ACW Connections

The Gatsby Project: A Brief Overview

The Conception
The Gatsby Project originated in October, 1993, when, at the suggestion of Hugh Burns, Tomball College English Professor Lawrence J. Clark met with Dr. Sylvia Rendon, Tomball Independent School District Instructional Specialist, and Ms. Dianna Martinez, 7th grade English teacher at Tomball Junior High School. The purpose of the meeting was to brainstorm on ways that Tomball College and Tomball Independent School District students could interact with each other with the use of new communications technologies such as e-mail and the Internet.

The Birth
After several meetings, it was decided that Ms. Martinez and Mr. Clark would each have a group of students read The Great Gatsby, and then proceed to discuss the novel via the Tomball College Wildcat Bulletin Board system (BBS), during the Spring 1994 semester.

The Goals
The goals of the project were modest at first:

1. to initiate a relationship that would benefit the students and educational objectives of both Tomball College and Tomball ISD
2. to give the TJH students an introduction to what college level work entails by allowing them to take part in discussions with college students
3. to broaden the perspectives of both groups of students by allowing them to experience a variety of writing styles and points of view
4. to provide an arena in which all students, regardless of their age, race, religion, gender, socio-economic class, physical abilities/disabilities, etc. would have an oportunity to find their own voice and express it in a relevant setting.

The Results
All of these goals were met, and due to publicity about the project, via word of mouth, TISD and NHMCCD newsletter articles, and newspaper articles in the Tomball Potpourri, the Tomball Sun, and the Houston Chronicle, other area teachers began to express an interest in participating.

Just one semester later (Fall 1994) The Gatsby Project grew to include students from not only Tomball College and Tomball Jr. High, but also another local public school, Klein High School. Altogether, 150-175 students ranging from 7th graders to College sophomores participated. The novel discussed was The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway.

The Future
Plans are being made to move the discussion from the Tomball BBS to the Internet by the 1995-96 school year, thus opening the way to participation by students from other cities, states, or even countries, and to provide students with links to databases of information otherwise unavailable.

Gatsby Project
Literature Discussion Conference, Spring 1995

English faculty from Tomball College and local junior and senior high schools will each have their students read the Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations. The novel will then be discussed via the Tomball College Wildcat Bulletin Board System (BBS) during the Spring 1995 semester, as has been done in Spring 1994 with Tomball Jr. High and Fall 1994 with Tomball Jr. High and Klein High School. Students will use pseudonyms during the discussion, so the other participants will not know if a comment has been made by a junior high, high school, or college student, or by one of their teachers/professors! This form of discussion has proved extremely successful in promoting the free exchange of ideas and improved analytical and critical thinking skills among the participants, and eliminates many traditional barriers to open discussion such as differences in race, gender, religion, age, socio-economic class, etc. Many students use the ideas generated in these discussions as a springboard into their own research papers, and quote each other as well as real literary critics in those papers.

In addition to the BBS discussion, students will have available an on-line, hypertextually-linked software program entitled The Dickens Web, written by George Landow of Brown University. This critically acclaimed software, written in StorySpace for Windows, allows students to browse through numerous critical articles and essays depicting the life and times of Charles Dickens, influences on his writing (such as political, religious, and scientific thought of his day, information on the industrial revolution s effects on British society), etc.

Students at Tomball Jr. High and Tomball College will also be collaborating on a multi-media document written in ToolBook which will allow future students to browse through information related to Great Expectations.

The college students will contribute researched essays on the novel, while the junior high students will contribute reports and graphics related to various aspects of 19th century British life.

Scheduled Conference Presentations

"The Gatsby Project: Promoting the Humanities through Electronic Literary Discussions"
6th Annual Conference on College Teaching and Learning Jacksonville, FL
April 5-8

Computers and Writing Conference
El Paso, TX
May 17-20
(proposal has been submitted)

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Lawrence J. Clark
Associate Professor, English
Director, The Gatsby Project
Tomball College
Tomball, TX 77375
(713) 357-3766
ljc@tc.nhmccd.cc.tx.us
http://www.nhmccd.cc.tx.us/people/merlin/ljc/>a/>