Electronic literature relies on navigation, structure, images, sound, video, game elements, and more to convey meaning. This non-linear, intertwingled narrative structure poses pedagogical and textual analysis challenges. While fine examples of electronic literature abound, often the most facile and efficacious approach is to encourage students to write works themselves.
Moreover, as electronic literature embraces multi-vocality, a collaborative engagement is possible.This Electronic Literature Lab 2 archive curates one of the most important documents ever found back on Earth from the 2150 Mars colony expedition—and just might provide a clue or two about how humanity had to flee Earth. The whole debacle seems to have started more or less innocently, when Deena Larsen brought a bunch of red balloons named WinSton U. Victory into her Digital Storytelling class at Washington State University in Vancouver, home of the Electronic Literature Lab 1. But then of course, WinSton and their compatriots had other ideas. WinSton’s antics involve their evil twin, a date and marriage proposal, being charged and investigated for a whole host of crimes, and of course, the inevitable action movie script. Thus this story, originating as a class exercise in hypertext, careens through an account of the Heliumangi, an alien race that has destroyed their own planet and now is looking to rebuild what they need on Earth—and cause global warming to spike over the limits that weak and frail humans can tolerate.