We don’t read, communicate, or even think in a strictly linear fashion. So why do we continue to teach as if we do?
The Electronic Labyrinth, a website affiliated with the University of Virginia, defines hypertext as “the presentation of information as a linked network of nodes which readers are free to navigate in a non-linear fashion” (hyperlinks included from the source quote). The Electronic Labyrinth also explains that hypertext “allows for multiple authors, a blurring of the author and reader functions, extended works with diffuse boundaries, and multiple reading paths.” Wiki pages, such as Wikipedia, rely on the collaborative and non-linear nature of hypertext in order to function.
I recently collaborated with a few other Teacher Candidates at UBC to create a hypertext poetry project that could be used as an assignment in an English class. We posted the text of Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” on to a Wordpress blog we called By The Tumtum Tree and, over the course of a few days, each of us linked some of the words in the text to various forms of media that we felt enriched or reflected our experience of the poem. With each new linked image, video, GIF, definition or article added, our collective understanding of the poem changed and grew. The comments section below provided a space for discussion about the connections we’d made, how they change our understanding of the poem, as well as even more resources and connections to further our study of the text.
You can see another example of a hypertext poetry project by another group of UBC Teacher Candidates here. This hypertext poem uses the Weebly platform and includes an audio recording of the poem that you can listen to as you read.
A hypertext poem project is just one example of how we can harness the non-linear power of hypertext in our classrooms. Do you know of any other lessons, resources, or projects that use hypertext as an educational tool?
Comment below!