My name is Shannon Jaye Smith. I am a fourth year English Lit student in the Faculty of Arts at the University of British Columbia. I am currently enrolled in an online class, English 470, taught by Dr. Erika Paterson.
English 470 is an interesting course that uses various forms of media including blogs, Facebook, and other collaborations through social media in order to explore perspectives in Canadian literature. All of these are going to be needed to properly dissect the narrative of Canada’s settler stories.
I think the embracing of technology in a course like this is extremely important. Not only does extensive use of the internet provide us with many more tools to work with and better ways to connect and communicate with one another, but it often allows us to present digital media in relation to documents of the past. My majors seminar, which I completed in the fall semester of 2013, was entirely about literature in the digital age. Because of this, it allowed me to do a presentation on video games and how even they contain aspects of literature. This is why it will be even more interesting for me to look into literature of the past and see how much it has in common with what can be considered digital literature.
Overall, I am really excited for this course and its unique format. I am a Canadian, one whose ancestors immigrated to this country more than three generations ago. I don’t have a particularly strong bond with my ethnic roots, but I think it will still be interesting to explore writing from the perspective of those who first settled in the great white north. I am also looking forward to improving my digital literacy as well as my currently nonexistent blogging skills. Let’s get started!
References:
League of Legends. Riot Games, 2014. 16 May 2014.
Paterson, Erika. ENGL 470A Canadian Studies: Canadian Literary Genres. University of British Columbia, 2014. 16 May 2014.
University of British Columbia Website. UBC, 2014. 16 May 2014.
Hi Shannon, welcome back, happy to see you here. One note right away, the link you have to the 470 class is last semester’s blog, will you please change it to: https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl47098amay2014/ – thanks! You make a comment above that caught my attention: ” .. it will still be interesting to explore writing from the perspective of those who first settled in the great white north.” I began to wonder if you are referring to the Indigenous peoples as settlers — because it is the perspective of First Nations that we are going to try to gain some understanding of and incorporate into our study of story in literature and orature as they impact nation building and the Canadian literary cannon. Our explorations of digital literature will lead us to consider how the WWW is impacting both literature and orature and assist us in considering possible intervention strategies for shaping the future of literature and orature. I too am looking forward to our work together, thanks for your intro – enjoy,
Hi Shannon!
You have my sympathy on the non-existent blogging skills, I’m totally new to this and definitely still finding my feet. I’m going to be honest, what first caught my eye was the fact that you linked to League of Legends and talked about videogames. Did you follow the North American LCS this year at all?
On a topic slightly more related to this course, how do you think the use of digital learning in this course will shape or change our understanding of the material?