• Phase 1 (Five Tools)
  • 10% based on your individual blog posts
  • 5% for your team’s oral presentation if you opt for this in writing
• Phase 2 (Five Acts)
  • 15% based on your individual blog posts
  • 15% based on your group’s oral presentation, or 10% if you opted to take 5% for your Phase 1 oral presentation
• Participation
  • 10% based on your comments on other people’s posts throughout the term

Team Arrangements

The class has been randomly divided into five teams (A, B, C, D, E), each of five students. In addition to having a group letter, you have also been assigned a corresponding digit between 1 and 5; your digit will not be needed until Phase 2.

To view your letter and digit, click here.

For Phase 1, five teams of five will be assigned a letter, A-E. Each letter signifies a tool that will be the focus of the team’s project:

A: WordHoard
B: Tapor
C: WordSeer
D: Voyeur
E: Monk

Teams will learn the advantages and the disadvantages of their tool and how to effectively use it. Each team will then apply their specific tool to the same section of Hamlet, 3.4. Work should be divided equally. After three weeks, Teams A-E will present before the class their insights into the passage found through the use of their tool. The presentation need not be longer than 10 minutes. (See below for details.)

For Phase 2, new teams will be formed. Instead of Teams A-E, students will now form Teams 1-5, using the original digits that were assigned to them at the start of Activity 1. All students with the same number will form the new teams. The team number (1-5) corresponds to the numeric act in Shakespeare’s Hamlet that each team will analyze:

1: Act 1
2: Act 2
3: Act 3 (leave out 3.4)
4: Act 4
5: Act 5

Each student will bring to the team their expertise in the tool s/he specialized in for Phase 1. This combined effort, the use of five tools by five different experts, will be applied to the designated act in Hamlet. How the work is divided among each member of the team is at the team’s discretion; possibilities include dividing the passage equally by lines, by theme or by speaker.

After three more weeks of work, Teams 1-5 will present before the class their insights into their assigned act of Hamlet illustrating what the tools offered, supported by examples. The presentation need not be longer than 20 minutes. (See below for details.)

Blog Posts

For detailed guidelines and grading rubrics, both for your five blog posts and your comments on other students’ posts, click here.

Oral Presentations

Grading Rubric  |  Schedule

For both Phase 1 and Phase 2, Powerpoint and other visual aids are not necessary, but can be used to supplement the information provided orally by your team.

Phase 1

The presentation component of Phase 1 is a 10-minute oral presentation on each team’s digital tool. The presentation should explain how your tool helped you to analyze 3.4, and led to new understandings. The aim of the presentation is to ensure that your classmates understand what your specific digital tool does, as well as what analysis of the text it enables.

You should not only offer your analysis, but also describe the process your team went through in reaching your conclusions. Demonstrate a clear understanding of the tool, and address both its capabilities and limitations.

For full marks, the team will deliver a concise and comprehensive presentation. Do not simply list your findings. Help your peers to grasp what you found and how you found it.

All students must speak during the presentation, but the division of speaking time is up to the team. It is important that each member address his/her contribution to the process and role in the project’s completion. It is also important that all five students put equal work into the preparation of the presentation. This will be enforced and checked through the team contract and peer evaluations.

Phase 2

The presentation component of Phase 2 is a 20-minute oral presentation on the analysis of your assigned act in Hamlet through the use of all five tools. The presentation should explain the assigned act as you now understand it through the use of the five tools.

The presentation may be set up any way that your team wishes, but you must address the unique capabilities of all five tools. A conclusion should come at the end of the presentation, comparing the five tools and providing a unified understanding of the act.

You should also discuss why these insights could not be gained from a traditional (non-digital) close reading of the text, and how the digital humanities offers effective methods for analysis.

Again, all students must speak during the presentation, but the division of speaking time is up to the team. It is important that each member address his/her contribution to the process and role in the project’s completion. It is also important that all five students put equal work into the preparation of the presentation. This will be enforced and checked through the team contract and peer evaluations.