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.