A few months ago, CMS graduate student Steve Schultze wrote a blog post describing the Drawball. He writes:

Drawball is...an intriguing view into the web. When you arrive at the site, you see a large circle with what looks like hundreds of small and large sketches. It's really just a huge virtual graffiti wall. Anyone can draw on it (but you have to know how to solve the puzzle, and you only get a little bit of ink). Apparently, thousands of people have been drawing on this ball for about two years. People are constantly covering up others' work, or adding to drawings that already exist. It's impossible to ever say what's on drawball because it's always changing! Different groups have united to collectively draw pictures that express their national pride, show their artistry, or advocate for political causes. Drawball even has a "hall of fame" that shows some truly amazing drawings and animates their progress.

As we continue to work on our Teachers' Strategy Guide for Reading in a Participatory Culture, I've started to see Drawball as a fascinating analogy for the kind of participation we hope kids will engage in as they work with a literary text. Traditionally, students tend to feel that all of the knowledge about a book like Moby-Dick is already established and complete--that there are scholars who have the book figured out, and that students' job is only to learn what others have decided is important to know.

What if we change that dynamic? What if we show students that the knowledge base that has been built around a text is only the beginning--that a culture is continually building on its understanding of and connections to a text? A lot of this knowledge-building happens through remixing and adaptation of the text, through allusion to key ideas in various types of media. Every new product, every new idea that takes up the threads of Moby-Dick (which, as others have pointed out, itself took up threads of narratives that came before it) builds on that knowledge base, even if it's just a tiny bit.

And what if we show students that they're allowed to join in on this knowledge-building? What if they are given permission to create something that remixes a piece of Moby-Dick? What if we ask them to talk about the book's meaning to them, in their context, thereby adding to our cultural takeup of the book's ideas?

It's such an empowering idea, this participatory model of reading. Such a thrilling way to engage with a literary text.