Internet Killed the Literature Class

Back when I was in high school, the Internet was a new thing. Only the very privileged had access to it. In addition, when we were given papers to write or literature to read, the only source of information we could rely on was whatever was placed in our brains. If you knew about it, you could get your hands on a copy of Cliffsnotes (the book version) or the Bloom's analysis books. If you were really stupid (or had your back against the wall in dire fashion), you might get the movie version and think you had a one up on your teacher until you realized (either by verbal embarrassment or on the exam) that usually the book version was not exactly the same as the text. In other words, there wasn't a damned talking dog in Animal Farm. The moral of the story ultimately was if you didn't read, you failed.

Those were the golden days of literature courses. You read, you became enlightened, you gained vocabulary. Not in this age of the Internet; in the best old folks rhetoric I can muster up, "these new whippersnappers" have the world now at their finger tips. For the new-aged literature student, if you forgot to read, don't fret: you have Pinkmonkey, Cliffnotes, Sparknotes, and everything else. Oh and you have a paper to write on the text? Just search for the paper you need and either cut and paste or BUY a paper online (the devil in tangible form to a literature teacher). All is right with the world to these new millennium literature students. 

What a travesty! The authors widely included in the literary canon are no doubt spinning in their graves and cursing the internet. This situation gets worse and worse yearly. According to the Plough Library, "In 2001, Donald L. McCabe of Rutgers University performed a study of 4,500 high school students that found that, '74 percent of students admitted to cheating seriously on an exam one or more times; 15 percent admitted to turning in a paper largely taken from a Web site or a paper mill; and approximately 51 percent admitted to not citing the source from a Web site when using a few of its sentences in their papers'" (1).

Now, I've been around the block in the teaching game: I've taught grades 6-12 and college composition courses and Technical Writing. I'm also young enough to have known what life was like before the internet, but have also had to be a college student with internet at my disposal. Fortunately, I know what is on Sparksnotes and all the "study guide" sites so I can tell when students relied on the study guide rather than the text itself. In fact, I design tests with these sites in mind so that the kid will automatically fail if they didn't read the text by adding those small details that only a reader caught onto. I also use cheat sites like turnitin.com so that students can upload the text to the website and both the student and I can see where citations need to take place. When money is short for fancy technology devices, I rely on good ol' Google and cut and paste parts I think are stolen. Cheating can be combated, but unfortunately will never be

stopped.

As students become more and more technologically advanced, and teachers get older and older, technology will eventually win. I see it as the teachers like me winning the battle, but technology ultimately wins the war. The problem with technology winning the war is that students become worse at critical reading, and literary analysis, merely comprehending only what the cheat sites tell them to comprehend, never checking what is written against the actual text. We have students less able to articulate themselves in polysyllabic terms because we all know personal vocabulary is only built by reading and listening.  The damning effect: inevitably literature is forgotten in the technological abyss and the classics will be banished in the depths of lost lore similar to the way the poor contraptions Kris Kringle found that nobody wanted, were sent to the isle of misfit toys. 

A person who loves literature the way I do find this disheartening. How can a student not want to explore the love of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, or the dark thoughts of Edgar Allan Poe? Who doesn't want to visit Eatonville with Zora Neale Hurston, or understand the true satire behind Mark Twain's Huck Finn? And the complexities of J. Alfred Prufrock? Or read the Canterbury Tales and wonder what could have happened had Chaucer completed his stories?? Or fall in love with the poetry of Langston Hughes and contrast it with Walt Wittman? Or really figure out what happened to that Last Duchess by Browning? Or dissect the rhetoric that is the Narrative of Frederick Douglass. Or be wondering where the hell Thoreau is going with his seclusion in Walden. Most importantly, never, ever be proud of the accomplishment of understanding the archaic and stylistic Renaissance vernacular that is Shakespeare? The internet is destroying, single-handedly, literacy. The small sliver of hope is that Kindle and e-books might make reading enticing, but one can only hope. 

How can we literarians (a new word I've devised if you will) arm ourselves against this onslaught in the age of student plagiarism? First of all, teachers need the best tools available to tell if students plagiarize. Schools must get tougher on the consequences for plagiarizing and enforce them. Teachers should also know why students plagiarize and teach out of it, literally rebuking the bad habit in the name of Jesus. Some students don't understand the difference between plagiarism, summarizing and paraphrasing. Others haven't been taught how to cite properly. These skills must be taught step by step. Evaluate what skills your students need and teach and model explicitly. Lastly, teachers should just understand that students will use these tools, but teach students that it is ok to use them after they have read to ensure they understood fully. In that context, it could do more help than harm, since it's going to happen anyway. 

Yes, in the same way videos killed radio in the 80s, internet is killing literature in the 21st century. Teachers, stay informed. Teach students time management and definitely discourage these students from cheating themselves out of a literary education.  

1. "To Catch a Thief: Plagiarism Resources for CBU Faculty." Plough Library: Christian Brothers University.  http://www.cbu.edu/library/faculty/plagiarism/. 3 Sept 2011.