Smart Classroom Exercise: The Shallows References

 

I. Working with a partner for ten minutes, analyze the Wikipedia article that you've been assigned. All the articles relate to the chapter of The Shallows that your TA has chosen for the writing assignment. Pay attention to:

1) Are there any editorial notes at the top about possibly disputed content or problematic features in its tone or use of evidence? Reading the article, why do you think doubts about its appropriateness were raised?

2) How much does the article link to other Wikipedia articles and how much does it link to other kinds of Internet sources?

3)   Does it include references to print sources?  Does this make the article seem more or less trustworthy?  (These sources may be vetted by paid editors, but you can't access them as easily.)

4)   Would you consider linking the Wikipedia-style article that you are going to be writing to this one?  Why or why not?

II.             Everyone will then report back to the group.  Even if it isn't your turn, you will want to listen and look actively as you review the range of articles presented.  During this class discussion you should ask questions and make comments, so that everyone can succeed with this assignment, which is very different from the academic essays that you might have written in high school.

III. Now, with The Shallows in hand, you will work individually searching and browsing within Wikipedia to try to find at least one other relevant article that could be added to the existing list of articles.  You'll be discussing your suggestion with the group.

IV. If time remains your discussion leader will foster brainstorming about how the assignment could be logically organized.  Although Wikipedia articles often seem to use a similar template, there is actually a lot of variety in how articles are structured.

2.  The Vital Paths

Nietzsche’s typewriter (17-19)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hansen_Writing_Ball

Freud’s study of neural cells (19-20)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Friedrich_Wilhelm_Claus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Wilhelm_von_Br%C3%BCcke

James’ interest in the brain’s adaptability and his reading of Dumont (21)

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9on_Dumont

Early Cartesian models of the mind (22-23)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descartes

Merzenich (24-26)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Merzenich

Pascual-Leone  (31-33)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvaro_Pascual-Leone

3. Tools for the Mind

Cartography (39-40)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartography

Measuring Time (41-44)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time#History_of_time_measurement_devices

Darning (44)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darning

Geiger Counter (44)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geiger_counter

Birth Control Pill (44)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_control_pill#History

Plato’s Phaedrus (54-55)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaedrus_%28dialogue%29

Ong’s Orality and Literacy (57)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Ong#Orality_and_Literacy_.281982.29

4. The Deepening Page

Sumerian writing (58-59)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumerian_cuneiform

Papyrus (59-60)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus

St. Augustine’s Confessions (60-61)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_%28St._Augustine%29

Scriptio continua (61)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scriptura_continua

Gutenberg (68-69)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Gutenberg

James Carroll (67)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Carroll_%28novelist%29

octavo (70)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octavo

7. The Juggler’s Brain

Torkel Klingberg on working memory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_memory (118)

Unconscious thought theory of Dijksterhuis (119)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconscious_Thought_Theory

Eliot’s Four Quartets (119)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Quartets

Johnson’s Everything Bad is Good for You (122-123)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_Bad_Is_Good_for_You

George Landow (126)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Landow_(professor)

multitasking (133)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_multitasking

Screen reading research - including “F pattern” (134-136)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_reading

Distraction (throughout)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distraction

8. The Church of Google

Taylorism (149-150)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylorism

Marissa Mayer (150-151)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marissa_Mayer

A/B Testing (151)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A/B_testing

Postman’s Technopoly (151-152)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technopoly

Google Books (161-165)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Books

Memex

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memex

Turing’s “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” (174)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computing_Machinery_and_Intelligence

9. Search, Memory

commonplace books (179)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonplace_book

Clive Thompson (180)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Thompson_(journalist)

David Brooks (180)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Brooks_(journalist)

Don Tapscott (181)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Tapscott

Mnemosyne (181)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemosyne

Aplysia genus of sea slugs (184-185)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aplysia

hippocampus (188-189)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocampus

David Foster Wallace (195)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Foster_Wallace

10. A Thing Like Me

ELIZA (201-204)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA

computational linguistics (202)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_linguistics

Shaw’s Pygmalion (202-203)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_(play)

Noam Chomsky (202)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky

John Culkin (210)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_M._Culkin

McLuhan’s Understanding Media (210-211)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Understanding_Media

Martin Heidegger (222)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_heidegger