January 17 2023

I have done a poor job collating my readings over the last few months on this topic on this site!

This evening I have created a new page on the site: syllabus. This will contain my WIP syllabus around browser-based poetry, which will grow over time and hopefully be versioned publicly (i.e. outside of the Git system I have set up for this site on the Avantwhatever server).

I've got a partial outline of topics I'd like to cover, but in this post I'm going to do some thinking about the audiences I hope benefit from this syllabus and what I imagine they would get out of it.

As I articulated in my first post, I have taught digital literature workshops in the past but primarily those focused on 'no-code' tools, with the exception of one workshop on 'hand-coded poems'. I want to make a resource that can help poets learn to code, but explicitly to the end of creating browser-based poetry, rather than necessarily having all the dev skills to build a commercial website or get a tech job. There's plenty of free materials available for those who want to do the latter.

So the audience foremost in my mind is poets, or those interested in writing poetry. I think other writers could apply aspects of the course, but I'd like to focus on poetry for readings and suggested exercises for several reasons:

• They are generally smaller units of text than other forms (e.g. essays or short stories), meaning it can be easier to read and write them in smaller units of time.
• I think there are interesting connections to be found between critical code studies and poetics or the craft of poetry.

My assumption is that these poets have no prior experience or knowledge of computer code. One challenge to think about with the syllabus is providing multiple entry points in based on varying levels of expertise. Perhaps there is a 'week 0' set of materials providing a super high level look at computers and the web?

Implied above, I guess, is an additional audience: coders, who people with programming experience, who are interested in learning more about poetry and making browser-based poetry. I hope that the materials I can collate on poetics are stimulating for creative minds in their own right.

In drawing my learning design expertise into the development of the syllabus, I want to emphasise active learning: that it gives learners frequent meaningful opportunities to put the concepts they're being introduced to into practice. That goes for both the coding aspects of the syllabus and the poetry writing aspects!

So, learning outcomes... I'll flesh these out as we go, but for now I would like to say that by going through the syllabus materials and completing the suggested exercises, learners will feel confident in being able to:

• Create a simple website using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
• Experiment with various interacting properties of HTML, CSS and JavaScript with a poetic intention
• Talk about significant movements or schools within print poetry and digital poetry, and apply their ideas to browser-based poetry