Kalani Craig is a digital historian. She writes history and codes tools for digital historians at Indiana University-Bloomington.
This site built with Foundation 6. Kalani Craig, 2024
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Course Meeting: T 3:35-6:05p Jan 7-May 4, 2019 GISB 1106, IUB HIST-A200 29335 |
Professor: Kalani Craig
Office Hours: By appointment on Zoom |
I want you to attempt new skills without requiring that you instantly master all of those new skills. In all categories, demonstrable improvement throughout the semester will be rewarded.
To take full advantage of this mastery assessment process, you should attend class, participate in discussion, project building and peer review, complete response revisions in a timely fashion and demonstrate ongoing effort throughout the semester.
Reflections: 8 short writing encounters (some in-class, some before class, some after class) that will ask you to engage with the readings, visits and visitors in the first half of our semester, in which we get to know the world of digital and public histories. To encourage further risk taking and to encourage mastery rather than completion, these are graded on the depth of your engagement with that week's topic. 16 pts.
Individual project bibliography: This project, due in week 4, will hone your individual research skills by asking you to anchor an annotated bibliography of secondary sources around the object you choose. 4 pts.
Individual project wireframe: This project, due in week 7, will hone your individual research skills by asking you to build what we call a "wireframe", the bones of an exhibit about the object you chose in an easy-to-master PPT format. The wireframe should focus on one historical argument you drew from your research, help guide your audience through the other possible arguments that an object like yours can make, include full exhibit text and an audience activity for your object, and consider the likelihood that there are other similar objects in the community (with references to sources at the IU archives). These will all be contextualized by a secondary source bibliography that is referenced regularly in the wireframe. 20 pts.
Digital history collaboration: The second half of the semester will focus on developing a small-scale group historical project using one or more of the digital tools you’ve encountered to analyze, and present your analysis of, objects from the IU community This collaboration grade will be adjusted based on a 2-page response paper that asks you to defend specific choices you made in your contributions to the group project and on anonymous peer review of your contribution to the project. 40 pts (35 from the group project and 5 from the response paper)
Course engagement: Getting involved in a historical conversation, whether in person or in writing, is the single most important task a historian undertakes. Adding your voice to in-class discussion and providing peer reviews of other students’ projects will help you hone your historical thinking skills by exposing you to alternative viewpoints. These activities will also improve your ability to communicate critiques of your peers’ analytical and writing skills in both oral and written form. Students who attend regularly and do the reading in advance but do not bring written notes to class, contribute to class activities or participate fully in group projects and peer review will earn a maximum of half of the possible participation points. Class disruptions, such as audible talking or cellphones ringing, will lead to deductions from the course-engagement grade. 20 pts.
Attendance: You may miss two classes without penalty. If you know you'll be gone in advance, it's helpful to let me know. Otherwise, I don't distinguish between excused and unexcused for these two absences and I don't need notes. Beyond these two classes, you will lose 2 points for each additional absence. Students with extended or chronic illnesses are not subject to the 2-class penalty; however, these absences will require documentation and makeups for in-class responses will not be offered.
You should treat other course participants, research subjects and instructional staff with respect. Respect is not the same as agreement. Respect means using respectful language when stating your ideas, asking questions or disagreeing with others. In class it means avoiding disruptive behavior (talking to other students outside of discussion, using laptops or cellphones for unrelated work). Smartphones, tablets and laptops are welcome in the classroom, but only when they are used for work directly related to our class inquiry.
If you have a personal issue that interferes with your ability to maintain normal participation in day to day life, there are resources available on campus. Student Affairs can assist with a disability for which you need additional considerations, and CAPS and the Center for Human Growth Counseling Services can help with personal issues in daily life, It's your responsibility to take the first step but we can help.
This course involves a significant amount of public-facing history, engagement with academic and community professionals, and work with real every day people. Your conduct should conform to professional standards that include respect according to the classroom conduct outlined above. You should also be prepared to show up on time at a variety of different places in and near Bloomington's campus but not necessarily in our classroom during our weekly T 3:35-6:05 class meeting. All of our meeting locations are readily visible in the Canvas Calendar.
"Plagiarism—A student must not adopt or reproduce ideas, words, or statements of another person without appropriate acknowledgment. A student must give credit to the originality of others and acknowledge an indebtedness whenever he or she does any of the following:
(Quoted from Code of Student Rights, Responsibilities, and Conduct, Part III, Student Misconduct, Academic Misconduct)
This is the grossest form of academic dishonesty. Plagiarism will result in an automatic failing grade in the course. The case will also be forwarded to the appropriate administrators for disciplinary action. IU-Bloomington general course policies are available at http://registrar.indiana.edu/stu_infopoli.shtml. I do utilize plagiarism-detection software (Turnitin, etc.) when I suspect there has been academic misconduct.
This syllabus has thus far emphasized what you are supposed to do, but we as your instructors have responsibilities too. We will treat you with respect, encourage a comfortable classroom environment, and return your assignments with constructive comments in a timely fashion (barring unforeseen circumstances). We will be in class as scheduled, on time, and will be readily available for office-hours consultations. We will answer Canvas Messages promptly during business hours, again barring unforeseen circumstances, and are happy to schedule additional time to discuss your work, any difficulties you may be having or to answer any questions you may be worried about asking in class. We're happy to talk more about the class but you need to take the first steps and ask. NB: please do note that we are not available after 5 or on weekends.
If you have a learning disability, a chronic illness, a time conflict, or another issue that may impact your involvement in the course, we are happy to accommodate your documented needs. We simply need to know about these issues in advance of any assignments or other work that may be affected. Please come see us as soon as possible.
You are encouraged to make an appointment with the instructional staff to discuss papers and/or issues raised in class.
| File IMG_4187.JPG could not be included in the ePub document. Please see separate zip file for access. |
Charles the Bald (?), 9th century freestanding bronze statueBetween the the equestrian statue of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (cast in around 175 and now on the Capitoline Hill) and the Equestrian Statue of Gattamelata (by Donatello, dating from 1453), only one freestanding bronze statue is still extant. This statue of either Charlemagne (d 813) or his grandchild Charles the Bald (d 877) is a mere 8 inches high, compared to the 14 feet heights of both Marcus Aurelius and the Gattamelata. These statues are a stand-in for the ways that the Middle Ages are treated as in between (and inferior to) the Roman Imperial period and the Renaissance, although the general labelling of the "Dark Ages" has been refuted by scholars who point out major scientific advances like the breaking of white light into a spectrum by Roger Bacon, etc. |
| Converse | map | personal polaroid pictures | Shoes |
| Dance shoes | Mugs | phone | Shoes |
| Doc martens | Multi-colored light bulb | photos from home | Stuffed Animals |
| feminist pins | my Vans | Pin | sweatshirt |
| Flags | necklace/ring | Poster | Television |
| Guitar | Necklaces | Pottery | Timberland Boots |
| Hoosier Cabinet | Old photographs/scrapbooks | Record Player | Vitamin Gummies |
| IU shirtfor gameday | Origami books/paper | Refrigerator | Wall Phone |
| Letters | Paintbrushes | Ring | Wallet |
| letters | Pants | Rings | water bottle |
| Letters | weighted blanket |
Hi, PERSONNAME!
We hope you're enjoying your time at IU. Unfortunately, our time here doesn't last forever. I'm in a history class doing research about objects that are important to IU students so we can preserve your place in IU's history.
We would greatly appreciate if you could contribute to the history of IU's student body by bringing us your important object to digitize. For some ideas, check out what our class has done already at http://dighist.indiana.edu/historyharvest/
If you're willing to participate, that means two things:
We have two times available: Tuesday March 19 3-6 and Friday March 22 4-6. (If neither works, please let me know and we can figure out a time.)
Did we mention there will be pizza?
Hope to see you there,
PERSON NAME
Resources from MCHS
Things to consider for our history harvest
How do we use maps, networks and text mining to analyze and contextualize history?
How do we use these in our exhibits?
For more on digital history:
Required readings
A variety of readings are drawn from our 1 single purchased textbook, academic sources like JSTOR, websites like history harvest and scanned sources in Canvas Files. All readings are required and should be complete before class begins on the date the reading is assigned in the Course Calendar.
There is a single purchased textbook (~$10) that provides basic context and the themes that make a historian a historian: Nigel Raab, Who is the Historian (available at the bookstore or as an ebook at https://www.amazon.com/Who-Historian-Nigel-Raab/dp/144263572X/). One of our first tasks will be to look at Raab's table of contents and figure out where his work is appropriate to us as a class, so you'll be involved in assigning reading to yourself.
How to read
History is primarily about argumentation, but a basic understanding of chronology and detail recall is also necessary. Figuring out *which* details to recall is easier when you have a framework. That means the best way to deal with a historical source is to read it twice.
The first pass is a quick skim. Look for important and/or repeating names/dates/places/events, and themes. Where do these mentions shift from one set of names to another, and how does that help you understand basic structure?
The second close-read pass helps you fill in details, put those details in context, and make more careful decisions about what the author intended his or her audience to do, think, or believe.
Remember: not all historical sources are written, but we can still "read" an image or an architectural plan or a quilt like historians.
Kalani Craig is a digital historian. She writes history and codes tools for digital historians at Indiana University-Bloomington.
This site built with Foundation 6. Kalani Craig, 2024