Digital Humanities Lab #4: Voices from the Gaps

A quick update on this assignment. While as with many mini-research assignments these can elicit very formulaic responses to questions, I also discovered that for several of the students, this was exactly the kind of assignment that drew them in and gave them a sense of ownership and discovery. One student talked movingly about how discovering a Filipino American author affected her and made her wish she had known about this writer when she was growing up Filipino in America; another mother of five wrote about an African American mystery novelist and discovered that while she hadn’t always admired the genre she could see how the work of this novelist could have a positive political dimension.

 

Introduction to Women Writers ENG260 Fall 2012
Second Blog Assignment:
Voices from the Gaps: Women Writer Discovery Blog Entry (mini-research/critical essay project posted onto your course blog) (10%) http://voices.cla.umn.edu/artistpages/
POSTING DUE DATE:

Friday, Due Friday October 26 at midnight.

HOW TO POST:

Post the URL to your completed blog entry in the Moodle assignment link that says “VOICES FROM THE GAPS: WOMEN WRITER DISCOVERY BLOG”. This is where your grade will show up in Moodle.  To find out what your URL for this blog entry is, go to your actual post and copy and paste the URL that shows up.

ASSIGNMENT DESCRIPTION:
For this blog entry, you will be using the same blog that you created for your poetry map, only you will add a new post to it and title it “Voices from the Gaps: Women Writers Discovery Blog.” This assignment gives you the opportunity to explore a woman writer you may not have heard of before and to read what a fellow college student  has researched and wrote about her. You will then write about this artist in your blog, following some questions below. This blog should give you a sense of discovery.

INSTRUCTIONS:

  1. BROWSE THE VOICES FROM THE GAPS PAGE TO SEE WHAT CATEGORIES ARE AVAILABLE AND WHICH ONES INTEREST YOU: http://voices.cla.umn.edu/artistpages/

You can choose whichever artist you are interested in as long as she is not one of the writers that we are working on in class. You must use the artist pages that are on this site as your source of information. If there are related links within the site, you can use information found on those sites as well, being sure to mark your reference in your blog by using hyperlinks.

  1. TAKE NOTES:

To begin, you should have a notepad or an electronic notepad open so that you can record your findings as you go.  It’s always best to write down anything interesting so that later you can write more formal paragraphs from your notes.  Remember that any information you get from this or any source needs to be documented by pointing to the site.  Here’s a resource for finding out how to cite a web-based resource: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/08/

  1. BEGIN DRAFTING YOUR BLOG ENTRY

My advice is to create a draft in your word-processing program or on paper and then post your polished work on your blog as a final step. Your blog should answer the questions below. You should use an essay format, however, with your intended audience being your fellow students and other blog readers in the blogosphere who may be interested in reading what you have to say about this author.

  1. Who is the artist you have chosen?
  2. Why were you drawn to this artist?
  3. Summarize this artist’s major accomplishments. If you can, find something that they have created and describe it or discuss it.
  4. Talk about what is unique or unusual or interesting to you about this artist.
  5. Talk about how what you learned about this artist relates to some of the themes that we are exploring in our class:
  • about women’s identity as artists and difficulties they have;
  • about the role that race and ethnicity have played in the identity of this artist and also in their work;
  • about the relationship between money and a “room of one’s own” and this artist’s life and/or work
  • is the issue of a “single story” at play in their life or work? If so, how?

i)        What do you think of the student researcher’s work?

ii)      Be sure to provide a summary of your overall findings.

Once you have posted your entry, post the unique URL for this post to the Voices from the Gaps: Women Writers Discovery Blog link in the Moodle 5th week course block.

GRADING CRITERIA: (Satisfactory Grade Range: 70-80; Strong Grade Range: 80-90; Exemplary Grades 90-100)

  1. Follows instructions
  2. Blog entry demonstrates a thorough and correct if brief overview of the woman artist s/he chose (satisfactory). All sources are correctly cited either by linking to the sites. Strong entries make useful connections with course terms and course readings and discussions. Exemplary entries provide original or creative insight and/or connections.
  3. Blog entry demonstrates a general understanding of the chosen writer and her work (satisfactory).  Strong entries utilize course terms and work to discuss the artist and her work. Exemplary entries provide original or creative insight or connections about the chosen artist and course terms and discussions.
  4. Satisfactory blog entry provides a clear analysis and detailed response to the chosen artist page(s), using literary terms and reading skills learned in the class. The analysis answers the questions above. Strong analysis provides depth and connections; exemplary analysis uses the analysis as an occasion for an original or creative insight.
  5. Prompt posting assumed for all satisfactory grades. Late posts lose a 10% per day late.

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