CMLIT 108: World Mythology
World Myth and the World Wide Web
CMLIT 108 (World Mythology) was a course I taught twice through Penn State's Continuing Education (now World Campus) office. This was my first experience with many non-traditional learners. I had frequently had one or two adult learners, or a student with children in my other courses, but this class was an interesting mix of ages, backgrounds, and goals. Because of the amount of non-traditional learners in this class, I relied more heavily than ever before on the Internet. As with CMLIT/ENGL 184, Penn State had not yet adopted a Course Management System (like ANGEL or Blackboard), so my use of online tools was up to me. I built a variety of web pages, posted my PowerPoint lectures so that students could print them off ahead of time, and used many electronic readings (either web-based or through Penn State's Electronic Reserve service).
The image above is a screen shot of the splash page used in the course.
The image below is a screen shot of the course's main home page, with its links to various units, PowerPoint lectures for download, and other links of interest..
Online Readings. Convenient and Cost-Effective
As mentioned above, my students in this class were from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds, from a dozen towns scattered around the county, and all with different challenges to their success in the course (kids, full time work, fraternity obligations, etc.). To help all of these students to conserve time and to stretch their dollar, I used many online readings. There were only four cheap paperbacks to buy for the course. I supplemented these texts with links to readings hosted at a variety of institutions, and *.pdf files through Penn State's Pattee Library.
The screen shot above shows part of the reading schedule for CMLIT 108. I posted this to the course website. You can see that some of the readings have links to websites, others to Penn State's Electronic Reserve, and some direct students to their textbooks. This online reading schedule provided students with easy access to their assignments, and it kept my use of photocopiers and paper to a minimum.
Media's Role
To help the various students in this class achieve their goals and the course goals, I relied on weekly lectures, which I delivered using PowerPoint presentations, I posted unit objectives on the course website, assigned several essays, and I showed films and played music in class to help draw out the course's themes and those themes' longevity and cross-cultural reach. For example, we watched Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey to discuss the Journey archetype as we'd been reading about it; we listened to David Bowie songs ("Space Oddity" and Ziggy Stardust") to tease out representations of the Hero; and we watched Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal in conjunction with our discussions on the Underworld. We also examined images of art from the cultures that produced our assigned myths.
Screen shot showing the posted unit-objectives for our study of Norse myth.
This screen shot shows the unit-objectives for our Ancient Near Eastern unit. Posting unit objectives was a useful tool for students. Not only did it give them a sense of accomplishment for all they had done during the unit, but they also helped guide students in their studying and reading.
