Following are two assignment options developed for Kristen Abbott Bennett’s Spring 2020 Shakespeare course at Framingham State University. The first invites students to research and generate an encyclopedia entry; the second invites them to search for gaps in the knowledge base which they might take the initiative to fill
Option A: Encyclopedia entry
What does this look like?
You’ll research and write a 500-word encyclopedia entry on the topic of your choice. Your entry will include permalinks to relevant source materials, and any images you include will have alt-text that also contains attribution information.
Option B (if you’re feeling ambitious)
In lieu of the encyclopedia entry, you may choose to edit an existing page. The Conspiracies and Anti-Conspiracies pages both need work, as does Espionage. I’m also open to augmenting the social networks page and adding exhibit pages. We can collaborate one-on-one, or, if you want to work with a partner, I’ll collaborate with you both.
I hope that these options offer accessible and meaningful ways for everyone to synthesize their knowledge, as well as contribute to this exciting, public-facing project despite the limitations imposed upon us by COVID-19. I am happy to discuss this assignment with you one-on-one if you find yourself feeling that would be helpful!
Audience
The Kit Marlowe Project is an internationally recognized, public digital humanities resource. Your primary audience is comprised of undergraduate and graduate students looking for reliable information about Christopher Marlowe’s life, times, works, and contemporaries.
Teachers also use the site’s teaching resources and look to your entries as examples of work their students might also be able to do!
You are the experts setting the examples!
Schedule
- Plan of Attack Due in GoogleDocs. Share your topic and an annotated bibliography of at least five resources with me on GoogleDocs. Two sources must be scholarly. I will give each of you feedback on your submission.
- In-class Site Build. I imagine much screen sharing as we troubleshoot the inevitable complications that arise whenever one uses technology in the classroom. Don’t stress! We’ll roll with it!
- Submit for grading on Blackboard. Submit a document containing the text you posted, any bibliography entries, your initial plan of attack, and a link to your private page on the site.
Where to start? Digital Commonplace Books!
Review our shared class commonplace books and find a topic that interests you! One of our primary goals this semester has been to learn via exploration, by researching a topic related to a given day’s readings. You have become adept digital spelunkers and will now have the opportunity to develop a line of inquiry that you wish to learn more about.
I encourage you to choose a subtopic from that you plan to research for your Synthesis: Commonplace Book Assignment, or to develop material you shared with the class for your Commonplace Book Presentation. Please do not think of our assignments as mutually exclusive! They have been designed to help you develop and explore lines of inquiry that capture your imagination in depth, over time, and in the context of your evolving understanding of early modern studies.
Writing Resources
Rams Write, a student-generated writing resource guide can help you write a strong thesis statement, choose active over passive voice, and fix common grammar problems. You can also learn how to use Voyant Tools to revise your essay and avoid the kiss of death: repetition. (By the time you write this essay, we may also have a handy citation guide!)
Revising Prose, by Richard Lanham. This blockbuster film will help you condense your prose to write concisely and clearly in YOUR voice. It is dated and has some pretty hokey music, but there is no better resource out there – yet.
Please note that all of the foregoing teaching resources have been authored and should be cited accordingly. The Kit Marlowe Project by Kristen Abbott Bennett is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.