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What computers are good for in the literature classroom

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Abstract

This summary essay comments on the contents of and issues raised by the special number of Computers and Humanities on Computers and the Teaching of Literature. It argues against the use of hypertextual resources without careful pedagogical understanding of the dangers they present of encouraging students to become passive consumers rather than active thinkers. It argues for the use of computer-mediated conversation, computer-modeling, and computer analyses of texts as appropriate applications in the literature classroom.

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Rosanne G. Potter is a Professor of English at Iowa State University; her research interests are in computational analyses of play dialogue and reader responses to literary texts. She has published essays in Computers and the Humanities since 1981 and an edited collection, Literary Computing and Literary Criticism (Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1989).

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Potter, R.G. What computers are good for in the literature classroom. Comput Hum 30, 181–190 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00419795

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