English 203, Winter 2012. English Dept., University of Calgary

A module from the University of Calgary’s English Department that was taught in the Winter of 2012. It is devoted to data and critical reading within English Literature, and aims to teach students the use of digital tools, and how to use to discover new information about Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The format of the course was a humanities lab with half of the contact hours being dedicated to the hands on learning (and hopeful mastering) of digital tools. Emphasis appears to have been placed on the collaborative nature of using digital tools within an academic environment. However, the assessment breakdown shows that only 50% of the assessment was actually on the group work. Digital tools used in this module were: Wordhoard, Tapor, WordSeer, Voyeur and MONK. The module website includes details on all areas of assessment used in the module including: an encoding exercise, a twitter assignment, the two team projects, and the final (individual) paper. Grading boundaries and the course schedule are also included on this webpage, though the grade boundaries do appear to be standardised across the University of Calgary, rather than module or DH specific. There is also a link to the professor’s series of blog posts on various aspects of the course design, and a full outline of the course through Google Docs. The twitter feed of the professor is also accessible and highly interesting. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NkI4dUlWaXM5QyHqQbY7W47FjNVOqumI9DMpGTjGm7A/edit?hl=en_US http://ullyot.ucalgaryblogs.ca/category/teaching/w2012-engl203/ twitter.com/ullyot

JiTP: The Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy. 4 (2013)

This article is an investigation into the effects of digitally encoding literature texts on the teaching of close reading in an English Literature class. Singer argues that using digital tools and having students engage with their own encoding of texts should be a method of close reading, and work in addition to compliment the traditional practice of hard copy annotation. Singer then discusses the differences between teaching with HTML and TEI, for which examples are included. The main section of the article lays out the benefits that occur through having UG students engage in encoding as a close reading exercise. These include: digital highlighting which encourages sharing, refocusing reading, coming to terms with unfamiliar technical language and practices, discovery of unseen links, familiarity with a text due to the number of hours spent with it, and forced formal choices on categorisation. The remainder of the article discusses how working with TEI impacted upon Singer’s students’ learning experience. This includes analysis on how to successfully categorise and tag phenomenon in ‘experimental’ poetry that does not follow the format of other more traditional forms of poetry. Also, how to transfer classical terms in literature analysis effectively to TEI. Singer concludes that “as [her students] tagged and then colour coded their readings, [they] gained the editorial prowess and creativity to develop interpretive language beyond note or prescriptive terminology”; something that she decrees is perhaps more useful than what is gained from only a hard copy and ink highlighter pen.

CEA Critic. 76.2(2014), pp.158-68

This article focuses on the digitisation of so-called literary texts (poetry, drama, fictions etc) treated at works of art rather than cultural documents; highlighting the fact that standards of accuracy and precision for these works of art are different from the standards used for cultural documents or texts for linguistic analysis. Questions are raised over what is lost through the digitisation process, not just in terms of accuracy, but regarding the loss of context, for example, from a papyrus or parchments. Shillingsburg has taught students where is it not physically or realistically possible for students to physically engage with primary sources, so it is important to teach them what they are losing through only engaging with digitised representations. Does the integrity of a source need to be sacrificed for ease of accessibility? How do teachers convey this to a generation who see everything digitally? These are questions that Shillingsburg states that educators need to address. He goes on to discuss what exactly he believes makes a digital archive; stating that the text, or facts, alone are not enough. Images of the texts and sources are needed to make an archive trustworthy, in his opinion. Also, he states that the sources having no weight, smell or texture mean that digitised copies are rarely suitable for the best teaching, and that is before the errors that have been included in the digital copies during transcribing. Following this, Shillingsburg details at length the errors that could occur during digitisation. The conclusion states that all the elements that are lost during digitisations could be attempted to be rectified through extensive marking up of texts to include contextual information.

CEA Critic. 76.2(2014), pp.169-90

An article centred on close digital analysis of the poetry taught in a chronological survey course of American literature, considering ‘digital humanities tools as a means to reconsider the anthologized texts of literary works’. Raabe uses the differences in the punctuation in various copies of Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” to teach that through slight variants, the message of a text can be dramatically altered; and how are we to know which of these variants was actually what the author intended? Digital facsimiles, online transcriptions, and DH research tools that permit students to visualise textual variation allow students to review alternate versions of literary works as a classroom activity, even during undergraduate survey courses. Raabe discusses how he uses this pedagogy with examples including Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” and Emily Dickinson’s poetry manuscripts. The second half of this article discusses how the teaching of such a literature survey course has changed over the generations, and whether the teaching of anthologies is any longer relevant when students, trained as consumers, have instant access to a media-rich archive of all texts ever written. Raabe argues, in conclusion, that ‘One reason to introduce digital humanities skills to students of literature is to encourage them to think critically about such commercial trends and to seek opportunities for them to engage with literary texts in a wide array of material forms.’

Digital Humanities Quarterly. 1.1 (2007).

This article discusses the gaming activity and literary form known as the ‘quest’. Focusing mainly on game theory, Howard uses this article to propose ideas on how ‘quests’ can be used in literature classrooms. He examines debates between narratologists and ludologists, where narratologists analyse games as works of storytelling, and ludologists maintain that games should instead be mined for the meanings inherent in the components related to play, such as rules and simulation. It is a debate of games vs storytellers, which many in an UG classroom will be familiar with. Howard then details various types of quests and how they arise in game formats; including how this relates to literary forms such as the hero narrative. Following this, Howard suggests ways that the understanding of quest elements can allow teachers of English literature to create assignments which have students transform traditional literary narratives into ‘quests’ in a digital game format. An example of this assignment is extensively detailed, in a descriptive narrative that includes formation, classroom delivery, student perception, assignment outcome, and finally assessment. Howard believes that through an activity such as this, student will engage more with the intricacies of storytelling within well-known works of literature. Students could also benefit from being encouraged to map the world experienced in literature into a simulated geographical space: this could allow a more realistic conception of the movements of the characters during the events of the story to be realised. Howard suggests that through the design and comparison of conceptual spaces, along with ‘real world’ locations within narratives, students could better comprehend how comprehend how various works of literature were constructed. This will reinvigorate the students’ interest, as well as making them aware of the relationship between digital storytelling tools, and their subject of literature, which they may have not thought of nor experienced previously.

CEA Critic 76.2(2014), pp.137-9.

This essay serves as a short introduction to the CEA Critic special edition focusing on the Digital Humanities. Hawkins praises the contributing authors to this edition and states that all involved in DH teaching to use the experience of these professors to further engage with UG students on this topic. It is through engaging students with texts in new ways, via DH tools, that they will become excited about exploring what once seemed dulled by overfamiliarity. This introduction ends with a encouraging cry to all teachers to utilise the DH tools available so that their students can reap the benefits.

INF 2331H, Fall 2010. Faculty of Information, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON.

This is a PG course at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information taught intermittently from 2009 onwards. It considers “the histories and possible futures of books in a digital world”. This course is designed to take an interdisciplinary approach to the study of every conceivable aspect of the book, and places a high emphasis on the use of digital tools to expedite and enhance analysis. All course texts were available in digital formal, and one of the core ‘readings’ included the playing of a video game. Assessment for the course was broken down into the following: 10% for participation (class discussions and debates), 20% XML encoding challenge (an introduction to digitally modelling print and manuscript materials), 30% report on the encoding challenge, and 40% on the final essay (a 14 to 18 page essay exploring a module appropriate topic). Academic integrity, in special regard to digital tools, is also covered in this class. The schedule for the class and assigned readings are all detailed on the module web page. Learning objectives for this course include a practical knowledge of XML mark-up and visualisation tools. Readings survey such topics as “the ontology of born-digital artefacts, critical assessment of digitization projects, collaborative knowledge work, reading devices (old and new), e-book interface design, text/image/multimedia relationships, theories and practices of mark-up, the gendering of technologies, the politics of digital archiving, the materiality of texts, and the epistemology of digital tools”.

CEA Critic, 76.2 (2014), pp.191-99

This article discusses the use of DH in the teaching of English Literature, and specifically the pedagogical value of the digital tool Text Encoding Initiative (TEI). The merits and pitfalls of teaching with TEI are explored at length; not just the practical hurdles but the theoretical ones also. Negatives include, for example, convincing students that the time consuming and labour intensive task is worth it, even though it can be frustrating to beginners. Also that it requires relatable take home computers and a classroom licence for software that may be difficult to obtain for teachers who are the first in their department or institution to use this teaching/learning method. She then goes on to discuss the pedagogical benefits of attentive reading in that it offers a rigorous, systematic and somewhat flexible way for students to inscribe a view of the text onto the text itself. The students would often come across the difficulties of encoding during the process of the task itself, and as long as they were made aware in advance that they could account for them, and overcome them, then they tackled these difficulties well. Gailey also found that by letting students (or groups of students) chose their own aspect of a text to investigate, that they then could bring an individual focus to the text that might not have been widely explored before. Being forced to write a rational explanation for the focus of their project and what kind of critical lens inform it, adds to any assessment that could be made on the encoding itself, and including the development of customised tags, and methods for quality control. Asking students both to think about texts from a material or representational perspective and to contribute creatively to cultural knowledge is the hallmark of many digital humanities classes. Gailey concludes that rigorous digital editing in the humanities is currently based on TEI and whilst this may not always be so it is important as the market gives rise to new technologies and digitally inclined researchers develop competing standards.

For a great summary of Amanda Gailey’s experience of teaching close textual analysis, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEXXS4V76y8 for a sixty minute talk that she gave at the University of Kansas in 2014.

Heather Froehlich blog. 19 March 2014.

Here Froehlich elaborates on the challenges faced in her ‘Textlab’ class. This blog post focuses more on the Computer Science students and the issues which they faced. This begins with an account on how the students taking Computer Science as their degree course, may have ceased studying English, or indeed any Arts and Humanities subjects, at age 15. Thus they found it challenging to interact with the English texts during the course and to interact with the English students, to whom the reading of Shakespeare was second nature. Froehlich found that during group work, the Computer Science students took a very basic entry-level DH approach to the texts that they were given to analyse; presenting word frequency diagrams for example. Yet they lacked confidence in producing any kind of explanations as to why variations in word frequency may occur. This is an intermediary blog post with Froehlich theorising over what the final projects may teach her about her students and the teaching of this course. Again, following up on her findings would be of interest.

Heather Froehlich blog. 29 January 2014.

This is a blog post on the author’s involvement in an interdisciplinary DH course called ‘Textlab’ at the University of Strathclyde (near Glasgow, UK) where the departments of English and Computer Science collaborate. The learning aim is to teach English students digital skills, and to give Computer Science students experience in aping their skills practically to a ‘real’ scholarly scenario. Froehlich uses this detailed and accessible blog post to explore the learning curve of the English students during the course, as well as what she learned and changed as a teacher of this course. The first step was in teaching English students computer coding, so that they had some understanding of the mechanics of the wider project. The English students struggled with this as they generally had very little coding experience. Froehlich describes how she dealt with the confidence issues of these students, and how practically she found it best to approach problems that arose when a student has no comprehension of how to engage with the computers. Froehlich sees her role as helping her students to understand not only what they are doing, but why. Her further experiences of this course would be interesting to follow further.

CEA Critic, 76. (2014). pp.147-57

An overview of the main discussion points for those involved in the teaching of, or with, DH. These include pedagogical concerns such as teaching strategies, curriculum development and learning outcomes. The author experiences the difficulties around teaching DH to UG through the construction of classes for English students. Bonds found, through research, that the benefits for teaching UGs the DH fell into two general categories: (1) using DH on an institutional level to resuscitate funding and “save the humanities” (2) strengthen the employability potential of humanities graduates by empowering them with skills that could see them successfully enter a wider range of industries. These reasons alone, Bonds argues, is why DH instruction should become widely integrated into as many arts and humanities courses as possible. Though it may appear that Millennials are “digital natives”, they still require specialist DH instruction in order to use their skills in a constructive and productive manner. Bonds then discusses the link between DH and project based learning; and the interpersonal and technical skillsets that must be taught to UGs to make this teaching method a realistic option for successful learning. Using various scenario setups for teaching UG DH are then explored, such as museum based assignments. The article concludes that the DHs have now entered a phase of “organising learning outcomes” and actively applying these to classrooms. Bonds calls for the conversation on the teaching of DH to continue and for all those engaged in it to share their experiences so that everyone can benefit from progressions in the field.

Digital Humanities Pedagogy: Practices, Principles and Politics. Brett D. Hirsch, ed. Cambridge: UK, OpenBook Publishers, 2012.

This chapter looks at what is termed ‘first year writing courses’ (akin to English language), at US universities, which are compulsory at most institutions unless students gain exemption through high SAT scores. These courses teach students how to write for university level assessment, but have little time to teach more than composition; content is sacrificed, and even more than that, analysis of content is left out entirely. In the modern digital age, the author asks, should digital communication not be the centre of such a course? This chapter then details a brief history of the movement from the 1990s onwards, to teach students to become involved with the production of digital literature, not merely a consumer. He details that there is now no space for separation of the Digital from the Humanities, if such first year writing courses to be taught effectively and efficiently. Universities need to overcome the limiting factors of the technical knowledge (or lack thereof) of 1^st year UG students and instructors, the limiting time frame of these writing courses, and the availability (or again, lack thereof) of digital writing hardware and software. The author subsequently details theories and then examples of how computers can be exploited to update first year writing courses, and make them more relevant to the students’ wider tertiary educational experience. This includes the combination of qualitative and quantitative writing display and analysis: skills that students could transfer easily to other modules. Examples of projects and assignments are then detailed, mostly with an English Literature flavour. Getting students to engage with texts as data, not just words, provided deeper understanding opportunities, then looking at composition alone. The chapter concludes that using DH techniques and tools to teach such courses is a far superior way to achieve the desired learning outcomes. Though (as of 2012), funding for full uptake of using DH methods has not been as widespread as the author desires.

Dept. of Slavic Languages and Literatures. University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA. (Autumn/Fall 2015)

A course to be run in the first term of the 2015-2016 year at the University of Pittsburgh; open to both UG and PG students. Course requirements include regular (preferably 100%) attendance due to the nature of the digital skills building learning schedule. Participation on the course blog site, discussion boards and completion of the tests/quizzes is required by all students taking the course. The course use designed specifically to give students the knowledge and skills involved in quantitative and formal reasoning with the context of the interests and needs of students studying and working in the humanities. There is no prerequisite at this time (Summer 2015) for programming knowledge. The am of the course is to use digital tools and techniques to “identify interesting humanities research questions’. The assignments for the course are the required readings, programming ‘challenges’ or ‘problems’, response papers and a large research project (conducting in collaboration). The module site goes into detail about how these will be organised and assessed, with qualitative indicators of the level expected. The weight of each requirement is as follows: 25% homework assignments, 15% taken from the six best test scores, 10% midterm ‘take home’ exam, and 50% on the final research project During the course XML will be taught along with several meta languages (W3C Scheme, Relax NG and DTD). The formal course outcomes are described as follows: “upon successful completion of this course students will be able to 1) identify opportunities for the application of computer technology to authentic research problems in the humanities; 2) analyse the structure of texts in the humanities and develop formal representations of those structures; and 3) write original computer programs to conduct research on those texts.”