A most unique teaching tool for annotation and close reading. "Rap Genius" was originally founded as a means of crowdsourcing rap lyrics. Just as Wikipedia is a crowdsourced and crowdwritten site, Rap Genius hedged its bets on using the general internet population to pin down obscure references, to explain inside jokes, and to decipher slang terms of popular rap music. Now the website has not only branched out into French rap, but also features French literature (and other texts!) The premise of the site is that given any single text (e.g. musical lyrics, Paradise Lost, a Baudelaire poem) anyone can add an explanation over a certain word, term, or phrase by including a hyperlink. example annotated French poem Descartes text annotated (English) Even more impressively, the site allows one to develop a PERSONAL "Genius" site for one's own classroom, in which students can practice adding annotations, the professor can "approve" or "deny" the annotations, and students can even collaborate to find intertextual links and more. The possibilities are endless! Education Genius
Is this multi-dimensional textual presentation a way of ceding to students' short attention spans? Or is it ultimately 'genius' to employ common, contemporary methods of communicating information (hyperlinks, crowdsourcing) to teach old tricks? In any case, the website looks promising, and it will be exciting to hear from anyone who has tested it out in their own classroom!
Jennifer Row