間眅埶AV

I've done four class publication projects now with the Public Knowledge Project, through Digital Publishing in the library. This is both "authentic assessment"--in which students do complex real-world tasks and create a product--and "experiential learning" about editing and academic publishing.

I'm very proud of what the students achieved! ... For instructors thinking of doing a similar project, the second and third ones were less work for both instructor and students. The first one was WAY TOO MUCH WORK, and I wouldn't advise it unless it's the sum total of the course. By the fourth one, I'd learned to trim the workload, but the class was twice the size and the students were mostly third-year rather than about to graduate, as had been the case in my other publishing projects.

 

The first project was in Fall 2019 with Engl 420W: they produced volume one of a serial they named Pope-ular Analysis. You can explore their student-authored and -edited article reviews and research essays here: 

 

The second was in Summer 2020 (during the pandemic) with Engl 427W: they produced a short academic anthology of poems by female-identifying authors writing in English in the Romantic period. You can explore their headnotes, edited poems, and footnotes here: 

 

The third was in the summer of 2021 (still during the pandemic, sigh) in Engl 487W, a seminar on children's literature. All the students wrote personal essays, but because they were personal only about half the class voluntarily revised and copyedited them for publication. You can read them, along with the class's list of books to read and avoid, here:

 

The fourth is Engl 320's Spring 2022 anthology of English poetry on the topic of vice and virtue in the long eighteenth century. It's an interesting grouping of mostly obscure texts the students and I hope to make more visible. Each student chose a poem, researched its author, wrote a headnote, edited their poem, and wrote appropriate footnotes for it. You can read the anthology here: