Seminar

The assignment of a grade for participation reflects the central place of discussion in this unit of study. Participation begins, obviously, with attendance, but it requires more than attendance. You need to come to the seminars prepared to exchange ideas about the texts or web sites assigned for that meeting and the topics they raise, to raise questions and to speculate. Your grade for this part of the unit of study does not depend on providing the 'right answers' in the seminars; it will reflect what you contribute to our discussions. That does not mean that you can get a good grade solely by having something to say in class, regardless of what you say. You will earn a good grade for this part of the unit of study by making thoughtful contributions that reflect careful reading and consideration of the questions raised by what you have read.

On-Line

Create a hypertext centred on primary sources relating to a topic in American history chosen by you. Your project will need to provide context(s) for the sources that you present, and to employ a design that makes use of the unique character of hypertext, and of links in particular, to promote understanding and interpretation of your material.

The first stage of the project will involve working with primary sources much as you would in any historical research assignment. You need to bring your sources to the first class. Ideally you should have identified a source or set of sources to work with in the process of completing the web review and site analysis assignments from last semester. The material can be something that is not available at present on the web, or that is only available without any context. You need to take care not to be too ambitious in selecting your sources; material not already on the web will have to be scanned or transcribed, a time consuming process. Creating a series of contexts for even a small document will involve considerable research and writing, even if the source and some contextual material is already available on-line.

In the first three weeks we will work with the primary sources you select to develop the content of your project. First, we will consider how we read particular sources and genres of evidence, and how you might present those approaches and strategies and incorporate them into your design. In the next workshop we will look at editing the sources, identifying what needs explanation -- people, places, references, language, appearance, style. In the final workshop we will identify contexts for your sources: background material necessary to understand them, issues that they shed light on, issues that shed light on them, different interpretations of them offered by historians. From these possibilities you will need to select the material that you think is the most important to understanding the source, and to identify and develop connections and associations among the different elements that you select.

The second stage of the project focuses on the presentation of this material. Your aim is to offer an interpretation of your sources, just as you would in a conventional piece of historical writing, but to do so in a form that employs the properties of hypertext, particularly links. In one sense, this is a question of design: how will you connect -- link -- your source and its contexts? But, as we discussed last semester, the design of a hypertext helps shape the meaning of the material it presents, so in designing your hypertext you are also interpreting your sources. You will have to decide how to respond to the possibilities and problems inherent in hypertext. This will involve resolving issues such as:

• how to construct authority and authorial presence
• how to fit together the multiple components of a site
• how to structure the user's movement and aid their navigation
• what narrative structure to emply
• how and where to incorporate material available on the web

To help you answer those questions we will look at a series of examples of documents in context, beginning with the project that I am working on. They are intended to provide ideas or stimulate you to your own ideas. We will focus on what elements of these sites work well, rather than on what do not. There is also a class set aside to deal with any technical issues that you need help with in order to make your design concept come to life.

To help keep you on track to complete this assignment, are a series of deadlines/check-ins:

• July 29: Have your primary sources
• August 26: Individual Meetings, for which you will be required to prepare a design concept/diagram for your hypertext
• September 16: Progress Reports in class. Youwill be required to prepare a 10 minute presentation that deals with both the content and design of your projecting, and with your progress in implementing the design
• October 28: Reflections on your project, the rationales for your design choices, and the process of implementing the design and completing the assignment

The work prepared for these check-ins will provide the sources for the final element of the project, a brief explanation of your completed hypertext. It should focus on your concept, provide a brief guide to how your hypertext works, and reflect on the experience of doing the project. This explanation is to be handed in with the completed project