Further assignments will be posted as they are finalized.
As described in the syllabus, I use your participation mark to determine the “-/null/+” part of your grade. Let me explain a little more explicitly how this works.It’s simple. Suppose you successfully complete all the main assignments, but decide not to write a Project Proposal. Congratulations! You have qualified for a B. But what kind of a B?
| If your class participation was: | You get a: | Which ROSI will show as: |
|---|---|---|
| Poor | B- | 72 |
| Satisfactory | B | 75 |
| Excellent | B+ | 78 |
Similarly, perhaps you were only able to complete the Git & Github, HTML & CSS, Javascript and Oral History. Oops! You’re going to get a C. Like your somewhat happier classmate, your final grade will be assigned thus:
| If your class participation was: | You get a: | Which ROSI will show as: |
|---|---|---|
| Poor | C- | 62 |
| Satisfactory | C | 65 |
| Excellent | C+ | 68 |
But Note!
A+ is a special grade. Suppose you complete all the assignments satisfactorily, including the additional “A only” sections of the relevant assignments. Wow! You get an A, great. But… do you get an A+?
| If your class participation was: | You get an: | Which ROSI will show as: |
|---|---|---|
| Poor | A- | 83 |
| Satisfactory | A | 88 |
| Excellent | DEPENDS | DEPENDS |
Even if your participation was excellent, you will only receive an A+ if your work was consistently excellent and occasionally brilliant. So, if you successfully complete all the assignments (great!), and also are a great class participant (thanks!), then I’ll look over all your work and make a value judgment about whether you deserve this rare and precious grade.
Final Note for 2018 – this year, there isn’t really a “D” grade. To pass the course you basically have to get a C. In rare cases I will consider lowering the grading criteria for the “Oral History” assignment to permit a student to scrape through the course.
Your participation mark is a combination of in-class and online participation.
But what makes for good class participation? You might want to start by reading How to discuss a book for history, which has lots of helpful suggestions. Really, please read it – it’s illuminating. But, meanwhile, here are some hints:
- Show up for class
- It’s hard to discuss when you’re not here.
- Do the Readings
- It’s hard to discuss what you haven’t read. I will try hard not to assign too much reading; in return, please try to read it.
- Be Courteous
- Treat your classmates with respect, even when your opinions differ fiercely. Refrain from interrupting others, notice when others have been waiting & let them speak first, and so on. Don’t shut other people down, and frame your comments in a way that invites further discussion.
- Listen
- Pay careful attention when your classmates are speaking; if their ideas seem a little unclear, try to fill in the gaps, either by thinking silently, or by asking friendly, clarifying questions. Try to think about how their positions relate to yours, and, especially, whether you should perhaps change your mind a little based on what they have to say.
- Be Clear
- think about the readings before you come to class, so that your opinions are well-formed.
- Be Brave
- It can be intimidating to speak in class, especially if you have found the readings or the lecture confusing. But you will almost never be alone. If one person is confused, others likely are too. Have the courage to speak up – everyone in the room is likely to thank you. If you are extremely shy in person, then come speak to me and we can try to work out a solution for you.
- Participate in Group work
- Occasionally we will break up into small groups. The same princples apply to group work – I’ll be paying attention.
Our Slack workspace is also a great way to participate. Contribute to the class in Slack by asking good questions, helping out your classmates, and correcting any professorial errors from lecture!
If you can do all of these things consistently, you’re likely to earn a “+”. If you’re not sure how you’re doing, come ask me in a couple of weeks and I’ll give you some feedback.
- Grade
- Comments
If you’re looking for History, Please, follow that link! Your job in this assignment is to tell the class a few things about yourself. In the process we’ll think about a few issues related to digital storage of information, including privacy, interpretation of sources, and data vs. knowledge.
One of the hardest parts of this course for many people is setting up their working environment. In this assignment you will be need to set up your working environment and then use Git, much as we did in class, but this time manipulating the command line.
This may take longer than you think, and it’s due soon. Please get started soon by:
- clicking on this link to get access to the assignment
following the instructions in the file
README.orgin your new repository.
- [ ] Passes General Tests
- [ ] Passes Reflection Tests
- Grade
- Comments:
Due Date: Sept. 26 (2 days later than original deadline)
You do not have to become a coder to do well in this course. However, you will have to be willing to explore technical skills that you might not otherwise develop as a humanities scholar. In this second assignment, we’ll use one of the web’s many excellent self-education platforms to learn the very basics of how web pages work. We’ll then extend that knowledge with a set of slightly more advanced programming exercises.
Web pages are composed of three components: HTML, CSS, and Javascript. HTML provides the structure and content of a web page; CSS controls the style of presentation; and Javascript permits dynamic modification of both. To explore the web from the inside, you need to be a little bit comfortable in all three.
In this assignment you will be introduced to HTML and CSS. The detailed assignment README leads you through a series of skill-building exercises, and provides links to comprehensive tutorial resources. As always, ask for help on Slack; use the new #blog-assignment channel for support/collaboration.
here is the assignment repo-creation link!!
- [ ] Passes General Tests
- [ ] Passes Reflection Tests
- Grade
- Comments
Due Date: Oct. 08
This assignment introduces you to the third and most interesting pillar of basic web development: Javascript.
Due at end of the day on the due date, you can find the asssignment on Github and clone the resultant repository to your laptop.
- [ ] Passes General Tests
- [ ] Passes Reflection Tests
- Grade
- Reflection
- Comments
Due Date: October 25
In this assignment, you will slowly work your way up to manipulation of real web pages via Javascript. This can be a difficult transition, so be prepared for some teeth-gnashing.
Due at end of the day on the due date, you can find the asssignment link on Github, and please be sure to create your own copy and clone the resultant repository to your laptop. (Don’t search out and fork the parent repository!)
- [ ] Passes General Tests
- [ ] Passes Reflection Tests
- Grade
- Reflection Grade
- Comments
Due Date: Nov. 14, 2019
Your next assignment builds directly from our in-class exercise, and should be quite a bit easier to manage, technically, than your last assignment. Essentially, you will repeat the in-class assignment with much greater intellectual effort, but using the same technical framework. The assignment is now online.
- [ ] Code Works
- [ ] Map is Relevant to Essay
- [ ] Essay makes relevant/significant Historical claim
- Grade
- Comments
Due Date: March 30
There is no new assignment link for the Oral History assignment; instead, you will just use the repository you have already cloned, or follow this old link to clone for the first time.
However, you will need to update some of the files in your repository to newer versions that I have since pushed to the main assignment repository. If you followed my instructions, you will not have made any changed to these files, so it should be trivial to pull in my changes by pasting these commands into the terminal (be sure you are in the root directory of your repository when issuing these commands):
git remote add upstream https://github.com/DigitalHistory/advanced-topics.git
git pull upstream masterThis may pop you into a new editor window to edit the commit message. If so, just save it as as is and close; commit should proceed from there. If you have issues, please post them to Slack.
Some more advanced Git command tutorials coming your way soon.
See the README.org file in your own repo or the upstream Github Repo for details.
- Grade
- Comments
Remember that the proper way to create your assignment repository is by clicking on this lick, allowing Github Classroom to do the work for you. (But you should already have done this for the last two assignments, and if you haven’t this assignment is probably not for you!)
As before, please make sure you’ve pulled from the upstream repository before starting work on this assignment. See your own repo or the upstream Github Repo for details.
- [ ] Passes General Tests
- Grade
- Comments