The following are required, graded assignments for the course. For grading policy, see Assessment. They involve a combination of individual and collaborative work. Collaborative work will be evaluated in part through questionaires, which will ask group members to evaluate the participation of their colleagues. (For a guide to the technology used in this course, see Technology.)
- Regular attendance and participation. Three or more absences will make passing the course difficult, except in unusual circumstances and by arrangement with the professor.
- Visit to Getty Museum with class.
- Big Projects: Choose a text and an “IT” (information technology) in which to specialize. The class will form working groups for each “Text-IT.”
- Voice to Page: A complex group exercise to demonstrate the challenge of converting oral discourse to a written form that can become oral once again.
- Full participation in the E-Dia-Journals
- Individually start compiling relevant Web sites, finding as many as possible. Be sure to make use of the "Resources" page for Transcriptions, as well as Voice of the Shuttle, as well as standard search engines and surfing.
- You can do this individually. Block and copy the url's from the sites so that you have the address exactly correct.
- From the time you first find the site, start making notes that will help you remember what is there and could also be the beginning of an annotation.
- You may wish to keep these sites as links on your individual web page and/or bookmark them in your own machine if you have an internet connection.
- Meet with group (virtually or in body) during Week 5 (Feb. 7-11).
- Decide on a chairperson for your group, who will keep the project moving along and keep everyone organized.
- Decide on the keeper-of-the-page, who will maintain the group web-page on his or her u-web site.
- Decide on an editor.
- Perhaps decide also on a technical adviser.
- Brainstorm ideas re. what kinds of things should be addressed on page.
- Exchange e-mail addresses and phone numbers.
- Decide how to divide up Web sites for writing annotations. By week 7, Feb. 21-25, you should know who is writing what. Annotations ought to include:
- Name of the site's creator (may be an individual or perhaps an organization).
- Date of the site's last update.
- Information about the creator that would substantiate the creator's reliability as a source of information and/or explain that person's particular interest in or bias concerning the topic.
- A summary of the kind of information on that site.
- An evaluation of how useful that site is for our academic purposes.
- For a fuller description and more ideas (you don't have to use all of them), see "Evaluating and Citing On-line Resources" in the "Resources" section of Transcriptions.
- Decide how to divide up responsibilities for entries in the page's
Chronicle/Commentary. (These may include links but are not required
to do so.) By week 7, Feb. 21-25, you should know who is writing
what. Topics that might be addressed include:
- Definitions of important concepts (e.g. "psalter").
- Important facts or concepts for the primary text and its creator(s).
- Key dates in the development of an Information Technology.
- Important people who participated in that development.
- Important works or textual events connected with that Information Technology.
- For some ideas of kinds of things you might include-in a MUCH simpler format-see the "Topics" page, called "Weaving Webs," done by Chris Schedler for Transcriptions.
- Individuals write annotations to links and entries for Chronicle/Commentary,
as decided by group. Have these completed Week 8, Feb. 28-March
3.
- Be sure to follow all the usual rules regarding giving credit where it is due and avoiding plagiarism. For anything beyond common knowledge and not original to you, and whenever in any doubt, give full bibliographical credit. See "Citing On-Line Resources" (http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/resources/evaluating-citing.shtml) on the Transcriptions "Resources" pages for full information on how to site web sites.
- Put the name of the author for each annotation or entry at the end of the annotation.
- Organize all links and commentary on one page or index page plus sub-pages. (Optionally include graphics, color, or other design elements.) Do this work during (or before) Week 9, March 6-10.
- Publish group page and supply Robert Hamm (e-mail: rbh1@umail.ucsb.edu), course technical assistant, with URL to make link to class pages at Transcriptions site. Due Friday, March 10.
- Complete evaluation forms on contributions of fellow group-members and on your own contributions (forms to be supplied). Due with individual essay, Wed., March 22.
- Written Essay:
- Write an essay approximately 7 pages long (no more than 10 pages maximum) in which you argue an interpretation of your chosen primary text that takes into account the information technology through which the text was or is disseminated (the IT for your group page). Use close readings of the text to support your argument as well as consideration of its contemporary medium of production and circulation.
- This paper should make clear ways in which your reading of the
text has been affected by your knowledge about its information
technology (about the material ways in which it was created, circulated,
and received). In other words, I hope that this course has altered
your understanding about how texts/performances mean and that
you show this new understanding in your essay. You may, if it
is helpful to you, include comparisons to other ITs discussed
in this course.
- You should have a thesis, and the structure of the paper should be designed to explain and support that thesis.
- You should bring specific details to bear in developing your support, details from the primary text and also details about the information technology.
- This is not a research paper as such, but I expect that you will draw upon readings assigned in the class and materials you came to know in developing your group web page and possibly other resources as well. You must provide appropriate citations for all information that you derive from any of these resources: put in quotation marks any phrases or unusual words that you have found in any resource, provide full bibliographical information for all resources you have used. You may use MLA citation methods or any other standard method, as long as you are consistent. Consult http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/resources/evaluating-citing.shtml for information about how to cite internet sites.
- You should proofread and correct your paper before submitting it, checking for errors in spelling and punctuation as well as logic.
- Due Wednesday, March 22, 10 a.m. in printed form in my department mailbox, in 2623 South Hall, unless you have made other arrangements with me. I will save all projects for one quarter; you may pick them up in my office or provide me with a self-addressed stamped envelope.
- Make a web page (with appropriate sub-pages) that shows the relationship between interpretation of the primary text and its contemporary information technology.
- Do an oral presentation (making full use of that IT) that demonstrates the significance of that specific information technology for understanding of your chosen primary text. Then write a 5-page essay explaining the theory behind your performance and evaluating the effectiveness of the performance in communicating your ideas. For this option, you will need to make arrangements with the professor to do the performance for the class before the end of the term.
- Propose a different option and have it approved by the professor two weeks before the due date.
- Please Note: Projects done in lieu of an essay should meet the same or comparable criteria of analytical value, clarity, care in the details of presentation, and citation of all resources.
- Each group will be given a text that is a series of letters without punctuation or spacing.
- Two or three small groups (of 2-3 students each) separately work out the sense, punctuate it, and provide a mise en page to communicate that sense.
- Each group chooses a performer, who, with the group’s coaching, produces an oral performance, presented to the class and video- or audio-taped.
- Class compares interpretations of the texts.
- Individuals write commentaries on the process.
- Goal: To have engaged conversations outside of class; to test this kind of communication in distinction to face-to-face conversation, letter writing, and individual journal writing.
- Procedure: One person sets a question that suits the IT topic and can be applied to the text in several places (or do the reverse). Others respond.
- For "subject" line put group name, then topic. Others responding keep the same subject-line.
- Monday groups: Lions, Tigers, Cougars. Question set by Friday before. Answers Monday morning, if possible.
- Wednesday groups: Leopards, Jaguars. Question set by Monday, answers by Wednesday morning if possible.
- End of the term, I will ask for reflections on these E-Dia-Journals as a kind of conversation.
- Contribution to grade: Inadequate participation (missing or pro forma answers) can lower grade in class; Excellent participation (engaged, thought-provoking answers and/or answers that show extra research or reading) can raise grade.
