Yesterday morning we ran three panels on digital teaching methods for early modern studies, sponsored by the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies. Great presentations by Michael Ullyot, Tom Lolis, Sarah Neville, Tara Lyons, Jason Boyd, David Stymeist, Patricia Fumerton, Eric Nebeker, and Christine McWebb. We generated some good discussion and I got to talk about My boy Tarlton. I’ll post more info later, but it was particularly gratifying to hear another speaker in an unrelated session refer to our work (never had that happen before!)
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To’ings and Fro’ings
Successfully avoiding marking essays today by:
1) Writing frantically – REED article, ISE proposal, RSA presentation.
2) Applying a new theme to the blog (tired of the dark brown background).
3) Adding a new tagline: “Study as if you were to live forever; live as if you were to die tomorrow.” Ascribed to St. Edmund of Abingdon. Truer words and all that.
4) Updating The Tarlton Project blog with “Talking About Tarlton” post.
5) Squeeing to be included in the March edition of ProfHacker’s Teaching Carnival for the #DigitalBard A Midsummer Night’s Dream module. Thanks to Katy Crowther for the nomination!
And with that, it’s back to grading.
Teaching Tarlton: success!
For my fall ENGL1102 course in City Comedy I assigned students to produce a collaborative digital edition of Tarlton’s Jests. I was curious to see how these anecdotes would work for an undergraduate, non-English major audience. I also wanted to explore how strong a connection could be made between the Jests and a study of early modern English drama. It made sense to me, but I’ve been so immersed in the idea that I wanted a litmus test to confirm my expectations.
Course Blogs: Commenting Privately on a Student’s Post
Rebecca Burnett and I had a conversation about the nature of commenting on student blog posts. As instructors, should we have the option of making a private comment – viewable only to the student author, or should all comments be viewable to all students? There is an argument to be made for complete transparency in a course blog. I believe there are situations, however, where dialogue between an instructor and a student might benefit from a degree of privacy. The example that comes immediately to mind relates to marking a post. In the past, I have returned what I believe to be confidential communication regarding assignment feedback and grading to students through an external medium (email, rubrics uploaded to T-Square’s dropbox, emma, etc.). And yet I have thought it would be preferable for students to be able to read my feedback inline with their posts. I just wasn’t sure how to accomplish such a thing without making this confidential feedback publicly available. [Read more…] about Course Blogs: Commenting Privately on a Student’s Post
The semester at an end
I plowed through marking and submitted final grades yesterday. I should be overjoyed but have that strange feeling that I’m not doing something I should be … some sort of post-grading stress.
Overall it was a good semester. Students were on the whole enthusiastic and responsive – which made it more gratifying. Considering I threw them in the middle of the pool with non-Shakespearean early modern comedy and City Comedy, they might as easily have staged a riot (I think they came close when we read Bartholmew Fair).
I haven’t yet read the course evaluations, but the feedback I received from many students was that their favorite part of the course was working on the Tarlton’s Jests Digital Edition. They rose to the challenge of transcribing a hard-to-read microfiche of the 1609 edition and many got very creative with their research. Several expressed a wish that we could have spent more time working on the project. Music to a teacher’s ears.
And now I have to get back to finishing that proposal, prepping for MLA, writing that essay … oh, yeah: and buying Christmas presents for all!