Course "practicums" are hands-on, small-scale exercises that ask students to experiment at a beginner's level with the tools of the digital humanities. Classes 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 in the course each include a practicum that should be completed before class.  (Students have a choice of either the class 7 or 8 practicums.) Typically, a practicum asks students to try out a digital tool and method, then to leave an interesting "souvenir" on a page they create on the Student Work site for this course.  The "souvenir" can be as simple as a screenshot of, or link to, something created (or found) during the exploration.  (Practicums are required to pass the course, but are not graded.) 

• General Instructions for Leaving a "Souvenir" of Practicum Exercises
• Instructions for Individual Practicum Assignments:
• Class 2 Practicum Assignment - Google Ngram Viewer
• Class 3 Practicum Assignment - Explore Digital Humanities Tools
• Class 4 Practicum Assignment - Explore a Digital "Map" of an Ernest Hemingway Short Story
• Class 5 Practicum Assignment - Text Encoding
• Class 6 Practicum Assignment - Text Analysis
• Class 7 Practicum Assignment - Playing Literature (students have a choice of either the class 7 or 8 practicums)
• Class 8 Practicum Assignment - Changing Literature (students have a choice of either the class 7 or 8 practicums)

Class 2 Practicum Assignment - Google Ngram Viewer

 Go to Class 2 on Schedule

1. Experiment with the Google Ngram Viewer. (See About Ngram Viewer)
2. Create at least one souvenir of your experimentation in the form of a print-out that you bring into class to show.  (Try for an interesting example.)

Class 3 Practicum Assignment - Explore Digital Humanities Tools

Go to Class 3 on Schedule

1. Experiment with at least one tool in Digital Humanities Resources for Student Project-Building--e.g., those included in the TAPoR, Booklamp.org, and Voyant (Voyeur) Tools sites. 
2. Leave at least one souvenir of your experimentation on the course Student Work site (create a page called "Your Name - Explore Digital Humanities Tools Exercise" and put it in the folder Practicum - Explore Digital Humanities Tools).

Class 4 Practicum Assignment - Explore a Digital "Map" of

Ernest Hemingway Short Story

Go to Class 4 on Schedule

1. Read Ernest Hemingway's short story, "Big Two-Hearted River" (1925) [read both parts of the story]
2. Then explore Madeleine Hart and David Hart's Google Lit Trips map representation of Hemingway's "Big Two-Hearted River" (Google Lit Trips require you to install Google Earth on your computer, and then to download a ".kmz" file that overlays someone's handcrafted points of interest, information, links, etc. on top of the Google Earth satellite maps.  Download and install Google Earth; then download and open the Big Two-Hearted River" .kmz file)
3. Think about what mapping adds to, and takes away from, the way we experience and understand Hemingway's story.
4. As a souvenir of your experimentation, either (a) leave one screen capture of what you think is an interesting feature of the Google Lit Trip map of Hemingway's story on the course Student Work site, or (b) describe or sketch an idea for how a map of the short story could be improved to help us understand what is important about the story.   (Create a page called "Your Name - Explore a Digital Map Exercise" and put it in the folder Practicum - Explore a Digital Map).

Class 5 Practicum Assignment - Text Encoding

Go to Class 5 on Schedule

The purpose of this encoding exercise is to engage in just enough elementary encoding of text or other media in HTML to allow all students to engage in discussion during Class 5 about the underlying premises, concepts, and structure of text encoding.)

1. Create a new page for yourself on the Student Work site called "Your Name - Text Encoding Exercise," and put it in the folder called "Practicum - Text Encoding"
2. When your new page is open, select the "Edit" tab in the top menu.  Then click the "Source" button in the editing interface menu to toggle from the GUI (graphical user interface) editing view to the source-code view that allows you to do plain-text encoding. (You can always toggle back to the GUI view for a quick check on your work or as a cheat-sheet for basic encoding of HTML features.) Be sure to "save" your work as you go.
   
    
   
   
3. Using the source-code view as much as possible, create a simple web page with any content, images, and links you wish (subject, of course, to good taste and copyright laws).  The page should include at least the following features:
1. Text formatted in basic ways (as headers, bold, italics, etc.)
2. Text in paragraph structures
3. Text in lists
4. Links
5. A table
6. An image

For tutorials and beginner guides to HTML go to Digital Humanities Resources for Student Project-Building and look at the section on "HTML & CSS." Important: students who are beginners should not be intimidated by this assignment. Use the tutorials to learn the most basic concepts and try the most elementary encoding.  Your experiment doesn't even have to work; it can "fail" in instructive or interesting ways.  (For students more advanced in encoding, try the other encoding exercises included in the instructor's graduate course in the digital humanities).

Class 6 Practicum Assignment - Text Analysis

Go to Class 6 on Schedule

1. Play with one or more of the checked tools ( or ) listed in the course DH Resources > Tools section > Text Analysis section -- e.g., Google Ngram Viewer, Voyant Tools, TAPoR, Poem Viewer, WordHoard. [Pick a different tool from one you have used before in the course; or use one of your previous tools at a more advanced level.] Alternatively, try the topic-modeling tool called In-Browser Topic Modeling.
2. Consult Ted Underwood, "Where to Start with Text Mining?" (2012)
3. Leave at least one souvenir of your experimentation on the course Student Work site (create a page called "Your Name - Text Analysis Exercise" and put it in the folder "Practicum - Text Analysis").

[Students need to do only one of the practicums for classes 7 and 8]

Class 7 Practicum Assignment - Playing Literature

Go to Class 7 on Schedule

1.  Write or sketch a brief idea (1 page or less) for a game approach to literature that you wish existed.
2. Or, write or sketch a brief idea (1 page or less) for a simulation approach to literature that you wish existed.
3. Leave your idea for #1 or #2 on the course Student Work site (create a page called "Your Name - Playing Literature Exercise" and put it in the folder "Practicum - Playing Literature").

[Students need to do only one of the practicums for classes 7 and 8]

Class 8 Practicum Assignment - Changing Literature

Go to Class 8 on Schedule

1. Following up on the concepts about digital "deformance" in the readings for this class, choose a very small sample of humanistic material (part of a text, an artwork, etc.) and, using any of the methods and tools you have encountered in the course, mock up a "sketch" (conceptual, visual, digital, or otherwise) representing--at least in part--how it can be "deformed" in a way that has value.
2. Leave at least one souvenir of your experimentation on the course Student Work site (create a page called "Your Name - Changing Literature Exercise" and put it in the folder "Practicum - Changing Literature").