Assignment Objective: Develop an intensive critical understanding of how digital humanities engagement with archival materials and research approaches affects our understanding of cultural and historical subjects.
Over the course of the semester we will take time to reflect upon our experiences with digital humanities tools and methods by writing a series of six blog posts. In order to write these posts we will rely on our analysis of professional scholarly artifacts that make use of digital humanities tools, as well as our own experimentation with these tools. For each blog post I will give you a specific prompt. Blog posts will be associated with particular learning modules throughout the semester (see course outline for associated themes).
Each post must include the following elements:
- 300-350 words, written in full sentences and well-formed paragraphs.
- Your paragraphs should do the following:
- Describe the digital humanities tool, platform, or method
- Explain how you have experienced this tool AND how your experience using the tool for this assignment has made you think about its strengths and/or weaknesses as an approach to humanities research.
- 2 images (photo, video, or sketch/diagram) that appropriately illustrate the way in which you have experimented with and your experience using the tool.
- Use the appropriate category for your post from the list provided in the WordPress editor (the category will be included in the prompt). Remember that categories are important for organization of your article into the larger corpus of submitted work.
- Add keywords (a.k.a. tags) to your post. Keywords aid in more fine-grained searching and demonstrate for your audience how you see your work as connecting with the course and the work of other authors.
Each post will be assessed on analysis and support, grammatical and form-associated conventions and organization. Grades will be assigned as follows:
| A (6 pts.) | Mature, well-organized, insightful examination that is visually appealing. |
| B (5 pts) | Satisfactory, generally well-presented, interesting examination. |
| C (4 pts.) | Developing approach that would benefit from more consideration of argument, audience, mechanics, and/or design. |
| NS (0 pts.) | Work not submitted. |
Assignment due dates:
| Blog post #1 | Friday, 9/5 |
| Blog post #2 | Friday, 9/19 |
| Blog post #3 | Friday, 10/3 |
| Blog post #4 | Friday, 10/17 |
| Blog post #5 | Friday, 11/14 |
| Blog post #6 | Friday, 12/6 |
Blog posts will be due on Friday nights by 11pm. You will read your classmates’ posts over the weekend; as appropriate, that reading will inform the following Monday’s in-class discussion. Be prepared to speak directly to a point made in one of your classmates’ posts – in particular as it relates to your own work.