Genius

My students and I are annotating medieval poetry on Lit Genius (an outgrowth of Rap Genius). In my undergraduate electives, ENGL3393: Chaucer and ENGL4424: Middle English Alliterative Poetry, each student contributes ten annotations to the texts of poems we’ve discussed in class. Annotations can include text, image, video, and links and have an informal tone. This is a low-stakes form of publication, as annotations are publicly viewable on Lit Genius. Students may choose to use their real names or a pseudonym on Genius.com. I review and respond to annotations as they are created. Since 2014, Boston College undergraduates have contributed hundreds of annotations to the Genius texts of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and the anonymous alliterative romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

poems annotated

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