ASSIGNMENT: LIVE TWEETING LAST OF THE MOHICANS

Last week, our DH Lab involved everyone getting a Twitter account, learning about hashtags and then live-tweeting a clip from Last of the Mohicans. In some ways, the digital components of this term’s class are a little less ambitious than last term’s, as I am trying to respond to students’ criticism in the Women Writers class in Fall that we did a lot of digital work but it wasn’t tightly linked to the course content for a given week. (We always worked with women’s texts, for example, but they might be different from the ones we were reading on the syllabus. The annotation project, for example, involved obscure women writers that aren’t anthologized or even published outside the Brown Women Writer’s Project.)

So, since we were reading James Fenimore Cooper, the Twitter exercise allowed for a direct engagement “lite” with the text, via Miami Vice director Michael Mann’s version of the story. And it didn’t hurt that Daniel Day Lewis starred twenty years ago playing Natty Bumppo. We’ve talked a lot about his Lincoln this term.

Here’s the Storify of the Tweets from the live tweeting activity and the student instructions for the DH lab. There were more than 120 tweets during the 25-minute film clip. Since this is an entirely new class for me, I can’t take the time to create a really meaningful Storify with organized commentary, but for now they are curated. In yesterday’s DH lab I showed students the Storify; no one in the room had heard of it and we had a brief discussion about the genres that are springing up via social media and I suggested that at the very end of the second American Lit survey we might want to consider this genre of writing.

Live Tweeting Last of the Mohicans

NOTE: DO NOT LIVE TWEET AT THE MOVIES! It is rude and distracting.

Learning Goals of this exercise:

• Use 21^st century social media to comment upon a late 20^th century Hollywood film adaptation of an early 20^th century film adaptation of a 19^th Century colonial American novel of an 18^th century war between the English, the French and the Mohican and Huron tribes of North America.
• Participate in the “culture of academic reputation” that emerges when a Tweet is interesting enough or engaging or useful enough that it gets “Retweeted” and thus develops a following.
• Establish a Twitter account if you don’t already have one.
• Learn how to create #hashtags for a community of peers interested in the same topic or idea
• Practice using the 140-character constraint to make meaningful comments that contribute to a dialogue about an event (such as our clip from Last of the Mohicans).

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Establish a Twitter account if you don’t have one. For more info on Twitter for beginners is here.
2. You can establish a new account just for this class if you wish, as I have done. My handle is @DocMcGrail.
3. Post your handle in the Digital Humanties Lab #4 so that everyone can find you and follow you in this class. If you don’t want your social tweets from the rest of your life to be followed, create an Eng253 or LCC handle for yourself. Twitter lets you have as many as you’d like.
4. Go to Twitter.com
5. Follow instructions for signing up, and sign in to Twitter
6. Once the film begins, create 140-character comments on the film using the hashtag #LCCeng253 at the end of your tweet.
7. Be sure to use #LCCeng253 so that all of today’s tweets will show up on the same page.

Some prompts for tweets:

1. Something from the film triggers a memory or a thought related to our other readings or discussions in class.
2. Something from the film runs counter to your understanding of history or culture of the time—either of 1826 when Cooper published the novel or 1757 when the novel is set.
3. Something startles or surprises you.
4. Something that impresses or engages you particularly about a scene, an actor or dialogue.
5. You come up with something witty to say about the film that you think might be interesting to your peers.

Retweet!!!

As you are reading other students’ tweets, when you find something interesting, “retweet” it! This will share your peer’s tweet with your followers, and build your peer’s reputation. At the end of class, we will be able to see whose tweets get the most RT’s.

Digital Humanities Lab #2 Using Google Maps to Create a Geographic Plot Summary and Analysis of Huckleberry Finn

OBJECTIVES OF THIS ASSIGNMENT:

• Learn how to use custom Google Maps as an alternative essay format that provides 3-D information about your subject matter.
• Learn how to annotate a Google Map
• Think about the “river of life” in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by plotting events in the novel onto a physical map of the Mississippi River and its surrounding area.
• Think about the plot of Huck Finn in terms of the geography of slave states and free states and how that geography functions as a meaningful narrative undercurrent throughout.

INSTRUCTIONS TO STUDENTS:

1. Begin by opening two tabs, one with Moodle and one with Google Maps here: https://maps.google.com/
2. Next click on “Get Directions” and type in “FROM Eugene Oregon” “TO Hannibal Missouri”
3. 1948 miles, 30 hours by car.
4. Next click on “My places”
5. Next click on “Maps”
6. Next click on the red square button that says “Create Map”
7. [Click on the “interactive tutorial” link so that you get a feel for how to create your own Huck Finn map.]
8. Title your map using your first name and “Huck Finn” and click on the “unlisted” option to keep your work private. Save your map.
9. To get credit for your DH Lab today, click “done” and then go to “My Maps” then click on the title of your map, click on the blue “collaborate” link and then cut and paste your URL into the DH Lab in Moodle.  Once you have created content in your map, this will show up when Doc McGrail grades the lab.
10. To begin adding content to your map, search for the REAL place of “Hannibal, Missouri” so that you can begin to plot your map in St. Petersburg, Missouri, the fictionalized place in Huck Finn. See below where I have typed in “Hannibal, MO”.

Now that you know where to begin, you’ll want to put your own “custom place” into your map. Find the blue balloon icon and click on it.

Blue balloon is the middle icon next to the “hand” above.

12. Use the zoom feature on the left to give you a broader view of the Mississippi and Huck and Jim’s journey. Use the “hand” icon to move the map around so you can follow the Mississippi all the way from St. Petersburg to the end of the novel.

13. One scholar of Twain has created a map that offers a tour through the novel and includes some historical material. Take a look at Byer’s Google Map analysis of the novel here to get a sense of the potential for this project: http://www.ibiblio.org/byers/maps/hf/

13. For today, your job is to create a map entry for one of the episodes in your reading so far. [Look below to see a list of episodes or choose one that sticks out in your mind so far.] To do this, locate where the episode takes place geographically and place a blue map icon there. There is a map below with some clues, and you can also use Byer’s Huck Finn’s Journey assignment to help you choose. Create a blue icon for your location and move it to the place on your own map where you think it should go.

14. To get credit for your DH Lab today, post the URL to your saved map and include a comment in your blue icon box . TO DO THIS: When you’re done, you can click “done” and then go to “My Maps” and you’ll be able to click on your map, click on “collaborate” and then cut and paste your URL into the DH Lab in Moodle

NOTE: If this project appeals to you, you can also develop it for your CLOSE READING NOTE for Monday.  For the reading note, choose 4 other episodes from the novel, and create an analytical note for each. Your analytical note should include some in-depth discussion of the following:

• A key quote
• A key conflict of this episode
• A key lesson that Huck learns through this episode
• How this episode contributes to the “imagined community” of the developing American nation, either in its moral questions, its customs and manners, its dialect, the myths it adheres to, ideas of race, class, gender, education….
• A key question that the episode suggests

 Suggested episodic table of contents. 

• This list is taken from Seth Hudson’s English Class Blog Choose one of these episodes to map in your Google Map
• Episode One: Chapters 1-4
  Characters introduced, We see Huck’s conflict with society.
• Episode Two: Chapters 5-7
  Huck is Kidnapped by and escapes from Pap.
• Episode Three: Chapters 8-11
  Huck meets Jim; they salvage the house w/ the dead man. Huck dresses like a girl to get info.
• Episode Four: Chapters 12-15
  Huck and Jim interact with the robbers on the Walter Scott
• Episode Five: Chapters 16-18
  Huck and Jim make it to Cairo. The Grangerfords vs. the Shepardsons. Back on the Mississippi
• Episode Six: Chapters19-20
  The Duke and the King are introduced. Indian Pirate con.
• Episode Seven: 21-23
  The Royale Nonesuch
• Episode Eight: 24-30
  The death of Peter Wilks
• Episode Nine: 31-33
  Jim is sold by the King. The King and the Duke strike out on their own. Huck becomes Tom Sawyer
• Episode Ten: 34-43
  Huck and Tom “free” Jim.

BELOW IS ONE SCHOLAR’S MAP OF THE JOURNEY
From David Wells, “More on the Geography of Huck Finn” South Atlantic Bulletin 38.4 Nov. 1973

ASSIGNMENT: DIGGING IN THE ARCHIVES: THE GOSPEL OF SLAVERY

INSTRUCTIONS FOR STUDENTS (IN COMPUTER LAB 50 MINUTES)

“DIGGING IN THE DIGITAL ARCHIVES: ABEL THOMAS GOSPEL OF SLAVERY”
To submit your entry, just click on “Add submission” and cut and paste your URL for your blog post into that submission box, add comments if you wish, and then submit.

For today’s Digital Humanities Lab assignment, you will be working directly with the pages of the 1864 children’s book, The Gospel of Slavery. 

You should begin by reading the entire book quickly through. Then each of you will take one page to work with, answering these questions (we’ll select by going around the room so no one has the same letter).

Work through the questions in MS Word, and then cut and paste your answers into your BLOG page in Blogger. (This is the blog page/URL that you posted in our first lab.) Post your URL in Moodle so that everyone in the class can find your work and also so you can get a grade.

QUESTIONS TO ANSWER:

1. What letter/page are you working with?
2. VISUALS:
   Describe the picture at the top of the page in detail: describe the action and the actors. Who is at the center or figures most prominently? What purpose does this serve?
3. LEARNING LETTERS:
   This is a primer, i.e., an elementary textbook for teaching children to read.  Beginning with the letter itself and what is “stands for” in this book, summarize the major “lesson” being taught on your page.  How does the rhyming scheme support the message?
4. DUAL MESSAGE AND AUDIENCE:
   Notice that there are two parts to “read” on each page beyond the picture itself: a rhyming section and a commentary beneath it.  Do these sections have different audiences do you think? Who are they?
5. WHAT IS THE STORY OF THIS LETTER/PAGE?
   Think about all three sections of your page now. What is the abolitionist story that is being told here?  Is there more than one?
6. EQUIANO, ABOLITION AND THE GOSPEL OF SLAVERY
   How does this text fit within our study so far of Equiano’s narrative and of the history of slavery in the U.S.?  What does it suggest to you about abolitionists during the Civil War? What is unsettling to you about the genre of primer as an abolitionist work?
7. WHAT LIES BEYOND THIS ONE BOOK?
   What kinds of questions would you like answered about this book? What perplexes or puzzles you?  How might you find answers to your questions? Who is “Iron Gray” and why is he on the title page? Speculate on Thomas’s use of this name.
8. DON’T FORGET TO CITE YOUR SOURCE PROPERLY
   Before you complete your blog post, be sure to include the primary source information. In your blog, you can begin by creating a link directly to the page. But you should also include the complete citation information at the bottom of the page. Title of the Book, Author of the Book, Title of the Collection, Where the Collection is Housed (click on “Home” for most archives), [you don’t need to include  the URL for MLA citation style, but you might want to keep it handy for your own future use], then include Web and date accessed.

HT to Rebecca Onion in Slate for sharing her discovery of this text.

ASSIGNMENT: Crowdsourced American Lit I Class Annotation of Margaret Fuller’s “The Great Lawsuit”

[This assignment was inspired by two web projects: the New York Public Library’s crowdsourced transcription project “What’s on the Menu” and Brown Women Writer’s Project’s Collaborative Annotation Project.]

CONTEXT FOR THE ASSIGNMENT

Margaret Fuller’s text, “The Great Lawsuit” is rich with references to cultural, historical and political figures and literary texts and characters. For the reader new to studying literature, this can make the text seem “boring” because impenetrable. At the same time, the average undergraduate student who isn’t passionate about literature may not find time to look up every reference in order to deepen his or her understanding of Fuller’s meanings. However, 28 average students might be willing to look up one, and together an entire class could combine their knowledge into a single “interpretively enhanced document” that includes both basic informational details about a given reference (such as those provided in a Norton Anthology footnote) and also an interpretive nudge that might help the classroom of reader’s contextual reading. This crowdsourced annotation draws upon the collective intelligence and work of 28 American Literature Survey students to create a nuanced and rich textual experience of “The Great Lawsuit.”

 LEARNING OUTCOMES

• Develop close-reading skills by providing a brief interpretation of how the background information on Fuller’s literary reference informs a reading of Fuller’s rhetorical strategy and meaning
• Develop web-based research skills to find useful and substantive information about a cultural, literary or historical reference and apply those skills in an interpretive literary context.
• Develop skills in 21^st century digital literacy skills by participating in a crowdsourcing activity that reflects an emerging need in the wake of a flood of raw literary data.
• Develop student success skills in interdependence in a peer-reviewed learning environment
• Develop writing skills: ability to communicate information and interpretations succinctly for a college audience of students and the instructor

ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS STEP-BY-STEP

NOTE: Students post the google doc here as a footnote and not in Moodle.

STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS

1. First find your name below by scrolling beneath these instructions. Your name is assigned a number (somewhat randomly—based on last name alpha).
2. Scroll down to the “explanatory note” assignment that corresponds to the number next to your name. This is your assigned “Close Reading Note” assignment.
3. Log into Google Drive (using your gmail acct or your Blogger account.)
4. Search the Google doc to find WHERE in Margaret Fuller’s text your assignment shows up. (for example, type in “Hercules” to see where Fuller mentions “Hercules.” If you re-read that section, you’ll know the direction of your mini-research.
5. 5.      Use the web to find enough information about your assigned text to offer an explanatory note. Avoid .com sites. “.edu and .org” sites are often the most reliable. Wikipedia is a good starting place but may not be enough.
6. Draft your note in Word and save your document so that you won’t lose it in translation!
7. What is an explanatory note? An explanatory note gives not only information about the reference in Fuller’s text but also a brief interpretive explanation about the meaning created in Fuller’s text by including this reference.  You don’t need to stay within the usual 300-500-word CRN word count. The important thing to consider is: will this help my fellow student understand Fuller’s essay?
8. Go to the shared Google doc.
9. In the shared Google Doc, search and find the reference so you know where to insert your explanatory note. (Remember that for #1-4 you have one of the “background notes” and you should insert at the top of the document.)
10. To insert a footnote, place your cursor where you want the note to go, click on “Insert” and scroll down to “Footnote.” Then cut and paste your note from Word into the note.
11. When you are finished with your note, place your cursor back on the word that you annotated. Google Drive saves automatically.
12. You now have participated in a crowdsourced annotation project.

GRADING CRITERIA:

This Close Reading Note follows the same grading criteria as all CRNs listed on the Moodle page.

FIND YOUR NAME BELOW

1. Annie
2. Connor
3. Laura
4. Nicole
5. Zachary
6. Morgan
7. Torin
8. Jake
9. Wilson
10. Cole
11. Michael
12. Logan
13. Jennifer
14. Shannon
15. Stuart
16. Kelly
17. Jill
18. Makenzie
19. Theodore
20. Brendan C.
21. Kristin R.
22. Scott W.
23. Erica
24. Zoe
25. Marcus
26. Anthony
27. Callista

MATCH THE NUMBER NEXT TO YOUR NAME WITH ONE OF THESE NUMBERED ASSIGNMENTS

1. An introductory note on Transcendentalism
2. An explanatory note on Margaret Fuller
3. An explanatory note on the Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments
4. An explanatory note on Godey’s Lady’s Book Fashion Plates
5. An explanatory note on George Sand
6. An explanatory note on La Roche Mauprat
7. An explanatory note on Mary Wollstonecraft
8. An explanatory note on Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman
9. An explanatory note on William Godwin
10. An explanatory note on Alexander Pope’s poem, “Eloisa to Abelard” and brief background about its source in the 12^th century lovers’ story.
11. An explanatory note on William and Mary Howitt
12. An explanatory note on Goethe’s play, Goetz von Berlichengen
13. An explanatory note on Manzoni’s play Adelchi
14. An explanatory note on Nikolas Ludwig, Count von Zinzerdorf
15. An explanatory note on Pharisaism
16. An explanatory note on the Muse
17. An explanatory note on Minerva
18. An explanatory note on Hercules
19. An explanatory note on Syrens or Sirens
20. An explanatory note on Newton
21. An explanatory note on Rhea, Pallas and Jove
22. An explanatory note on Robert Southey’s The Curse of Kehama
23. An explanatory note on Ceres
24. An explanatory note on Athena
25. An explanatory note on Wilhelm Meister by Goethe
26. An explanatory note on Queen Victoria
27. An explanatory note on the naming of the state of Virginia

Collaborative Annotation Project (Primary Source)

This Digital Humanities Lab assignment is taken from the Women Writers Project at Brown University Collaborative Annotation Project. We’re working in Google docs, which is working great–especially since today for example one student was home with a sick child and was Googling her groupmates while they were working.

Caveats so far: Students don’t really know what “annotation” means and aren’t quite sure how what we’re doing matters. I think I might create a very short video next time that will help them understand how the primary source material we’re working with differs from the textbooks they read in college or the wikipedia entries they rely on. Maybe bring in the Dictionary of Literary Biography and some of the other major guides and annotations.

Since this is an embedded assignment (not in a Digital Humanities class but rather in a DH-infused Women Writers class) we have so much material to cover that taking a whole unit on annotation issues isn’t practical. My goal with these assignments this first time around is to really see what works, what sticks with them, what needs tinkering with. (We spend a lot of our time doing historical background work in class, such as viewing this BBC video about Pakistan and Partition in India in order to read Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee. So it’s a matter of priorities and time….)

Here are the instructions to students. I have also created a Google doc that is heavily indebted to the Women Writer’s Project but has instructions geared to my students.

STUDENTS!

1. To begin, find out what group you are in (scroll down below).
2. Then, go to this website and scroll down to the list of suggested texts. Browse the texts and see which ones appeal: there are poems, recipes, letters to young ladies, the accession speech of Queen Elizabeth.
3. Your group should agree on which text you’ll be working with: Women Writers Online http://www.wwp.brown.edu/wwo/teaching/assignments/annotation.html
4. Then sit together and read the document that you chose.
5. I have prepared your Google docs with the questions below embedded in the documents. Once you have chosen which text(s) you will annotate, you should copy and paste these texts into your Google doc below these questions. This will serve as the basis for your new, annotated version of the text.
6. Now you should answer questions 1-6 to determine your procedure and rationale for your annotations. NOTE: These questions are just the first step to your annotation project. Once you’ve answered the questions, it is time to do the annotations.
7. It’s a good idea to sign into Google so that it will be clear as you’re working who is doing which pieces of work. If you choose not to sign in, then be sure to mark your work as you go–either using a color code or keeping track with other forms of signature.Working as a group (or dividing the text into sections so that each of you can work independently on a separate section), go through the text and add annotations following the rationale developed by your group in the earlier discussion.

QUESTIONS FOR DEVELOPING THE RATIONALE FOR YOUR ANNOTATIONS

1. What aspects of the text most need explanation for a modern audience? (For instance, unfamiliar names, references to places and events, unfamiliar words, historical and political background, information about the author’s life, etc.) Your answers to this question will create an action item for your project.
2. What kinds of information would a contemporary have had which modern readers no longer possess? Your answers to this question will create an action item for your project.
3. What kinds of information might we want to have that a contemporary would not have had access to? Your answers to this question will create an action item for your project.
4. What would be the most important things to explain for a novice reader? What would most contribute to a productive reading of the text? What do you not need to explain? Your answers to this question will create an action item for your project.
5. Identify the specific details you plan to comment on in the annotation process, and describe why you chose to focus on these. For instance, if your group decided to identify individuals and events named in the text, explain the rationale for your decision. What kind of reading and research will your annotations support? Your answers to this question will create an action item for your project.
6. How should your annotations be presented to be most effective? (As footnotes, endnotes, marginal notes, some other format?) What difference does this make to the reader’s experience of the text? Your answers to this question will create an action item for your project.

HOW MUCH TO ANNOTATE?
Once you have answered questions 1-6, you can fine-tune your text selection. If you chose a whole book or collection, you should decide on a manageable selection for each member of your group to work on. Or alternatively, you can select a group-sized document and then divide up the work so that different members will follow the leads set out from your answers to questions 1-6 above.

Whichever way you go, be sure you choose a manageable but challenging selection (perhaps a single poem or equivalent each or a page or long paragraph of prose).

[Today in class, Katlyn took a recipe from one of the books and completely translated it from 17th century English into contemporary recipe language. This works great for a recipe. She will be making notes about her rationale for doing that in the Google doc. But would it be a good idea to completely translate a poem? What might be lost by doing that? Perhaps using the “Comments” section in Google would work better with poetry–maintaining the original material qualities of the poem while also preparing a modern audience for some of the unfamiliarity of it. [Links to Google docs have been unlinked to protect student information]

Google Doc for Group 1 Mohammed, Wanetta, Tonia, Jessica

Google Doc for Group 2 Courtney A., Nikki, Kasha, Destaney, Duskin

Google Doc for Group 3 Lorrie, Symone, Ryan, Jess, Teresa

Google Doc for Group 4 Courtney W, Katlyn, Michael, Edward

Google Doc for Group 5 Kaitlyn, Matt, Ahleah, Syrena, Michelle

Follow Up: How Well Did Your Annotations Help Your Reader?
When the annotation process is complete, each group should choose another Google doc from a different group to read.  (Each group would then be reviewing an unfamiliar text that has been annotated.)  Each group should compare the annotated version with the original, and then in discussion consider the following questions:

1. How much difference did the annotations make to the comprehensibility of the text? What insights were possible with the annotated version that were not possible with the original?
2. What kinds of annotations were most helpful? Which ones were least helpful?
3. What is the overall effect of the annotation on the text? How does it alter your impression of the text?
4. How did the annotations address you as a reader? What knowledge did they assume you had? Did you feel comfortable in that role?

Assessment:

As digital humanities work is often collaborative in nature, the same issues that come up with scholars with respect to documenting contributions emerges with students. (This has always been true of collaborative group work.)  So I have created a collaborative grading rubric for students to grade their own work on this project. A version of the Collaborative Grading Rubric is available as a Google doc–formatting didn’t quite translate from Word, but it’s legible here.