Totally Rad Reading! #bookhenge

Poem? Where? Where? Darn it! I see the dedication but no poem. What the…? Perhaps if I click on the half wagon wheel image, I’ll see the poem. Stupid computer! I click. Spin, spin, spin, spin. Then spin seven more times and one lonely it spins. Huh? Is that it? What kind of poem is this? Sheesh! Radical change? I guess. Certainly a far cry from Whitman or Dickinson. Is this some sort of avant-garde technique that’s just too hip for me to understand? A collage of repetitive words? I hover the mouse over one of the spins. I click, fully expecting a definition of the word spin to pop up. No definition, but poetry. Oh, I see now. Each spin is a link to a piece of the poem. I start again at what I presume to be the beginning. I click on the far left spin. Then I click the next in the arc, moving clockwise. Wait… Am I doing this correctly? Maybe I should click the spins with the smallest font size first. Still, some are the same font size, so do I apply a second order and click font size first but continue to go clockwise? What about the solitary it spins? Is that first or last? Hmmm…  Maybe it’s up to me to choose the order. I’m now reminded of a book my daughter had when she was little that featured three different paths the reader could choose for the character. At each point in the story when the three different scenarios presented themselves, she would choose one and influence the outcome of the story. Even though she always chose the same paths so the story always ended the same, she could have changed the story if she pleased. I suppose consistency is comforting for a four year old.  O.k., so back to “Skeleton Sky.” What is the author’s intention? Does she intend for the reader to create the poem himself? Maybe, and why not? According to Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy, “create” comes at the top. We want our students to be creators of knowledge, not simply consumers of knowledge.  In addition to Guertin’s  use of hypertext to encourage a new type of digital poetry, she encourages readers to create their own experience with the poem. I suppose you could call it an interactive poem, which would certainly fit with Dresang’s notion of “Radical Change.” The cornerstone of digital literacy is being able to read and synthesize information in a non-linear fashion.  Since the internet brings readers non-linear text, it is essential that literature follows suit. In its earliest inception, radical change signified a voice in literature that has not been heard before, and in a sense, the internet is a “voice” in literature that has not been heard before.  Dresang lists books chronologically from as early as 1928 that can be classified as examples of radical change. From early picture books like Goodnight Moon to the Diary of a Young Girl, written by 12-year-old Holocaust survivor, Anne Frank, literature has always been on the forefront of change. Even today, literature still strives to challenge readers with previously unheard voices. Two modern examples that come to mind are Monster and Will Grayson Will Grayson. I haven’t read the latter, but my understanding is that it is a novel for young adults featuring a gay main character, which introduces a voice that has been quieted for many years. Monster presents a new voice in two ways. First, the narration of the story comes from the perspective of a young criminal suspect, Steve Harmon. Second, the narration is written as a screenplay by the narrator while he awaits trial in jail. Persepolis, a multi-cultural graphic novel, gives equal weight to both a new voice and a new way to read literature just as Monster does. The rarely heard voice of a young Iranian girl coming of age during the Islamic Revolution offers readers a fresh perspective through an untold story written in a new and graphic way. As I embark on my next graphic novel (Persepolis was the first I had ever read), I will view it through Dresang’s lens of radical change.