John Olmsted
Professor
Department of English
I am requesting a two-part curriculum development grant so that I can
Since Jessica Grim, Reference Librarian and Instruction Coordinator, has said that she will be available for consultations this spring, I would like to begin work immediately, since I will be teaching two sections of English 220 this semester. I will be repeating two sections of the course in the spring of 2002 so the materials and skills which I develop will have an immediate impact on the teaching of these courses.
During the summer I would work full time on the second part of my proposal. I would prepare a questionnaire for members of my department asking what materials they would find useful, what their goals are in specific courses, and how I could help them find materials which would meet the needs of individual courses. Then, during the academic year 2001-2002 I would distribute these materials to my colleagues and meet with them individually, in groups, or in meetings open to students and faculty.
Our courses at the 200 level are designed to prepare potential majors for their work in our discipline. Each student is required to take three of these courses, and we encourage them to take a course in each of the three genres of drama, poetry, and fiction. Only upon completion of these courses can majors move to the 300 and 400 level courses designed specifically for English majors.
Courses at this level, therefore, are an ideal place for us to teach those sophisticated research skills which go under the rubric of "information literacy." Next year 24 of these courses will be taught by 14 members of the department, including three newly hired colleagues. In one year, nearly all members of the department would have the opportunity to incorporate information literacy materials into their courses.
Let me explain how I would incorporate these materials into my course on British Romantic Literature. This survey course treats poetry, critical prose, fiction, painting and architecture produced in Great Britain between 1789 and 1837. In my lectures I emphasize political and social context and treat such topics as the nature and function of the arts in a new industrial society, the makeup and extent of the new reading public, the ways in which women are treated and imagined in works by men and women, the similar goals of painters and poets in their reading of the English landscape, and the transgressive nature of much Romantic literature and painting. During the semester, the students write four papers, one of them a long research paper on a topic of their choosing. There is as well an in-class exam during the latter part of the semester.
In order for students to write papers and do readings, I have already i ncluded assignments from the Norton Topics on Line web site, which is coordinated with the anthology I use, and have referred students to The Voice of the Shuttle web site, which offers access to an extraordinary array of sites directly treating the topics covered in the course. What I wish to do with the assistance of this grant is to relate all of the assignments to web materials. For instance, early in the semester we read poems by William Blake from his Songs of Innocence and Experience. In their original form, these poems were richly illustrated by Blake and hand colored by his wife. Until a few years ago these materials were available only at major research libraries or in costly reprints which Oberlin has rightly kept in Special Collections. On the web, students can consult fine digital images of pages from Blake's work and write about the interplay between text and illustration. Another topic which students could undertake is a comparison of the ways in which the poet William Wordsworth and the painter John Constable render landscape in their work. Drafts of Wordsworth's poems and images of Constable paintings are available on the web, and specific assignments could be based on these materials.
While giving students access to primary materials on the web would be an important part of my reworking of this course and of my preparation of materials for my colleagues, I would like as well to introduce students to 1) the major reference works for the study of literature, art history, and history; 2) other basic tools for accessing information, such as catalogs, databases, and indices; 3) specific search strategies for accessing information; 4) techniques for evaluating information critically and for differentiating among primary and secondary literature, peer-reviewed scholarly literature and popular literature; 5) appropriate documentation and citing of sources in the context of issues of intellectual property and plagiarism. I have found that item 4 is a particularly necessary skill since many suspect sites abound. Blake and Byron in particular often draw enthusiasts who set up web sites to which students are often directed by web search sites. I plan to work up specific assignments which will help them determine which sites are most trustworthy and how they can develop skills in evaluating sources of information.
The materials I develop to change this course can be adapted for use in other courses at the 200 level, many of which have the same kind of interdisciplinary topics and methodology. I hope to create these materials on a web site which will make them available to students and colleagues alike. Here I need considerable help in setting up the information and making direct connections with sites on the web. I am painfully aware at times that my graduate training and early research skills were based on working with book and journal resources exclusively. I am also of that lost generation of grad students who actually typed (and retyped) their doctoral dissertations.
I am requesting a stipend for this work, which would begin immediately, continue full time through the summer and would involve extra work during the entire 2001-2002 year. I would value the opportunity to work with Jessica and with the Art Librarian, Barbara Prior, who can help me better negotiate art history research materials. In the 1980s I published four books in art history, but since then I have not kept up with new research techniques in the field.
I have shown this proposal to several of my colleagues; all expressed interest and enthusiastic support. Department chair David Walker e-mailed me his "strong support" after studying the proposal and said that he particularly supported my idea of "pooling resources" of information for the department.
I would of course comply with all evaluation and reporting deadlines and would enjoy taking part in consortial workshops with faculty at the other campuses of the Five Colleges. I've been granted eight NEH fellowships during my time at Oberlin and have completed the reporting requirements for each promptly and successfully.