Close Listening: Podcasts in the College Literature Class

Throughout the course, I've been collecting data from students about their experiences with literature "by ear."

I've started to analyze their responses; in this post I'll be sharing a few interesting patterns, and some tentative conclusions.

First, I was surprised to find that 85% of students report accessing the audio files from their home computers, and 15% access materials at a campus computer lab or library. None of the 40 students who took the survey reported listening to course podcasts while mobile! While this contradicts my expectation that students would enjoy the mobility that audio allows, it seems to show that they are choosing experience the audio in less distracting surroundings. (More to come in future posts on the role of distraction in reading and listening.)

Second finding: When given the option of reading only, listening only, or both reading and listening, students are more likely to do both.

Third finding: As they had predicted at the start of the course, students find listening to audio more time consuming and more difficult that reading text, but also more enjoyable.

Compare their mid-semester responses:

...to their predictions from the beginning of the semester:

Taken together, these results could suggest that the use of audio in this course design has encouraged students to take more time with the texts, rather than less, while also increasing their enjoyment of this labor.

As one student reported, "I will find it more enjoyable while potentially more time consuming as I won't be able to 'skim' through passages." This made we wonder if audio--rather than moving too quickly, as I'd feared--actually slows down the process of reading for students habituated to skimming, and therefore--far from preventing close redaing--in fact facilitates it.

Midterms were Tuesday, so I'll comment on my use of testing.

How does testing in an audio-based course look different from testing in other courses?

The short answer is: it doesn't.

That isn't to say that other forms of evaluation don't differ; the podcasting project that I describe in other posts is worth 30% of students' final grades, and is unique to this class format.

However, since part of my aim in teaching this class is to evaluate whether using audio podcasts of literature can achieve comparable results as text, it follows that I should assess these results similarly as I would those in a print-centered class.

In my 44-student literature classes, I typically give midterm and final exams that include one section of identifications and one of short essays based on quotations. From list of seven quotations from stories or poems we have read, students choose four. For each quote, they must identify the source and context, and comment on its literary elements, using the following table as a reference:

I haven't finished grading these exams yet, but my initial observation is that students' exams demonstrate equivalent competencies for retention and analysis as those of other courses.

On the one hand, these results seem to demonstrate the success of using audio podcasts to foster literary study. On the other hand, however, they give the lie to my supposed audio focus, showing that while incorporating aurality and orality, the class has remained quite centered on traditional means of textual analysis and close reading.

There's much more to say about assessment, but I've got to get back to grading those exams!

"How could the folks be 'civilized' when wasn't nobody writing nothin down?"
-Gil Scott Heron, "Black History / The World"

Today was an exciting class; through the work of Gil Scott Heron, I got to share with students one of my motivations for focusing on sound and literature in the course, challenging the equation between writing and civilization that has served as a justification for colonialism and slavery, and denigrated the status of oral history and storytelling.

Last class we had looked at the intersection of music and poetry in Langston Hughes' poem "The Weary Blues" and Gwendolyn Brooks' "We Real Cool." I assigned a few of my favorite Memphis Minnie tunes so that we could compare the lyric structure of classic country blues with that of Hughes' poem. 5-05 I'm A Bad Luck Woman.m4a

I started by alerting the class that we'd be jumping forward in time from the 1920s to the 1970s, from looking at blues' influence on poetic form, to a poet's role in the inauguration of a new musical form: hip hop.

We listened to Heron's "Black History / The World" (courtesy of Black Media Archive) and watched a Youtube video of "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" (the recent video helps illustrate the song lyrics for students unfamiliar with 1960s/70s pop culture references like Spiro Agnew and Natalie Wood).

We talked about the last lines of the former:

Specifically, we considered the consequences of Heron's pun on "history."
Since we'd talked about enjambment in "We Real Cool" last time, students were prepped to discuss the effects of inserting a visual or aural space between words or lines. In this case, the possessive pronoun "his" emphasizes that who tells the story determines what is told.

Linked to Heron's emphasis on different versions of history is the idea--prominent in LeRoi Jones's music criticism--that "reference determines value." I wrote this sentence on the board, reminded students that we'd be discussing Jones's perspective later in class, and asked them how this idea relates to Heron's satiric voice in "Black History / The World." (Heron takes on the voice of white "discoverers" of Africa who "couldn't have been robbing nobody" because "there was nobody there.")

Students presenting their podcast script on "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" did a good job of articulating the split Heron sees between mainstream media and social change. I intervened to remind students that Heron was performing before the era of Internet, cell phones, facebook, and Twitter. I showed a minute or two of a lackluster "tribute" to Heron, called "The Revolution Will Not Be Digitized," in order to provoke student responses to the question, "Does Heron's media critique hold true today?" Students cited corporate control of television and radio to support his message's continued relevance, and freedom of information on the internet to challenge it. SOPA came up in the discussion, as well as the role of Twitter in the Arab Spring.

Finally, with far too little time left to do them justice, I gave students a set of quotes from the reading they'd done by LeRoi Jones and Ralph Ellison. I'd chosen excerpts from LeRoi Jones' Blues People arguing for a strong connection between Africa and African American music, identity, and history, and Ellison's critique of what he sees as Jones' focus on politics at the expense of poetry. I listed opposing points of view in two columns and offered prizes (candy) for the group that could identify which quotes were Jones, and which Ellison. I ended up summarizing key points and pelting my students with the chocolates as the clock ticked down to zero.

What kind of podcasts do I want students to create?

Well, literary criticism is often described as a "conversation." Too often this is a dead metaphor, obscuring the isolation, insularity and exclusivity of much critical inquiry.

But literary conversation can be exciting, fulfilling, and even adventurous!
I feel this in the best moments of teaching.

As a model, I chose the New Yorker Fiction podcast of Junot Diaz reading Edwidge Danticat's story "Water Child." Junot Diaz reads Edwidge Danticat.mp3
Following this magnificent story, Diaz and editor Deborah Treisman have a ten-minute discussion about it. They weigh Danticat's choices as an author, and the effects her choices have on readers. They speak with a warmth and depth of emotion that demonstrates keen analysis need not preclude the personal.

Following this model, I present students with the nuts and bolts of their project:

-Working in groups of 3, they script a dialog responding to an assigned work of literature. Students can follow the reader/editor/critic model, or get creative in speaking from the perspectives of characters or authors.

-Students turn in a draft of their script 3-5 days in advance of the class day their work of literature appears on the syllabus. I make comments and suggestions.

-They then perform their conversation in class, spurring discussion and responses from peers.

-After the in-class performance (which serves as a kind of workshop), students record an edited version of their script and upload it to the course podcast.

-Other students can listen to their peers' podcasts as inspiration for their own work and preparation for final exams.

To get students comfortable with the (free) recording software and process of uploading files to the podcast, I assign short individual pieces titled "This Is My Voice" and "A Sound of my Roots." These brief expressive pieces also help students get acquainted and hear diverse perspectives in the first weeks of class.

Today class met in Walter Library SMART Learning Commons, where Media Outreach Librarian Scott Spicer demonstrated the voice recording software, equipment, and support available to students creating their own podcasts.

That's right: as a technophobe, I decided not only to teach a class drawing on preexisting podcasts, but also to help students create new podcasts: a process about which I knew, up until this semester, approximately nothing.

Here is my rationale:

In a class that draws comparisons between the literal voices of storytellers and poets in audio recordings and the figurative power of individual and collective voices to speak "from the margins," it is important that students are empowered to broadcast their own voices.

Podcasting is an exciting medium because it bypasses corporate conglomerate radio and allows individuals to publicize their voices without access to a recording studio, start-up capital, censors, cultural gatekeepers, or any of the typical barriers that keep much of our current radio (not to mention television) bland, one-dimensional, and guided by profits rather than people.

Culminating the course with student-produced podcasts equips them
not only with the tools of savvy consumers, but also with the tools of cultural producers...so they can not only analyze and critique media (literary or otherwise) but also take action and be responsible for creating new content.

It's my job as a literature professor to arm my students with the tools of literary analysis. Clearly stated on the syllabus is the course goal that they will hone their ability to identify elements such as plot, character, setting, style, tone, and point of view.

Early in the semester I usually assign small groups of students one literary element each. Guided by some explanation of the element, along with questions attuned to a particular story, the groups work privately before reporting to the whole class. When this activity works well, it demonstrates both the particularity of each element--its capacity to serve as an analytic lens--and the interconnection of all elements in forming an artistic whole (as when a discussion of character segues into a consideration of point of view, which in turn raises questions of style, and so on).

After my first approach to spoken word performances left me feeling a bit "flummoxed" (see previous post), I decided to pose the question to my students: What are the elements of spoken word? What kinds of choices does an author/performer make, and how can we, the audience, classify those choices to aid our understanding?

We'd yet to work with a story, play, or poem, so I knew I was taking a risk; presenting the Elements of Fiction and Drama (in the slide above) could seem hopelessly abstract. After a bit of explanation and discussion, I asked the students to compose lists of Elements of Spoken Word, drawing on their experience listening to five assigned pieces and creating one of their own.

I mapped their responses on the board, and snapped a photo, as we we out of time. I also collected the lists individual groups had worked on. Before our next class, I compiled their answers into the following:

At the start of the next class, I presented students with their collective Elements of Spoken Word, and assigned each group an element, as I had in other courses with the Elements of Fiction.

Working with the students' elements worked even better than I'd expected! I felt grounded in familiar literary territory, but also stretched to think about what sound and performance add. Moreover, working from the students' lists showed that their opinions matter, and have real consequences in shaping the class.

Next stop: Bedford/St.Martin's?

I admit to feeling a bit flummoxed after our first attempt at "close listening." I assigned a spoken word piece that only exists as a recorded performance--not even the option of following a text: 09 Extraordinary Hmong.m4a

I'd asked students to prepare "Close Listening Cards," an index card with a memorable sentence from the listening assignment, and two questions it inspires. I also ask them to mark the time in the recording when the sentence occurs, so we can go back to it easily in class.

It was exciting to hear the voice of a passionate performer, Ka Vang, projecting through the classroom. Her stance is confrontational, sassy, funny, and challenging.

We first spent some time clarifying unclear words (in conjunction with an assigned ongoing class glossary on the course website). This segued nicely into some moments of close reading...for example, how do we know whether Vang is referring to "the McDonalds-eating sun" or "son"? And what are the consequences of each? In fact, it seems that she deliberately plays on words to personify the sun as a son.

Students had picked out some interesting sentences, and were prepared with thoughtful interpretations. Example: When Vang says "I'm not sushi; I'm not take-out" she's using the foods to represent Japanese and Chinese identity, as seen through the limited perspective of mainstream American society. She's not either; she's Hmong, but people think they can categorize her easily with other Asians.

The problem for me was with sequence. Without words on the page laid out sequentially, I felt unmoored as we touched down to analyze a sentence here, a sentence there.

We were having some good conversations but circling back to the same conclusions about Vang's confrontational stance, her play with stereotypes.

Maybe this is a feature of the spoken word genre, which does seem to build meaning often through association rather than mounting argument.

For the next class I'm going to try having students line up according to the time sequence of the piece (since they record the time of their "close listening" sentences).

In this way we'll be able to discuss the performance chronologically...

But I wonder if it's my own text-based bias that makes me want to fit our analysis into this linear pattern. ...if there's not something to gain by being guided by the associative pleasures of spoken word.

In applying the analytic tools of a literary critic to audio recordings I am trying to show that listening can have comparable outcomes as reading as a means of engaging with literature. But in this effort to legitimate a methodology I need to be careful not to miss out on the unique qualities of the aural, and consider different analytic frames.

I ended class introductions by asking students to write silently for 5-7 minutes on the subject: When have you felt silenced? When have you felt that your voice was powerful?

Their answers speak for themselves:

"A time when my voice was powerful - speaking my opinion about certain topics with family and friends.

I felt silenced when I was talking to any older men in the family."

"I felt powerful and that my voice was important when I won the championship in little league.

I felt silenced when someone made fun of me for speaking Spanish and told me that I'm not in a Taco Bell."

"My voice has felt powerful when I am babysitting.

My voice has felt silenced when I am around teachers that I feel do not respect their students."

"Although it didn't exactly involve my voice, I felt powerful when playing in the district honors band in high school.

A time I felt silenced was being raised Catholic; I had no say in my own 'beliefs.'"

"I have felt that my voice was powerful when I had to give my team a pep talk before a big meet.

I have felt silenced when I first came to the U as a freshman and didn't know many people."

"Powerful: when somebody learns from what you tell him.

Silence: Coming into a new country and not being understood while learning a new language."

Wow. I am speechless.

This is more or less how I greeted students on this first day of class:

Try to remember your first, or a very early, experience with a story...
How many of you thought of a book?
How many of you thought of someone telling a story, or reading you a story?
Most of us encounter stories first by ear.
...and then we get tricked into thinking what matters about literature is on the page.

I want to challenge that idea, and I want you to help me by proving that we can have intelligent, meaningful, important conversations about stories and poems we hear.

People who study literature use a technique called "close reading" to pay attention to the choices an author makes--about style, and language, character, point of view--all the elements that make up a story or poem or other work. We're going to pioneer a technique of "close listening," seeing if we can pay just as much attention to what we hear as what we see.

I believe that listening to one another--in conversations, in stories, in songs--is fundamental to what it means to be a human, and also fundamental to what it means to be humane. (Q for students: What's the difference?)

We tell each other stories, and if we listen to those stories--really listen--we may be inspired to treat one another better...so you'll see this course also fulfills a social justice theme, which means that we'll be thinking not only about how stories are constructed, but also the way that society is constructed.

We'll be thinking about the relationship between literature and society, and asking ourselves: can literature really change the world? or is that just a cheesy slogan?

The beautiful, easily-constructed podcast I boasted about last week?

A dead end. Blind alley. Students can't see it or subscribe to it. Even Alison (PsTL Technology Fellow) has no idea how or why it exists.

Apparently there are still some bugs being worked out with UMN's iTunes U.

The good news is that it's not impossible to reconstruct the same podcast. The key is uploading files through Media Mill, an online tool for storing and sharing large video and audio files.

So, using UMN Media Mill, we were able to create a new podcast an hour before the first class, so that students could subscribe to it and download the first few assignments.

Whew. Not as easy as I thought, but not a disaster, either.