For my final project for our class, I decided to expand my Omeka page and add more content.  I decided to make a second exhibit that explains the novel adaptations of Pride and Prejudice and give some summaries and explanations of the novels.  I decided to make each type of adaptation into a new page in the exhibit, I think that doing this makes it look more organized and less cluttered.  I also expanded my Media exhibit by separating my content into pages as well.  I also put more detail into each of my items and added more tags making it easier to sort through the items based on time period and different focuses that the viewer might have when looking at my Omeka site.

austen.omeka.net

In order to get my student’s involved with the changing of technology. I want them to be able to understand how these newer tools available to them can be used in a literature class. I decided to use Voyant for my lesson because it was the site that I found would be most interesting to ENGL 101 students. The visual images that they can create with the charts and cirrus on the main page will allow the students to be guided into looking at literary patterns and word choices that authors make when creating a text. I believe that this site was also one of the easier ones to work around and those that may not have much experience with technology will be able to be more comfortable and feel more confident with this somewhat straightforward site.

I decided that this will be a group project, with an individual reflection to be turned in after presentations. I would have students earlier in the semester read Edgar Allen Poe short stories earlier in the semester. I believe that each story has a theme and is part of a genre that the students will be expecting to find the themes show up in the Voyant tool. Each group will be working on a different Poe story. I think that each of his stories are long enough to have some word patterns and usage to be noticed on Voyant, but also not too long that the students would feel overwhelmed with having a long text to work with in a limited amount of time.

Objective: By the end of this lesson, students should be able to comfortably use the Voyant website in order to find literary patterns in a selected text, as well as be able to recognize how themes and word choices influences a way that a text may be read.

Rationale: Students are often told to read a particular text and recognize the occurring themes with the expectations that come with a specific genre. I want my students to actually see the word choices and repetition in a text in order to study the significance of that selection and how it may influence the reader. Often we as readers do not notice when a word is used multiple times in a text. The use of Voyant gives us an opportunity to close read the text with a specific selection of passages or words in mind that was presented to us with the use of this tool.

Procedure:
Monday: Meet with the class and give them a lesson on the technology available in Voyant. Show a demonstration on how to use the site. This includes selecting a text to upload into the page and explain to the students how the different tools can be used in the site. Also show the students how to omit words from the cirrus, as well as how to make a “favorites” list of words that can be put into a chart. Also show the students how they can export certain parts of Voyant in order to go back to that chart without having to reload all of the text later.

Wednesday: Break the class into four small groups and assign each group a different Edgar Allen Poe story. These are stories that the whole class has already read together earlier in the course. With the familiarity that they already have with the text, they will have an idea of what word selections or themes to be aware of in the text. This class will take place in a computer lab so that each group can work together with Voyant and begin to get familiar with the technology as well as begin their assignment of making a site for their Poe story.

Friday: The students will continue to work on their Voyant sites together in their groups. This class is a workshop so that any group or student that has a question about the technology or assignment are free to come to me for help. The presentations on their sites and findings will take place the following class day on Monday. Each student in the group are responsible to write and turn in a response about the assignment. The response can include how they felt about using the technology, what they found to be interesting with their findings, if they were surprised with the words used in the text (was it what they were expecting, was it limited?), how they could use this technology in the future in their other classes, etc.

Monday: Each group will have about ten minutes to present their Voyant sites and findings to the rest of the class. We will use this time to talk about what they found to be interesting and whether or not they found this technology to be useful with their text. Does it show the genre and themes through the site, or did it show something else that they were not expecting. The students will each hand in their personal responses to me as well.

The readings listed for Tuesday’s class related to racial issues that seem to be overlooked in the development of Digital Humanities. While I think that this is true, I think that there are a few reasons that I can come up with to explain this lack of information. For one thing, I think that DH is still so early on in the development of content and information, that writers are trying using what they know best and the most about as content for their Digital Humanities projects. In an emerging field, I am much more likely to write about authors that have been around for centuries and are well known in my projects than I am to write about authors I am less familiar with. This doesn’t go to say that a specialist in African American literature cannot build their own DH site or post their findings, I just think that it is more likely that many writers write about the “go to” authors and texts that they are familiarized with when building a new type of humanities.

Another reason why I believe that the DH is so “white” is the idea of public domain versus copyright. Public domain is the point when previously copyrighted works are no longer in that stage and can instead be used by anyone in the public without fear of legal measures being taken out on them for the use of the material. The majority of the texts that are in public domain at this moment are texts that were written by white authors. It is much easier to build a site and share ideas in the DH on materials that are available for the public without copyright laws to worry about, rather than having a constant concern that too much of a text is being used that would break a law or cause lawyers or lawsuits to be presented at your doorstep. I personally have made my DH projects in our course on works that are already in public domain. This allows me to use texts that I do love, are easy to get access to, and has enough references and articles published on the materials that I have ample amounts of resources available for my research. The convenience of these texts being available to me for free and without legal issues are much more appealing to me to build a Digital Humanities site on, than texts that I need to second-guess my use of and worry of copyright laws. This also means though that the majority of the resources that I depend on and work with were written by white authors.

I do believe that the whiteness in DH is a problem, but I think it’s one that will work itself out over time and with the availability of texts from other races in the future. This is an emerging field that is still developing. I think that the more DH expands and the more people and authors get involved with this field, the more racial issues and topics will be covered. It’s just going to take more time and involvement for this to happen.

I agree with everything that Sample talks about in his article. The essay is becoming more and more tedious the longer I am in school. I have written so many long essays with endless citations, research, and endless nights for absolutely nothing. Half the essays I had to write for my classes dealt with topics that I had no interest in. There is no chance of me ever wanting to approach these papers a second time to try to find something about them that I can make into a publishable and read paper. I wrote the essay because I had to and it was getting graded. I didn’t care about the topic and my only goal was a good grade. I think that this essay explains that there is so much more that can be done in a Humanities course. It doesn’t always have to be a final assignment that is 10-15 pages long with a works cited.

Having blogs and wikis in class’s means that the student’s thoughts and ideas are getting more acknowledgement than a simple paper than only a professor reads. Their opinions and findings are out for anyone to see. Not only does this give students more encouragement to actually care about their work, but they are conscious of the effort they are putting into their work, and it makes it more fulfilling if the effort you are putting into a course is actually noticed. I had a class where I contributed to an on-going class wiki that had me post two annotated bibliographies for articles on any topic that I wanted. The wiki allowed students to put their articles into categories of topics. Not only was I contributing to this wiki, but I was able to help anyone that needed to further study a topic I was reading into, and I now had at least 50 articles to reference if I decided to begin new research on a topic. This interaction and contributing allowed me to feel like my work was worthwhile, and that it actually mattered. It made me feel better that my work could help someone else, and that it will actually be read by more than one person. I think that Humanities courses could really benefit by branching out further than the typical class essay.

http://austen.omeka.net/

Here is my Omeka site. This is a start to what I hope to expand in the future. I wanted to make a site on different adaptations that were created from Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice. I decided to make my first focus and exhibit on different adaptations shown through visual mediums. I decided to show a television series, a film, and a YouTube series as examples. I may expand this section later to show more than three adaptations.

I plan to make another exhibit in the future on the literary adaptations that were also created. I found some images and examples that I can expand on and talk about, but time (and patience) wise I decided to focus on only the visual adaptations so far in my Omeka experience. I was surprised with how I was able to catch on with this site, it was frustrating for me at the beginning because I had a specific image or visual in my mind on how I wanted my site to look like, that it was unrealistic and caused more problems for me. I decided that I can work on the visual aspect later and after I get a feel for the site more, and instead decided to focus on the content and how I wanted to create my first exhibit. I am happy with my results thus far and hope to come back to this site and expand it further with new information that I am able to gather and discuss.

I found Tanya Clement’s article interesting because it discussed how the Web might be an easier way to learn and find new information, but students are finding it difficult to use it correctly as a way to learn. Anyone can look up a Google page and put in a search term that more often than not leads directly to a Wikipedia page that has all of the information you desire on a topic. Digital humanities goes beyond a simple search though. In the classroom, these students can learn how to create and build new sites and projects that encourage them to learn more about the digital aspect of learning. By having students build their own projects, they not only need to learn the tools for themselves, but they also have hands on experience with the tools. Anyone could read about something on the Web, but actually putting that new information to practice is something that the digital humanities is giving these students. The newer generation of students have this opportunity that students even a few years ago didn’t have. They have this new technology that is constantly changing and more often than not, improving. This is the ultimate time for them to learn these new tools and to understand how to use it while it’s still relatively new, and it encourages them to take it seriously when they can be some of the first in their field to understand digital humanities.

I found the section of students finding their place in the culture as an interesting way to associate their lifestyles to digital humanities. How many blogs are there out there that has someone talking about a certain topic or posting their complaints about a television show, politics, fast food, etc.? Giving these young students a chance to show their ideas and become a part of the culture is a pretty effective way to get them interested in the courses and studies designed around digital humanities. Many people want to have their voices head (or often read on the internet) these courses allows them to actually learn the skills and tools to give their voice a wider audience, as well as looking more professional and put-together if done correctly. The expansion of technology is constant, and I think that the idea of having these courses designed for that concept is interesting to students, especially ones just entering high education. The digital humanities is a chance for the students to gain the knowledge they need to keep up with the ever changing world, and to also allow them to show their work and build new things that others may be too hesitant or even too lazy to do themselves.

The more I use Omeka, the more frustrated I get. It’s no so much about how the site works, it’s more that I have this imaginary site that I want to create in my head and it seems physically impossible to do. I put in new content and I still have doubts how I want to organize everything. I have so much that I want to do that it will cover at least two exhibits with the data and resources that I found. There are so many directions that I can take with this project, but each one I consider falls short or omits something that I think will fit in the exhibit, but could also appear in another one.

I plan to do my Omeka site on adaptations of the novel Pride and Prejudice. Another problem that I’m finding is copyright issues. While the novel itself is in public domain, all of the adaptations are still under copyright laws. I have found some images and excerpts of the novels or information about the adaptations online, but I have to limit myself on what I can post in order to not overstep my bounds. I have this idea in my head on what I want to share, and how I want to explain everything to my readers on the website, but I need to work my way around these laws that are put into place.

I was honestly surprised by the feedback that I received after I showed my presentation to our class. I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go when I first began my attempts on Voyant. I have always loved Jane Austen since I was a child and my mother gave me her edition of Pride and Prejudice when I was about 14 years old. I immediately feel in love with the characters, plot, themes, and story. Even to this day, I make it a point to read the story at least once a year. At first when I began my Voyant assignment, I was just going to use that book. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted it to be a collaboration of Austen’s novels. So I decided to add Emma and Sense and Sensibility into the mix.

I think that the difference in characters, social classes, and themes would give me a wider range of themes to look for in the novels. In Emma, she comes from a wealthy family and focuses more on using her higher level of society to help the people around her to find them relationships. Her focus in the story was more to be a matchmaker, rather than for her to fall in love herself. The themes of love and marriage were still there, but they were for others, rather than her as a main character.

Sense and Sensibility had a focus on the Dashwood sisters who went from relative wealth to a much lower standing in a short time after their father’s death. They needed to learn about themselves given this change of status and how to embrace their new living style. They also wanted to marry for love rather than for money. I think that their change opened their eyes to see what was more important in life, especially with who they fall for. I think that out of these three texts, this is the most emotional of them.

I was happy that my peers enjoyed my Voyant presentation and were interested in what I chose to show them. I would love to continue on in this project and have the time to discover what else I can uncover from the texts that are nearly 200 years old. I plan to take my findings further and continue on in my research, and perhaps write a paper or have a larger presentation what I can show with the new finding I still have yet to discover.

Discussion of Jane Austen

When viewing the works of Jane Austen, readers often look at the romantic aspects of the stories. Austen’s novels follow strong women who meet various characters and develop into stronger characters. However, Austen wrote her stories in the early nineteenth century when women were expected to make advantageous marriages that better their station in life. Each of the characters in the three novels that I selected focus on women characters who eventually meet the men that they marry.

In Pride and Prejudice both sisters, Elizabeth and Jane Bennet meet rich men that they marry by the end of the novel. It was mentioned throughout the novel that women were expected to marry for money rather than love, despite how the two characters feel.

The novel Sense and Sensibility shows the Dashwood sisters who both fall in love with various characters of different financial status. There are also women characters in this novel who base success on wealth and social status. In the end, both sisters marry the men that they love, rather than men that have a higher financial standing.
The final novel Emma is different from the other two because the main character is a wealthy woman and does not have to worry about having a beneficial marriage in order to raise her social status. The character Emma is focused more on finding advantageous marriages for the women around her, rather than herself.

With the expectations of women in this time period, I thought that it would be interesting to see how different words were used in these books that related to not only the financial status of characters, but also how emotions play into the stories. Are there moments when emotions like love and happiness that occur along with the idea of marriage? I feel that the romantic aspects of the novels still keeps the societal expectations of the era in mind. By looking at these charts, I want to consider the choices made in selecting the language in the novels.

This first chart observes all of the novels together and the terms, “love”, “marriage”, “happy”, “poor”, and “rich”. I was curious about the amount of focus given to these specific terms. The novels involve more than these themes, but I think that the fact that all three novels have a strong focus on love and marriage shows that even though the characters and social statuses of the women are different, they share similar thoughts and considerations when it comes to marriage.

To gain a larger focus on all three novels, I also decided to use the same terms for each individual novel in order to see how often these terms are used. I also wanted to see if there is a steady rhythm of the word usage or if certain novels had a stronger focus on the marriage and status themes than others.

Pride and Prejudice

Sense and Sensibility

Emma

I noticed in my research that certain words were used differently in each text. The main example that I found was that the word “poor” was used in Emma more to describe pity or as a term of endearment rather than a social status. This use makes me consider how words can be the same in different novels, but mean an entire different thing based on the context. This Voyant project makes want to look deeper into not only word usage and themes in texts, but also how the context changes based on the story and characters.

I found Mills Kelly’s article interesting because it discusses how much conversation in a classroom can develop with the Google database. Showing students how often a word or phrase occurs through literature in certain points of history encourages them to study the text that they are observing. These maps and phrases follows the trends used in literature and gets the students to think about why one subject may be used more often in one time period over another. I think that this tool gets the students to think more about the history of literature and how it develops and evolves, rather than remaining stagnate with the same words being used over and over.

I have considered how I would use this approach in my own classroom, much like the suggestions in Sinclair and Rockwell’s article. I think that I would give my students each a term and have them focus on one specific time period. This allows them to consider the literature that was published in this time and why this theme may have existed. Not only does it get the students to think about the history, but they need to look into the content published in order to understand why the terms were used and what the meaning really was. This encourages close reading for the students after being introduced to the literature in a distant reading experience. I think that tools like these brings the technology into the classroom, but the fact that it studies codex texts encourages the two mediums to be brought together and still have a large focus on the study of literature.