Digital Yoknapatawpha as a Resource for Teachers and Students

473 Digital Yoknapatawpha articulating a technological transition already underway to the invisible architecture of today’s communication systems—an infrastructure we access through myriad interfaces, but so ubiquitous as to transcend our ability to grasp conceptually its entire structure. Using DY does not diminish the existential considerations implicit in these mediations; nor does it aim to resolve the various other tensions that Faulkner’s writing so often evokes in his readers. With trillions of available datasets, DY. provides users a new means of interpreting Faulkner’s invisible architecture and visualizing how it grows and changes through the course of his Yoknapatawpha oeuvre. Digital Yoknapatawpha as a Resource for Teachers and Students Jennie J. Joiner Keuka College STUDENTS WILL LOVE THIS RESOURCE: THAT WAS MY FIRST THOUGHT WHEN I saw the Digital Yoknapatawpha project. With one foot in the digital humanities and the other in the world of the text, the project has been an exciting opportunity for me to explore Faulkner’s world with new eyes. I thought the same would be true for my students. I teach at a small private liberal arts college that is developing a specialization in digital learning, so this resource would seem to be of utmost value. When I introduced the project and the map into my general education course for undergraduates, however, I was extremely disappointed. Handing each student an iPad with the site for “A Rose for Emily” on the screen, I encouraged students to play around with the maps and timeline and share what they learned about the story. I waited with bated breath and high expectations. I was greeted instead with silence. After waiting an excruciating ten minutes as students clicked away, I asked, “Well?” One student, looking up from the screen, bravely asked, “What does the purple mean?” This was not the response I expected, and, frankly, as a DY collaborator and teacher sharing a new pedagogical tool with students in the classroom, I left class feeling devastated. This seems a poor story to advocate for the use of DY in the classroom. But I tell it to underscore what I learned during that class: DY. needs introduction and contextualization by the teacher. I believed 474 Mississippi Quarterly the sophisticated technological apparatus and visualization would immediately engage students on their terms and lead them deeper into Faulkner’s work. However, although students—so-called digital natives —mayhaveunlimitedaccesstotechnologyandresourcesontheirdigital devices, they do not necessarilyhavetheexpertiseto read, contextualize, or analyze the data provided. This DY interface, much like Faulkner’s oeuvre itself, is rich with content and data that can overwhelm students. I learned much from that first experience and have since introduced the project to my undergraduates with more success. Below I outline some of the strategies I use to help students use DY to gain a deeper understanding of Faulkner’s work. First, students need a brief tutorial on DY.’s many features. The site’s organization is not as apparent to students as we might assume. Stephen Railton’s demonstration video on the DY homepage is an excellent overview of how to maximize the screen settings and understand the page layout. It also explains colors and the timeline: red means current action and purple indicates the past. Similarly, noting the difference between chronological and page sequence is important. When confronted with the timeline’s full range of years for all of Faulkner’s fiction—1800 to 1960—students may assume the text they are studying takes place during that entire span. Students would probably figure all of this out if they spent enough time working with the site, but my experience has demonstrated that without an initial introduction to the project, they will quickly become frustrated and move away. Students also need help defining the parameters or context for what they are seeing. For example, for years I have used “A Rose for Emily” in my introductory fiction courses to discuss plot development, stream of consciousness, and Faulkner’s complex treatment of time. Working in groups, students cut up an enlarged photocopy of the story and put it in chronologicalorder.Thischallengingexercisehasoftenledtowonderful class debates about the story’s chronology and how we “know” the order of events. They also learn that...