Kayla's Final Essay #2: Revising the English Curriculum Based on Principles of Crowdsourcing

We may not stop often enough to consider the structure of literary study for undergraduates, assuming that any updating of the curriculum based on digital culture should be saved for higher-level study after students build a solid background in traditional studies, but this doesn’t need to be the case. One digital movement in particular—crowdsourcing—allows for the rethinking of literary studies in constructive ways. Crowdsourcing manifests itself in a range of places in the digital world, from starting virtual choirs to solving complex coding problems. Obstacles that seemed insurmountable before become manageable with the wisdom of the crowd.

Literary studies are often characterized in an isolated way, so crowdsourcing seems as though it may be the wrong solution for the lone scholar. These same students could benefit from applying the concepts of crowdsourcing to the English curriculum, however.

As it stands, students take mostly survey-type classes, being allowed to specialize somewhat in upper-level classes by choosing a narrower time period to study, but mainly staying in areas that give only a broad overview without getting into too many deep topics or specifics. While getting a broad literary education is also important, a portion of the major could benefit from allowing for what I will call “cluster classes,” which are similar to having an emphasis in some ways.

These cluster classes could be based around a certain topic but all cover different aspects of that topic. The classes, instead of being the usual isolated studies, would work together to create more of a “crowd” to tap the resources of. The media tools they choose to take advantage of (blogs, social media, etc.) are less important than their decision to collaborate. By working together in this way, students could still get the benefits of smaller class sizes with specialized attention given to certain topics, but their work would be much more beneficial to others and the program as a whole because it would contribute to the creation of more wide-reaching research.

This type of structure is already in existence and can especially be seen in the phenomenon of citizen journalism. Professional reporters can’t be everywhere, especially for unexpected breaking news, but citizens are already spread all over the world and can submit photos, videos, and even articles. Often, professionals and amateurs work together to create better content than either could have produced alone, and it all began with an open call for information about a certain event or topic.

Departments that deal with literary studies would be wise to follow such a model, allowing the professionals to coordinate the crowd, but still allowing the crowd to contribute in meaningful and novel ways. Undergraduates, like common citizens, may not have the training and expertise of professionals, but their zeal and numbers cannot be ignored.