How Twitter Saved My Literature Class: A Case Study with Discussion

Like many faculty teaching in the social sciences or humanities, I've often been frustrated when students show no evidence of having completed assigned readings for my discussion-centric literature classes. I recently taught a short story class that emphasized my high expectations for student participation, and the means by which students would collaboratively and nightly analyze assigned texts: Twitter. My students soon embraced Twitter as a collaboration tool, and increasingly came to class with improved attitudes toward, and readiness for, class discussions. The nightly peer-review process made possible by Twitter helped students improve their spoken and written arguments, and deepen their understanding of challenging texts. This chapter tells the story of the discoveries I made about teaching student-centered classes, and about using Twitter as a sandbox where students would share their ideas before coming to the well-attended lectures and class discussions. The chapter concludes with ten recommended strategies for teaching with Twitter.