Expectations

As a member of the this Online Book Club you are expected to post to the book blog at least once per week between now and July 11 -- that's six weeks. You should finish your book before then, and you will meet during the Institute in your groups to extend the discussion and plan how to present the book to the others in the Institute.

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Sunday, July 3, 2016

Fair Use

As I'm reading further on and thinking about the suggested lessons, I'm wondering about how to teach students about fair use of material they find online. The authors' claim that screenshots of copyrighted text is allowable is something that I was not aware of. They claim that because it's "transformative" it's allowable. This surprises me, and I'm not sure that that would be true of all material. While it seems much easier to just discuss transformative use in class, it seems like a lengthier discussion would be necessary. This is a murky area for me but a necessary one to cover, especially in a research class like 121.

On different note, I really like the idea of group annotations and literature circles for complex reading. I've had students blog their individual reactions to readings, and this always most effective when classmates reply to the blog posts. I'm now thinking about ways to place them in reading groups with specific roles and posts for some readings. I think this would also enhance class discussion of essays and articles.

1 comment:

  1. I've thought about this as well. I think of borrowing as a continuum, and as scholars we work out on our own what's appropriate and ethical and what is not. How much is too much to quote from a single source? I have trouble explaining this to students. So I often find myself pointing out, "this paragraph is almost entirely quoted or borrowed," but I have trouble coming up with a more objective, a priori "rule" for ethical and appropriate borrowing. You look at some creative writing, like Kenneth Goldsmith's work--he has published entire books that he copied verbatim from a single source. Is that ethical or appropriate? So I think coming up with some readings, assignments, and/or group work that deals more explicitly with this issue is needed. I'm not sure what that would look like.

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