Abstract
This chapter explores a social e-reading tool called Perusall in a literature and creative writing course at an EMI institution in China. Perusall is a web-based software that allows teachers to upload documents and create assignments for students to read and annotate asynchronously in a community of practice. Students log on to the site and not only read the text but also pose questions and make comments for their classmates to view. This case study explores the qualitative differences in reading in a collective environment and how it influences engagement. It also details how the tool can monitor student engagement through learning analytics. The metrics allow teachers to know who is reading and how much and gain insight into the most salient features of the text based on student questions and comments. In a literature and creative writing course in a Sino-American program reading Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club (1989), the tool allowed for the annotation of aspects of literary elements in the story and think critically about other parts of the novel. The annotations prompted robust discussions about how the author used the literary elements and how students could employ these devices in their own creative works. Additionally, the questions and comments made about the themes presented in the story spurred dialogue both in class and in the tool.
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Kaufmann, T. (2023). ‘On the Same Page’ with Perusall – Using a Social e-Reader to Engage Chinese Undergraduates with Literature in English. In: Corbett, J., Yan, E.M., Yeoh, J., Lee, J. (eds) Multilingual Education Yearbook 2023. Multilingual Education Yearbook. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32811-4_12
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