Essay Two: New Cirriculum

As English Majors, it's our job to share ideas. Our value comes in our ability to think critically and share our ideas in a clear way. Quoting Chaucer is a plus, but we need to understand why knowing Chaucer gives us any kind of advantage in life. A traditional study of literature is very helpful for English Majors, but we need to be able to apply these skills in ways that are relevant today. One of the most outdated practice for English Majors is to share their ideas in literary journals that are very selective and require complex writing skills. This does not allow for the fast exchange of ideas that is found today online through blog posts or video reviews.

Instead of 8-10 pages of literary critic jargon in magazines only being read by a specific audience, some critics are able to articulate their ideas in a way everyone can understand.

Anita Sarkeesian, for example, is able to convey her ideas about feminism in 30 minute presentations that anyone can understand. These utilize video clips and pictures to help illustrate her points. They are easy to share and people are able to participate in the discussion by posting their own response videos or by discussing the ideas in forums.

There are also shorter videos which are able to take a complex idea and summarize it in a two minute video. A 30 page essay about gamification and its potential to help prevent speeding in pedestrian-heavy areas would not be as helpful as this two minute clip.

In order for our English Majors to share their ideas effectively, they need to have the tools to share those ideas and participate in the academic conversation. Therefore, English majors should have a curriculum or classes that teach them how to give an academic presentation in a video or blog post. This does not have to replace traditional academic paper writing, and they will still need to learn how to formulate and support a thesis, but they should learn how to do it in the context of something more relevant like a video than an academic journal.

There is no MLA format for academic blogging or for making academic videos, so this might be a difficult thing to teach. How much personality is allowed in an academic blog post? How much video editing work should go into these? Although there is no form that we can teach students, we can pose those questions to the students and help them decide the best way to present their ideas. With this kind of skill set, students will be more able to meet the demands of an English major in the digital humanities age.