Class Preparation Assignments (30% of final grade)

Summary

These assignments are intended to fulfill the course goal:

Examine evolving theory and major debates within digital humanities and digital history, including issues of transparency, ethics, accessibility, authority, and legitimacy

Readings, Annotations, and Discussion

Readings are assigned weekly and should be completed before each class. We won’t have an extensive discussion of the assigned material during class time; instead, the class will work to collaboratively annotate the readings using the Hypothes.is tool. We will discuss more about Hypothes.is on the first week of class. Readings and annotations will help you prepare for class, understand the stakes and possibilities of various methods and tools in digital scholarship, and deeply engage in dialogues with your classmates. For this reason, they are worth 30% of your grade (or, 2% each week). Occasionally you might be assigned material that is not possible to annotate (like videos, an entire book, etc.) and in these cases you will be asked to contribute to a discussion board prompt on Canvas.

A note on the readings, videos, and other materials:

Each week, you will review a variety of materials that may differ from what you are accustomed to encountering in a graduate-level history course. The assigned materials reflect an assortment of formats and genres including case studies, process documents, “grey literature,” artistic creations, recorded talks, blog entries, and formal or informal discussions of methods and/or tools. In addition, the creators of these works will come from an array of disciplinary and professional backgrounds which may be unfamiliar to you.

In reviewing these items, I ask that you:

Consider the context in which the material was published or presented. An article from the International Journal of Communication, for example, may not (and should not be expected to) answer all of your historiographical questions.
Recognize that it’s easy to levy criticism, undirected outrage, and sactimonious dismissal toward projects, problems, and strawmen. Proposing or pointing to concrete solutions is a much more constructive tactic and will serve you more fruitfully in your professional pursuits.
Reflect consistently on how you can augment the material’s content and add to an open-minded, solution-oriented group conversation.

Rubric

I would like every student to have the opportunity to participate and share their reactions to a reading or discussion. Quality is more important than quantity. While an individual’s participation will naturally vary from class to class, students are encouraged to improve their participation each class and contribute to class discussion every week. Class preparation will be assessed each class, according to the following rubric:

A – Prepared for every class and familiar with readings and sites for review, contributes questions and discussion points that are not simple reiterations of statements from the readings, makes connections between readings for this class and previous classes, responds to other students’ comments and extends the analysis, analyzes and challenges readings and class discussion in a respectful, evidence-based manner.

B – Prepared for most classes, engaged listener who contributes but requires occasional prompting, analyzes readings but comments may focus more on restating author’s opinions rather than building upon them with unique statements, respectfully listens to other student comments but does not respond directly to issues they raise.

C – Minimally prepared for classes, does not volunteer comments or questions, provides comments indirectly or not at all connected to the topic when called upon, inattentive listener.

D – No evidence of preparation, cannot provide comments on the subject matter when called upon, disrespectful to other students’ comments, inattentive listener