Dr. Sarah Ficke, DHSI 2012 DigPed Assignment Prompt and Rubric (Draft)
Course: EN 200: Elements of Literary Study
Assignment: Introduction to text analysis through text visualization and tagging
Text analysis is the building block of any English research paper. Consuming a text and analyzing a text
are two different actions, and it can be hard to move from consumption to analysis. The goal of this
assignment is to exercise your analytical skills using digital tools that will encourage you break a text
down into its component parts and examine how those parts work. These tools won’t necessarily
replace your usual methods of reading, but they will give you a new perspective on how we can interact
with literary texts.
There are three steps to this assignment, which build on one another.
Step 1: Voyant tools (http://voyeurtools.org/)
Voyant is a set of tools that pull a text apart and look at it on a word-by-word level. It includes a variety
of ways to look at the text, including a word cloud, a word frequency graph, and a way to view selected
words in their context. The professor will model these tools in class. After that class, your homework is
to go to the Voyant site, paste in the text to Poe’s short story “The Cask of Amontillado” and experiment
with the tools to see what interesting information and insights you can learn from these tools. Write a
blog post explaining which tools you found most interesting and useful (including images or screen shots
of the tools in action as appropriate), and stating the conclusions you can draw about the story’s
elements and message based on those tools.
Goal: Students identify significance of the types, frequency, context of words in a story and think
about what we can learn from examining the story on a word/word pattern level
Step 2: Text tagging
In this step, you will mark up a text using a system of tags in order to define for yourself the structural
and literary elements of the text. As you will discover, tagging is a process that requires you to place
your own interpretation on the text, much as you do when you write. The tag system will be based on
standard practices used by digital scholars, but will not adhere strictly to those standards. The tags we’re
using will identify elements of the text, ranging from concrete structural elements (like paragraphs) to
literary elements (metaphors) to plot elements (climax). We’ll discuss the tagging system in class and
practice using it as a group. After that class, you will go home and mark up the text of the short story
“The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe. Once you finish, you will write a blog post explaining your
rationale for your choices in tagging, focusing on the decisions that were harder for you to make, or
where you feel your tagging became interpretation. You should use images or screen shots of sections of
your code to illustrate your post. You will turn in your complete tagged text separately.
Goal: Students produce a visible analysis of a text that demonstrates their understanding of
basic literary concepts and elements, and how identifying those elements is an act of
interpretation
1
Dr. Sarah Ficke, DHSI 2012 DigPed Assignment Prompt and Rubric (Draft)
Structural elements: paragraphs, sections, chapters
Literal elements: person, place, country, date,
Literary elements: simile, metaphor, image/imagery, personification, irony, symbol, allusion
Plot elements: exposition, rising action, climax/turning point, falling action
Step 3: Analytical paper and reflective blog post
Write a 2-3 page paper in which you bring together the information and insights you learned from steps
1 and 2 (your word visualization and your tagging). Your paper should make an analytical argument
about the story drawing on the evidence you found through steps 1 and 2. Your paper should contain an
introduction, thesis statement, evidence, and conclusions. You will also write a blog post in which you
reflect informally on the way using these tools shaped or changed your typical paper-writing process.
Goal: Students synthesize their digital tool investigations and produce a written argument using
those insights to make your argument
Grading Rubrics
The students and the professor will discuss the rubric in class and collaboratively develop the criteria for
Insufficient, Partial, Competent, and Professional performance.
Step 1 Rubric
Insufficient
Partial
Competent
Professional
Post contains a
description of the
digital tools used,
with relevant
images
Post demonstrates
student’s process
of using the tools
(steps taken,
selections made,
narrowing or
widening focus)
Post makes a
convincing
argument relating
the evidence
gathered from the
tools to the
conclusions about
the story’s
elements and
message
2
Dr. Sarah Ficke, DHSI 2012 DigPed Assignment Prompt and Rubric (Draft)
Step 2 Rubric
Insufficient
Partial
Competent
Professional
Insufficient
Partial
Competent
Professional
Text segment is
completely and
logically tagged
Blog post explains
the author’s
tagging rationale
and discusses the
interpretive action
of tagging
Step 3 Rubric
Paper synthesizes
information to
make an argument
Paper uses
evidence from
tools to support
argument
Paper is wellorganized and
contains smooth
transitions
Paper contains
correct grammar,
punctuation, and
spelling
3