Assignments

There are two main types of assignments in this class. The first consists of ongoing learning that you can expect to do on a regular, weekly basis. The second consists of more substantive core assignments. These require you to apply what you’ve been learning and to then showcase it on a portfolio webpage you’ll be building as part of this class. As stated in the Course Policies, I will not be using a traditional letter-based grading scheme to evaluate these assignments. Instead, I will be using Canvas to keep track of assignments and provide qualitative feedback (instructions to see instructor feedback in Canvas). Please take any feedback from myself and your classmates into account and make an effort to apply it to your assignments. I might ask you to revise and resubmit an assignment if I feel it is necessary.

Ongoing Learning

🙋 Learning Community

Each of you is expected to contribute to the class learning community. This involves:

• Attend each class on time and prepared to discuss that day’s topics and readings. I don’t expect or require perfect attendance. You do, however, need to be contributing to the classroom community, which is not going to be possible if you miss too many classes. If you need to miss class, please notify Professor Blevins (you don’t need to give me a reason). You are expected to review and complete any material you missed in order to get caught up prior to the next class.
• Actively participate in class discussions, activities, and hands-on workshops. For discussions and activities, this means making observations, asking questions, and responding to peers in order to help the class think together. For hands-on workshops, this means making a good-faith effort to both complete the activity and help your peers complete it if they are struggling.
• Behave professionally and respectfully with each other. You can disagree and push each other to consider other perspectives, but bullying, intimidation, or discrimination will not be tolerated under any circumstances.

📚 Perusall Annotations

We will be using the social annotation platform Perusall for weekly readings. Rather than passively reading on your own, in Perusall you will write comments and questions linked to specific passages of a document. As you read, you will be able to reply to your classmates’ comments as part of an ongoing conversation. Perusall will then generate a holistic “score” for each reading based on a combination of factors, including the number and length of comments, their quality, and your engagement with your classmates (see here for how Perusall determines comment quality). In keeping with the Course Philosophy, I won’t be using these “scores” in a quantitative way to calculate your grade - think of them as a general measuring stick to gauge your annotations.

I acknowledge that not everyone likes this format; however, over many years of teaching I’ve found it to be the most effective way to facilitate meaningful student engagement with readings and each other outside of class. Having said that: you get out of it what you put into it. If you focus solely on “checking boxes” to get a score (post X number of comments, reply “I agree” to Y number of classmates, etc.), it will feel like useless busywork. If you take the time and thought to engage with the reading and your classmates, I promise it will be a much more rewarding experience.

Unless otherwise noted, you should expect to complete a minimum of four annotations per reading in Perusall by 11:00AM the morning of class in order to give Professor Blevins enough time to review your comments before the start of class.

💡 Coding Homework Assignments

You will be completing a series of weekly coding assignments in order to help you learn how to work with data, primarily using the Python programming language. Each exercise will have you apply the skills you learned in preceding classes to help you develop your skills. See more detailed instructions on how to complete these.

Coding Homework Assignments will be due on Sunday of each week.

Core Assignments

🔍 Project Review

Each of you will be writing a review of a data-driven historical project. The project you review can be an academic paper, a piece of long-form journalism, a website, or any other substantive work that focuses on some historical topic and uses data in its analysis or presentation.

Due Sunday, 2/23 by 11:59PM

📝 Data Biography

You will write a “data biography” about a historical dataset that I have selected for you. You will need to put on your detective hats and try to familiarize yourself with the data and its history.

Due Sunday, 3/30 by 11:59PM

📊 Research Project

The major culminating assignment for this course is a research project in which you find or create a dataset that allows you to investigate a historical topic. You will then use Python to process and analyze the data in order to present an argument, interpretation, or narrative based on that analysis. You are free to choose any topic or dataset that you want, but it must be generally historical in nature. The assignment is scaffolded across several stages (proposal, draft, presentation, and final version). See full assignment description for more details on each of these steps, including due dates.

🧑‍🏫 HIST 5261 : Build Your Own Coding Homework

If you are enrolled in the graduate section of this course (HIST 5261), you have one additional assignment: building your own coding homework. One of the best ways to learn a technical skill is to think about how you would teach it to others. Using the coding exercises I have assigned and your own experience completing them, you will build your own coding homework from scratch. You should select some set of Python concepts and techniques and then design a homework assignment that would help a student practice those skills. After you have completed the questions, make a Jupyter Notebook that includes the answers to each question (modeled as if it were a completed homework submission) and upload the file to Canvas.

Due Sunday, 5/11 by 11:59PM

🪞 Self-Assessments

You will be writing three self-assessments in this class spread over the course of the semester. The first two self assessments are short, 2-3 paragraphs submitted on Canvas that should convey to me the areas of the class in which you’ve been doing well (with concrete examples), the areas of the class in which you could be doing better, and what steps you plan to take to address your weaknesses or achieve your learning goals for the remainder of the semester. The final self assessment is a longer, 2-3 page reflection on the semester as a whole that expands on what you accomplished (with concrete examples), any areas in which you struggled or wish you had done better, how you want to apply what you’ve learned in this class to your studies or career moving forward, and the overall grade that you feel you deserve for the class.

Self-Assessment #1 due 3/2
Self-Assessment #2 due 4/6
Self-Assessment #3 Due 5/14