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Everyone's a Kool-Aid Man Today: Pedagogical Implications of Teaching First-Year Composition in Second Life APPROVED: Graduate Committee: Dr. Allison D. Smith, Co-Director Dr. Trixie G. Smith, Co-Director \J/(fVH Dr. Tom Strawman, Chair of the Department of English Dr. Michael D. Allen, Dean of the College of Graduate Studies UMI Number: 3361583 INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI® UMI Microform 3361583 Copyright 2009 by ProQuest LLC All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Everyone's a Kool-Aid Man Today: Pedagogical Implications of Teaching First- Year Composition in Second Life By Dianna Baldwin A dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of Middle Tennessee State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English May 2009 Dedication To the one that I love and the one who put up with me for six years while I struggled to find my way. This is for you, Charlene. iii Acknowledgments Any project of this magnitude requires so much more than one person can provide. When I began this journey, for that is what it has been, six years ago, I never really imagined it coming to an end. None of this would have been possible, however, had it not been for the support of my friends, family, and mentors who have seen me through every step of the way. I would especially like to thank my two first-year composition classes who willingly participated in this study. They were honest and forthright about their opinions, and they never failed to amaze me in their ability to adapt and learn in the totally new learning environment of Second life. Without these students, this project would have been impossible. The same is true for my committee members—Trixie Smith, Allison Smith, and Jimmie Cain—to whom I owe a huge debt of gratitude. Without their guidance and support, I would have failed miserably. In particular, I would like to thank Trixie Smith for always being there and seeing me through the most difficult times. It is a true friend who will let you vent your frustrations, then give you a good ole fashion talkin' to, and finally encourage and motivate you to carry on in the face of adversity. I owe my friends and family more than I can express in words alone. They have cheered me on and supported me in every possible way. My friends have jokingly called me Dr. Di, to which I have replied, "NOT YET, YOU ARE JINXING ME!" Most likely, however, those words were the very impetus I needed to continue during the times when I really wondered if it were all worth it. iv Finally, I owe everything first to God and then to my partner and best friend in life, Charlene. I have not traveled this journey alone, but with her and God always at my side. Thank you, Charlene, for always being there; you have helped make my dreams come true, and for that, I am eternally grateful. v Abstract Everyone's a Kool-Aid Man Today: Pedagogical Implications of Teaching First- Year Composition In Second Life Second Life (SL), a massively multi-user virtual environment (MMUVE), is called the metaverse, a parallel universe, and a world not unlike our own. This makes SL an ideal environment for first-year composition students to pursue a second life. This is a world that can offer students "analogies and metaphors for real-world issues [and] can provide a way for students to discuss issues in a safe environment, where there are no real-world consequences" (Williams, Hendricks, and Winkler 11). In SL, students can experience issues that we often ask them to write about, such as identity or otherness, but of which they have little knowledge. This research investigates the world of SL and its uses in the real life (RL) first- year composition classroom. It seeks to answer the questions: • Will using a virtual world like SL change student writing? • Will my students come to understand SL as a culture uniquely different from their own? • Will they embrace this new medium? • Will they form an online identity? • How will they react to such learning? In general, I investigated whether or not their experiences in SL would in any way change their writing. I found that SL can be an exciting and volatile experience for educators who choose to use it. Students became engaged with their writing and began to make connections between their own lives and the topics we pursued. The overall theme for the vi class was otherness, which also included issues of identity in both RL and SL. The connections were made because of the students' abilities to investigate life in SL in a way that was not possible in RL, such as becoming an oversized Kool-Aid man and then having to socialize with complete strangers as this other. Many commented that SL gave them interesting ideas about which to write. The students' responses, both positive and negative, to SL were evident in their writings, which consisted of blogs, journals, quick writes, and essays. SL gives instructors a tool for teaching that up until now has been missing: experience. vii Table of Contents Dedication iii Acknowledgements iv Abstract vi Table of Contents viii List of Figures x Chapter 1: What is a Second Life? I Barely Have Time for My First!: How It All Began and What It Is 1 Chapter 2: From the Beginning to Infinity and Beyond: Computers in the Composition Classroom 31 Chapter 3: Orientation Island—How Do We Begin? 79 Chapter 4: Living a Second Life: It's Not That Easy 101 Chapter 5: Benefits of a Second Life: It's All about the Experiences 162 Works Cited 180 Appendix A: SL Pricing List 203 Appendix B: Glossary 204 Appendix C: SL Terms of Service 210 Appendix D: Student Consent 223 Appendix E: Questionnaire Consent 225 Appendix F: In-World Consent 227 Appendix G Questionnaire 229 Appendix H: Interview Questions 231 Appendix I: Syllabus and Schedule 232 viii Appendix J: Chat Log 241 Appendix K: Fieldworking Assignment 246 Appendix L: Essay 1—Primary Trait Rubric 248 Appendix M: Student Essay 1 249 Appendix N: Student Essay 2 256 Appendix O: Student Essay 3 262 Appendix P: Student Essay 4 268 Appendix Q: Kool-Aid Man Assignment. 274 Appendix R: IRB Approval 276 IX Figures Figure 1. Snapshot taken of a virtual map in SL 09 Figure 2. Screen capture of Market Summary 10 Figure 3. Suggested jobs in SL 14 Figure 4. Snapshot of search for the term skin 15 Figure 5. Snapshot of billboard in SL advertising Global Kids 19 Figure 6. Snapshot of a search on the term university 23 Figure 7. History of Networking 44 Figure 8. The Web 2.0 Meme Map 55 Figure 9. Research of Assessment Software 57 Figure 10. A Web 3.0 Web Search. 67 Figure 11. Resulting Web Page from Search in Figure 10 68 Figure 12. Quotations on what Web 3.0 might be in the future 68 Figure 13. Snapshot of the communications menu in SL 97 Figure 14. Demographics of ages in the two classes Ill Figure 15. Geographical Demographics of students in both classes 112 Figure 16. Demographics of male to female ratio for the two classes 112 Figure 17. Quotations concerning identity in virtual spaces 134 Figure 18. Screen capture from the video "SL Startup Procedures" 139 Figure 19. Snapshot of student in Koolaid Man skin 148 Figure 20. Survey of writing confidence before taking the class 153 Figure 21. Survey of writing confidence after taking the class 154 Figure 22. Yes/No portion of the end of semester questionnarie 155 x 1 Chapter 1 What is a Second Life? I Barely Have Time for My First!: How It All Began and What It Is It all began one Friday in January, 2007, that started like any other day.... / dragged myself out of bed, took a quick shower, and was out the door by 6:20 a.m., guzzling diet Mt. Dew as I drove the hour to campus in hopes that the caffeine would jolt me into some semblance of wakefulness. It was going to be a good day, though, because Bronwyn T. Williams was doing a workshop for the Virginia Peck Composition Speaker Series at Middle Tennessee State University entitled "Literacy in Popular Culture;" it was a workshop that I had looked forward to for months. The workshop was everything I possibly could have hoped for, but little did I know that something mentioned in passing toward the end of the day would change my entire outlook on teaching first-year composition (FYC). As fate would have it, Williams had difficulty logging onto the campus network, so instead of being able to show us some virtual spaces that he found interesting when considering literacy in popular culture, he had to settle for telling the attendees a little about these places. One of these virtual spaces was a place called Second Life (SL).