This article describes a collaborative approach by faculty from Modern Languages and academic libraries at a public, land-grant research institution to design a digital humanities-inflected advanced French course on seventeenth-century French-language literature. Modern languages courses, although represented in digital pedagogy, are not as fully described in the literature as are disciplines like English and history. The approach to material in a Modern Languages department is inherently different from English and history in an anglophone context like the United States in that all subject matter is taught in the target language and developing linguistic proficiency in the L2 is the ultimate goal. Whether it be a language skills course focused on composition and grammar, a culture course, or a literature course, communicative language teaching necessitates a carefully scaffolded approach to maximize individual learners’ linguistic development and achieve programmatic learning outcomes. In Modern Language courses, there is a double concern, first on the course content itself and evaluating texts from thematic, theoretical, or cultural perspectives, and secondly on finding the means to do so linguistically in a language that is not one’s own. For example, reading a novel in the second language is a balancing act between developing an understanding of what is being said in the target language and how it is communicated. Additionally, the L2 classroom builds an immersive community of language users where the focus is on how information (language, concepts, texts) is processed, skills are acquired, and understanding is communicated amongst users of the target language. The inherently collaborative and cooperative nature of the L2 classroom, where meaning is built and evaluated in a community setting, parallels the skills and methods valued in the DH classroom. This focus on meaning making is consonant with approaches explored by new literacies in examining technology as a nexus through which community and meaning converge. While there are inherent parallels between these approaches, pedagogical texts that focus on integrating the digital humanities in, for example, the second-language context are few and far between [Pitman and Taylor 2017] [Cro 2020]. It is problematic that DH in the US has focused primarily and nearly exclusively on implementation in English-only environments given both the diversity of languages and experiences in the country itself, of the student populations targeted by DH in American higher ed institutions, and the purported global, public, open perspective indicative of work in DH [Gil and Ortega 2016].

Steeped in a methodology that values collaboration, creativity, and digital literacy, DH is perhaps most successful in helping students to consider critically the potential for interdisciplinary, cooperative, and generative approaches to cultural and literary studies. This approach seems particularly apt for the L2 classroom. Indeed, both DH and Modern Languages may be characterized as inter- or transdisciplinary in nature with practitioners who draw from the realms of various subject areas like history, literature, art, philosophy, technology, design, etc. [Pitman and Taylor 2017]. This echoes the often-interdisciplinary nature of work in an academic library. Academic librarians balance an expertise in information-seeking behaviors with the discipline-specific research methods of the teaching departments with which they liaise. They work with researchers to weave together information resources and methods from multiple disciplines, such as when guiding a historian through economic datasets. Additionally, academic librarians emphasize the critical evaluation and use of information and, increasingly, work with students and faculty as content creators as well as consumers [Kuglitsch 2015]. L2 educators and academic librarians share a common mission in educating students to the degree that the students can exert their agency over research decisions. Students in an upper-level L2 class who are transitioning into careers or graduate degree programs need to be explicitly aware of themselves as creators of new scholarship. New literacies studies provides context for engagement with literature in an online environment. This multifaceted theory is used to study, among other things, reading online. Most important for an L2 and DH classroom, new literacies explores the ways in which reading, writing, and communicating using technologies reflect the communities that engage in those practices [Coiro et al. 2008]. Knobel and Lankshear particularly focus on the “participatory, collaborative, and distributed, and less ‘published,’ less ‘author‐centric,’ and less ‘individual’” nature of new literacies [Knobel and Lankshear 2014, 98], which strongly echoes DH practices. Given the similarities between the practitioners’ disciplines and the course goals, a DH-inflected class seemed a productive opportunity for engagement.

We introduced students to DH methods and tools that informed their ability to design and create a digital research project. The project, however, presented challenges for the professors. Firstly, at the time of the course, neither of us had any formal training in DH and, given the lack of institutional resources for the same, we undertook a “plucky”  [Harris 2013] DIY approach to learning the tools and designing assignments. We both brought some prior experience with DH to the course, and our pedagogy reflected our understanding that DH was not magical [Gianetti 2017] but a practical means of engaging various approaches to literary analysis. In a previous course drawing on DH offered in fall 2016, the professor co-designed and taught a translation and archival project examining WWII correspondence wherein students developed a Scalar site to share information regarding the archive with interested members of the academy and the public.[1] During that course, the librarian guided students in the research process [Antonioli and Cro 2018]. The digital publishing project revealed the compounding complexities of introducing and completing a DH-project in a second language within the constraints of a sixteen-week class. While creating a tangible product was satisfying, our continued exploration of DH led us to reconsider DH as a series of experiences. The focus in this course, rather than digital publishing as in the previous experience, was to explore tabular data and visualization as a means of enhancing student approaches to textual and data analysis in the literature classroom. Rather than prioritizing the research essay or the final project as the ultimate expression of knowledge, we drew out the research process into an array of smaller, low-stakes assignments and encouraged students to experiment and propose means of analyzing the texts from a perspective informed by both digital and traditional approaches to the material. We were inspired by digital scholars like Katherine Harris (2013), who proposes a practical, hands-on, collaborative approach to implementing digital humanities in the classroom, and Jentery Sayers (2011) whose “tinker-centric” approach also calls for experimentation and freedom to play in the digital classroom. The challenge that had to be considered in design was that students had varying degrees of digital readiness. While technically in the generation commonly called “digital natives”, students were not, in fact, fluent in all technologies, as has been noted by others [Locke 2017] [Prensky 2001]. This meant that any DH activity had to engage and challenge students across the IT skill spectrum.

Despite these challenges, the course was successful in that students not only participated in and reflected upon processes for textual analysis and experimentation but examined ways for designing future projects. This necessitated also considering what their status as students at an institution of higher education afforded them in terms of access, and how they might continue and modify their approaches upon graduation in a professional context. The result was an inclusive and productive experience that underscored collaboration and equitable teamwork in the confines of the classroom to model future work in the field. It should be noted, however, that the output did not necessarily succeed in a traditional sense. Students designed a project that ultimately did not correspond to their expectations, but that moment of flux allowed for productive reflection on project design. Our approach mimicked what Croxall and Warnick have identified as “Failure as Epistemology” [Croxall and Warnick 2016], a pedagogical approach that recognizes and encourages what might be construed as failure in order to offer students an opportunity to reflect on the task, the process, and on questions related to design, user interface, and implementation. Leaving space for failure, for imperfections, for evaluating results that do not correspond to the perceived goals afforded learners the opportunity to develop resiliency and a growth mindset. In this case study, we analyze the productive spaces generated by a DHL2 pedagogy. Below we offer an overview of the pertinent DH and second language acquisition theories and pedagogical best practices that informed our course design; describe the course objectives and projects; and outline the impact that the convergence of DH, L2 pedagogy, and new literacies had on our approach.

While there has been an increase in the attention given to DH pedagogy, termed “digital pedagogy” by many practitioners, the number of resources dealing specifically with DH in the L2 context are scarce.[2] Several books offer varying approaches and practical advice with an overview of tools [Battershill and Ross 2017] [Gardiner and Musto 2015] [Hirsch 2012] and a recent issue of Digital Humanities Quarterly (11.3, 2017) focused on DH undergraduate education. Even so, none of these sources explicitly describe how to implement a DH approach in the L2 classroom. This is particularly troubling given that DH is most effective from a pedagogical perspective when integrated and localized in a humanities course [Cordell 2016] [Antonioli and Cro 2018]. Pitman and Taylor (2017) note a similar lack of examples of DH in the Modern Languages and argue cogently for a “critical DHML approach”; that is, a “hybrid Modern Languages and Digital Humanities framework” (para. 33) that capitalizes on the shared transdisciplinary nature of the two disciplines to examine how DH practices are inflected linguistically and culturally in a global context.[3] Global DH focuses on understanding the heterogeneous nature of digital practices across languages and cultures [Priego 2015] [Gil and Ortega 2016] rather than assuming all digital experiences and encounters parallel those of anglophone cultures, a critical consideration for an increasingly globalized world. This perspective parallels second language student training. Examining cultural artifacts from a critical distance and comparing personal experiences with those described in the L2 cultural landscape are core aspects of the World Readiness Standards developed by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) [American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. n.d.]. This is a practical skill that serves L2 students well as they encounter digital artifacts and consider how the digital is designed and utilized both in L1 (first language) and L2 contexts.

In addition to the lack of scholarship addressing combined approaches to DH and L2 pedagogy, many practitioners come to DH without the training and support offered in large DH centers in R1 academic institutions. DIY and individual ingenuity often guide approaches to integrating DH in the humanities [Harris 2013] [Roued-Cunlife 2016]. Others note that DH is built upon “kludges”, workarounds, and the potential for failure; it is rarely an orderly process [Presner et al. 2009]. This reality conditioned our design, both in terms of the course as a whole and the project in particular. While conceptualizing the course, we were cognizant of the emphasis by some in the DH community that unless someone is building, or designing so that others can build, that person is not actually participating in DH [Burdick et al. 2012] [Ramsay 2013a] [Ramsay 2013b] [Ramsay and Rockwell 2012]. We disagree. While building is an important aspect of DH, much can be gained through experimenting with existing tools, particularly for learners who may not have extensive backgrounds in coding. Additionally, the definition of building could be more widely and inclusively construed to reflect an attention to design and experimentation. This was the focus of our own intervention. A student in their first French class will not begin by reading a text as complex as, for example, the travel diaries of Jean Chardin.[4] Similarly, a student participating in their first DH experience will not reach the heights of a finalized DH project stemming from their own coding and design. We knew that students were not ready to code their own programs, so we adopted an intermediate approach, capitalizing on extant DH tools as Harris suggests [Harris 2013].

We asked students to map an aspect of seventeenth-century Francophone literature, using existing tools like spreadsheets and programs with mapping capabilities. Thus, they worked towards building a map. We demonstrated ways to discover and assess DH tools, drawing our pedagogical approach from our own experimental and self-taught backgrounds in DH. To that end, all DH work was situated in a computer lab. The computer lab ensured that all students had comparable computers and programs. Based on our work with college students, their access to technology is not equal and we did not want there to be a technology gap. While students were asked to do some brainstorming and exploration of DH outside the classroom, all design decisions and actual DH work on the project were undertaken in the classroom. In-class activities ensured that students had ample opportunities to share in ownership and ask questions, reducing the affective filter.[5] Moreover, we emphasized process-focused implementation in our instruction and design. Rather than presenting a completed framework for mapping, we broke down each aspect and walked through the decision-making process with the students. There was not one single way of achieving or defining success; rather, we recognized many such pathways and encouraged students to evaluate tools and research questions with open minds. Through this process, students explored the discrete aspects of a DH project. This resulted in their ability to apply the process of evaluating and questioning to their own future projects.

New literacies and academic literacies formed an important theoretical frame as we navigated the pedagogical and social implications of introducing students to DH within the context of literary analysis. Both theories emphasize the social aspect of literacy practices: the ways in which communities develop particular ways of reading, writing, and communicating, and the ways in which power, authority, and identity impact how individuals encounter and engage with those practices [Hui 2018] [Lea and Street 2006] [Street 2008]. New literacies examines how technology, particularly online environments and their participatory features, impact literacy practices [Lankshear 2011]. Academic literacies challenges educators to make explicit the literacy practices of a discipline, in particular how students will engage in those literacy practices within the specific context of an institution or a course [Lea and Street 2006], a particularly productive perspective given the emphasis on the utility of explicit discussion of acquisition in L2 contexts [Bueno-Alastuey and Agulló] [Cohen and Macaro 2007] [Graham et al. 2011]. We wanted students to not just learn to use a technology, but to understand how that technology could be applied to their literary analyses as scholars of French literature as well as the impact of these mediums on their engagement with texts and artefacts.

In drawing out the social implications of DH, we emphasized the collaborative nature of the discipline through project design. We were influenced by movements such as the UVA Scholars Lab Charter (2016) and UCLA’s Student Collaborators Bill of Rights [Di Pressi 2015] that exhort creators to think carefully in terms of power structures and time constraints on students. To that end, we approached the material from an inclusive perspective, intending for the students to become fellow scholars, not laborers. We selected a joint mapping project which resonated with the course topic, “The Francophone World in the Seventeenth-Century”. All students in the class contributed to the same project and thus needed to agree upon a research question and an appropriate method to study, or map, that question. As educators, we forefronted discussions of applicable academic practices and how we were hewing to or deviating from those practices within the confines of our class. For instance, we knew the DH project would not be finished during this course. Rather than treat this as a research failure, we discussed the reality of research outside a course: it often takes much longer than the few weeks allotted a research assignment within a class and involves experimentation, failure, and reassessment. Engaging in a collaborative DH project afforded students the opportunity to practice their discipline’s literacies, including testing and challenging each other’s assumptions about what are important research questions and what methods to employ in order to investigate those questions.

This was a hybrid course designed for two populations: advanced undergraduate French majors and graduate students at the master’s level who needed a general, survey-like overview of the literary production of the seventeenth-century in the French-speaking context. The course, “The Francophone World in the Seventeenth Century”, examined the literary and cultural production of the period as well as the first phase of colonial expansion, its historical and cultural implications, and the way in which French national identity was constructed and represented in art and literature. Given the need to serve as a survey, the course material was organized chronologically. All materials were distributed through Canvas, the university’s course management system, using freely-available texts in the public domain, drawing from either the Bibliothèque Nationale Française’s online catalog, Gallica, or Wikisource.fr. In order to tease out implications of French identity, we read several works that dealt with the representations of other nations (ex: Spain in Corneille’s Le Cid) and explored the significance of the same. Themes explored included travel and cartographic representations of space and emotion (for example, the Carte de Tendre of Madeleine de Scudéry) as well as the construction of both national and individual identity. Student work was carefully divided. In class we focused on both reflective activities and discussions of the literary texts (and various theoretical approaches thereto) as well as all DH work, presented as lab work that necessitated class time due to its inherently collaborative nature. Outside of class students completed readings, conducted research (bringing results to class), and reflected on work done in class. The rubric for the DH project (Appendix), comprising 15% of the total final grade, emphasized teamwork, professionalism, collaboration and the non-finite nature of the project itself, characteristics endemic to the best practices of productive members of the scholarly community and society as a whole.

Important in the course design was the institutional reality in which we teach. Ours is a large, land-grant university that plays a crucial role in extension activities across the state, related primarily to agriculture. The public nature of DH work is particularly beneficial as it coincides well with the primacy of public accessibility to research in our institution. Both of us believe strongly in the need to prepare students as engaged scholars and citizens who are ready to participate in a range of contexts upon graduation. With this in mind, an important aspect of this course was to explicate not only the ways in which public, digital databases facilitate access to early modern materials, but how digital archival methods are imperative to maintaining the same, and the professional opportunities that exist for those with this type of skill set. We wanted our students to see the type of research they started in this class as feasible outside the academy. Many students in the humanities will find jobs in K-12 schools, museums, libraries, small companies, and other organizations without access to the databases and software made available to them at a large public university. Digital humanities projects that leverage free or publicly accessible tools provide students with resources and skills that they can apply in a range of professional contexts. Additionally, many free or basic tools (like spreadsheets) serve as the foundation for more advanced digital tools that they may choose to explore at a later date.

The learning goals for the course reflected at once the subject matter objectives as well as the desired linguistic proficiency outcomes for this level of language learner. They were: (1) describe the works examined, their historical context and the importance of said works in relation to the themes, principle figures and events of the seventeenth century; (2) conduct literary analysis of and research into the works studied across a variety of genres (novel, drama, poetry, letter-writing, travel literature, etc.); (3) identify what are the digital humanities, describe the criteria of a DH project and create a digital map of one aspect of the course as designed and selected by the students; (4) demonstrate advanced spoken and written French skills (ex: compose a research paper, present one’s research findings professionally, contribute to course discussions in a professional and respectful manner, etc.). These goals parallel the student learning outcomes of our Modern Languages department and of the field as a whole, reflecting characteristics of advanced- and superior-level proficiency in all skill areas (reading, writing, speaking, listening) as defined by ACTFL (American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages) as well as enhanced cultural analysis and awareness. Through carefully scaffolded assignments, students achieved these outcomes. Each reading and project was organized along process-oriented lines; that is, the focus was to learn how to go about participating in the educo-professional goals of the course. Daily work included brief interactive presentations and sharing preliminary research on readings assigned, addressing questions raised by students regarding the texts, analysis of primary and secondary sources, drawing parallels between texts, and performative/creative activities (including imitating the writing style of authors, performing dramatic readings, or role-playing scenarios inspired by the readings). Given the lab setting of the course, we often made use of the Google office suite to share analyses, data collection, or creative endeavors.

One of the primary challenges we faced was the question of language. As an advanced French seminar, it was imperative that students work on developing proficiency in the target language. However, we had trouble identifying readily-available DH tools in the target language (Voyant Tools being a notable exception) because many DH tools are natively developed in English and the library sessions needed to be in English.[6] Additionally, we found it challenging to locate examples of DH projects that were French-language at a level that was accessible to students and illustrated concepts of mapping and literary analysis. Therefore, we had to think carefully about how to productively promote and facilitate linguistic development and acquisition in a range of contexts, including those sessions focused on DH. This was a rewarding aspect of the course design as it led to a practical skill-set focused on using the L2 in technology discussions that do not frequently present themselves in a French-language or literature course. Students learned to discuss literary/cultural topics and the use and applicability of digital tools in the target language. They negotiated with one another on questions of design and implementation, learning to discuss digital humanities both in the L1 in sessions with both faculty members present and in the L2 in discussions facilitated by the professor.

Throughout the course we walked through strategies for collecting data as well as designing and conducting research, focusing on scaffolding these complex processes and explaining the rationale for each of these steps. Students experience technology on a spectrum; what is inconsequential to one student can become an impassable barrier to other students, but some barriers can be reduced if instructors explicitly discuss them with students [Kearns 2013]. We broke down digital humanities projects in smaller steps so that they could be completed in-class in a communal and supportive setting, approaching all steps of the project as acts of co-authoring between the faculty and students. Such an approach embraces the tenets of the UCLA Student Collaborator’s Bill of Rights [Di Pressi 2015] and the UVA Scholars’ Lab Charter (2016) which recognize the potential for power differentials and the attendant labor issues that may arise in pedagogical settings.

Building on our discussion of labor and accessibility, we considered whether our students would have access to selected tools and resources after they completed their degrees and left the university setting. Rather than selecting software or programs that required subscriptions, we chose tools that were free, but did not have all of the features available from purchased software. This decision allowed us to focus on fundamentals that could be transferred across fields, rather than teaching the specific features of a particular application. We decided to focus on open access to tools and readings early in the course design. This foresight proved opportune as we found ourselves balancing the benefits of free and open access against hidden or unanticipated trade-offs. The course readings and all software were free and open access, with the exception of some databases and books available through the university library (e.g. MLA International Bibliography). Our commitment to public scholarship and open access often meant an increased labor burden for the faculty, either in preparing for the course or supporting the DH tools during the semester. Had we not begun planning the course months in advance, the reality of the time investment necessitated could have derailed our course goals. We discussed in class the ability to access materials regularly throughout the semester, a reality that surprised students as they had not considered the ramifications of researching outside an institutional context.

Despite a university subscription to the citation management system RefWorks, we decided to use Zotero which offers a free, basic account and supports multiple users collaborating in shared group libraries. These features supported our goal of introducing students to tools for public scholarship. A RefWorks subscription includes technical support, but Zotero does not. Our library only supported RefWorks at that time due to budget constraints. This meant that we assumed all troubleshooting for Zotero and students contacted us directly, without the option of using our library support services; this ad hoc support is common to DH endeavors [Posner 2013]. We also hit an unexpected cost in regards to the group library we created in Zotero because it exceeded storage limits and requiring the group library owner to purchase additional storage. This proved a lesson in the limits of “free”. In the classroom, while the introductory day highlighted a range of reactions, from highly confident to somewhat tentative, students began using Zotero for this and other classes within days and reported finding the program both useful and easy to use.

Another risk of using free or open access tools is that they are reliant upon a person or institution providing continued access to and support of the tool. The stability of a tool is affected by continued grant funding or institutional support [Boyles et al. 2018] [DH Berkeley 2019] [Zhang et al. 2015, 370–1]. For instance, Google offered the program Fusion Tables as a data visualization app with mapping features. This relatively simple tool allowed us to use spreadsheets and metadata to map locations from the course readings. Multiple users could add and edit data simultaneously in a spreadsheet created in Google Sheets, allowing students to quickly build a shared dataset during a class session. The data was then connected to Fusion Tables and we determined what points to map and display. However, in late 2018, Google announced that Fusion Tables would be “turned down” as of December 2019 and that maps and other programs using it would no longer function [Google 2018]. Fortunately, most mapping tools we identified work with common csv files, which can be easily backed up and saved, even if Google “turns down” Sheets in the future. Creation and maintenance of a DH project necessitates ongoing access to appropriate tools. Whether that means paying an annual subscription or identifying, as we did, the most portable and common file type as your baseline for data sharing, depends on the resources available to the individual project managers.

The fact that many of the primary texts for the course were old enough to be out of copyright and in the public domain allowed us to assign free digital texts available through sites like Gallica, limiting expenses for students. One challenge to using texts in the public domain is the orthographic differences between early modern and contemporary printing practices. Where a critical edition will standardize spelling and grammar, there may be more variability in an earlier edition, adding complexity to the act of reading. This led to a consideration of the benefit of accessibility and cost-effectiveness for public domain texts against losing the critical apparatus, such as biographies, cultural contexts, and annotations, available in scholarly editions. Opting for the free texts inspired a productive discussion with students regarding the nature of the edition — the benefits and limitations of freely-accessible materials, the question of copyright, and the ways in which scholars put together a critical, annotated edition. However, this also meant that significant time was spent preparing introductions, designing activities that asked students to complete preliminary research prior to reading, and discussing strategies for interacting with texts (including identifying the types of things one might look for while reading that would be annotated in a critical edition). Counter to DH conversations of new ways digital texts can inform our understanding of a primary source [Latham 2004] [Webb 2007], we noted that digital texts, particularly the texts available in the public domain, were often editions that did not include the rich apparatus available in modern editions. By placing the French texts in a new, digital context instead of the accustomed print edition, we created an environment in which students had to think about the practice of literary criticism more consciously. Because these texts were not accompanied by a critical apparatus or annotated for readers, students had to take on the work of deciphering the text and clarifying textual references without the aid of a critical edition.

Flexibility was key in our conception of the DH project in order to facilitate a low-barrier of entry to students and reduce the affective filter. This practice ensured that there was always room for student ownership over the project. Because it was treated as a lab experience, students could call upon the group and the instructor to facilitate work and respond to questions. The value of this type of experiential, hands-on, skills-oriented approach was that it capitalized on active, engaged and reflective practices to promote careful consideration of DH implementation. For example, rather than front-loading the DH activities, creating a DH module, or otherwise focusing only on technologies, we paced the introduction of technologies to coincide with specific points in the research process. We introduced the concept of metadata early in the semester while learning to use Zotero, particularly the tag function, in preparation for creating annotated bibliographies. We revisited metadata when studying digitized maps and saving the maps’ details to Zotero, this time focusing on the unique data points needed to cite across media and generate a database. Later in the semester, we focused more fully on metadata in order to create maps using Google Fusion Tables and for our final project of mapping relationships in the targeted corpus.

Moreover, while copyright in relation to the primary materials used in class was not in question, significant time was devoted to the discussion of copyright and ownership of critical and individual scholarship as part of the library lessons and class discussions. Students, through DH, came to identify themselves as both content users who needed to acknowledge and cite sources and content creators contributing to scholarship. We explored copyright and authorship in a variety of ways, starting with a series of online lessons from the New Literacies Alliance (NLA) [7] project: Question Authority[8], Citations, and Scholarly Conversations[9] (see these and all lessons at www.newliteracieslliance.org). The lessons are grounded in the Association of College and Research Libraries' (ACRL) Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education (Framework). The Framework establishes knowledge practices and dispositions indicative of the critical evaluation of and engagement with information. The practices are organized into six core concepts, or frames, and each frame identifies how researchers, from novices to experts, navigate those practices. Most relevant to our work was the Scholarship as Conversation frame, as it includes concepts ranging from crediting others’ work to recognizing that any given avenue of research is part of a larger, evolving conversation. After these introductory lessons, we returned to the question of authority regularly during the course, recycling insights into authorship and discursive practices both thematically in terms of the texts studied and practically in relation to students' own work.

Throughout the semester, we focused on the nature of authority and authorship. Because the NLA lessons could be embedded in a course management system, we assigned them as homework to be completed prior to specific class periods when we would be introducing either related technology or research practices. Requiring the lessons as homework established a leveling platform whereby all students in the class were exposed to the same concepts and activities. They also had time to reflect on these concepts prior to in-class discussions about research as an ongoing process in which they could participate. Throughout the course, students were identified as content creators with the authority to participate in a larger conversation due to their adherence to scholarly practices in literature. Students gained familiarity with the research process and increased their confidence in their own voice. Because this course was designed to prepare students to conduct original research and analysis in seventeenth-century French studies while learning about diverse professional opportunities in the field, the NLA lessons were particularly effective in exploring how authority was constructed in various discourses. They offered an opportunity to bridge classroom activities with professional practices. We underscored a range of post-graduate experiences, from teaching to editorial to archival work in diverse cultural institutions. Additionally, we pointed to the transferability of the skills students acquired in the course to a variety of professional contexts across a range of disciplines.

External to the course planning was the serendipity of the community that developed among the students over the semester. Many of the students in the course had worked with us in prior courses. At least two students were in the prior DH-infused course referenced above. However, in this course, the students developed a back-channel communication method using an app where they could privately discuss the course itself. This turned out to be an immensely positive outcome as it afforded them a private space to discuss questions related to the course and express concern, frustration, or excitement and enthusiasm regarding the course content without the faculty involved. This was an organic development stemming from student initiative with the positive effect of creating and supporting the developing community. It also enhanced teamwork because the students became accustomed to discussing the class itself and the content in a less-formal setting and advocating for each other. For example, if a student had a concern but was nervous about emailing the professor, another student would volunteer and reach out to clarify the question and then report back. Another unexpected effect was increased enthusiasm regarding the materials studied; students were so keen on the material, particularly Corneille’s Le Cid, that they asked the professor to work with them to put together an abbreviated performance of the play in French for the campus community.[10] These student-led initiatives further enhanced the course environment. There is not necessarily a way to implement or replicate this type of organic extracurricular contribution, but we believe that the model of collaborative engagement in the classroom did facilitate and favor these developments. In particular, the professor and the librarian modelled collaborative approaches in teaching the DH content and in exploring concepts such as new literacies, research strategies, and the history of the critical edition. This cooperative approach to instruction illustrated the collaborative nature of DH projects and of the research process and was reflective of the community building inherent in the L2 classroom. The students were developing linguistic proficiency and content mastery (both literary and digital) along parallel lines; while negotiating meaning, they negotiated alternative means of communication and engaged in critical and supportive ways with the material. The emphasis on collaboration in DH enhanced community building while the L2 focus on second-language production underscored opportunities for civic engagement, peer mentoring and advocacy, and developing empathetic, reflective practitioners. Students advocated for their peers, sought to ensure equal access to material and interrogated their own processes and the tools selected in a way that reflected the true potential of a global, linguistically diverse, DHML.

Given the focus on cartography and its potential for encouraging considerations of space, authority, and representation, mapping was explored as both a form of visualization and a theme of study in the course. As the class read through the works, we made constant reference to maps, both contemporary and of the period, to render concrete the geography in play in the literary works. We also discussed the act of mapmaking and how modern advances in technology have deeply changed generative practices in the field of cartography. We curated and presented several DH mapping projects that the students explored in-class and we explored how to read different types of maps across varying mediums. As with the primary source texts discussed above, cartographic techniques in the seventeenth century compared to contemporary maps required learning new textual and visual cues. By focusing on digital maps and visualization techniques, students encountered not just new artefacts (maps) but artefacts that they could manipulate to change how they understood a culture or a primary text. Digital maps, such as ones we explored through the David Rumsey Map Collection, allowed zooming and panning which in turn facilitated “close” readings in geospatial contexts. The DH maps we explored contained features like timelines, connections between individuals, or notes imparting cultural context, and examined how these transform our interpretation of a text or map.[11]

In order to provide a sample of the potential for mapmaking, the professor and the librarian prepared a tabular datasheet of Jean Chardin’s voyages to and from Persia as the students were reading selections from his travel memoirs, Voyages de Monsieur le chevalier Chardin en Perse et autre lieux de l’Orient (ed. Philip Stewart, 2018). We then designed and presented a map using Google Fusion Tables as illustrated in figure 1, described our workflow, and discussed our project goals to students to illustrate method, collaboration, and design.

The map, depicted in figure 2, included several data points, including locations where Chardin visited and his arrival and departure dates. Students noted that the map allowed them to conceptualize the expanse traveled by Chardin in a way they did not experience when reading the text.

While we designed the class around mapping, we purposely stepped back from dictating what would be mapped and how. Cartography, and acts of mapping in particular, are potent opportunities to consider questions of authority and the influence that said authority can have. Maps have long served as defining documents that determine sociopolitical boundaries and impose the same on populations in a commanding fashion and without always permitting a plurality of perspectives on the question. Such concerns parallel those surrounding global DH practices. If one presents and practices solely in an Anglocentric vein, one is ignoring the import and the richness of a multilingual, multicultural approach to DH. With this reality in mind and paired with our own personal pedagogies related to student agency, we sought to avoid imposing an interpretation and instead encouraged students to assert their own perspective. New literacies affirms that new members to a community transform that community’s practices, sometimes with a nudge, sometimes with a shove [Lankshear 2011]. Students had to feel free to experiment with voice, design, and scope, knowing that they had control over the project without feeling that they were going to be left alone without any instructional support. We reminded them that failure was an option, as it always is, but worked to reframe the concept of failure as a possible outcome in the natural workflow of any research project. In particular, we underscored that learning was the ultimate goal: learning how to use the tools, how to work collaboratively, how to design a DH project, and how to seek out support or answers when working in DH and research. Any “failure” was just the first in a number of iterations that would be important for developing and strengthening their project and, ultimately, their research and project management skills. Striking this balance between scaffolded support and freedom of creation was imperative because we both believed that this course and the DH project served as a steppingstone into careers. We explicitly discussed their agency in the DH project and how that could relate to future endeavors. As professionals and scholars, the students would be expected to demonstrate initiative and problem-solving.

Interestingly, when it came to designing their own mapping project, students conceived of mapping in a far more abstract way than the rather concrete examples we had illustrated and catalogued. Our conception of mapping was highly geographic whereas the students’ was ultimately more a visualization of the text. In a subsequent class period, we asked students to break into small groups and propose their own ideas for a mapping project, largely construed. They had three questions to discuss: (1) What is the scope and objectives for the project? (2) What texts should be included and why? (3) What information will we need to begin the project? Students were encouraged to think widely and each of the three small groups proposed vastly different conceptions: one group proposed creating a map that connected both the tangible (physical locations) with the intangible (themes, concepts) in a range of works studied; another group proposed elaborating the Chardin map we had begun; another proposed exploring the writing of Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné, a writer known for her extensive correspondence. These projects referenced tenets implicit in global DH by exploring multiplicity of perspective and voice, ranging from intimate women’s accounts to public conceptualizations of nation and identity in a broader Francophone context. These ideas were outlined on a shared Google Doc. Students then presented their ideas to the class and were asked to think about it overnight. In the following class period, students shared their views on pros and cons for each project proposal and ultimately decided on a more “intimate” project — rather than attempting to map the texts from the course as a whole, they wanted to explore the epistolary network of Madame de Sévigné and tease out whether there was a connection between place and theme reflected in the social networks.

The students made an independent and practical design decision conditioned by their own interests. Additionally, where we had conceived of geography in terms of demonstrating a larger physical reality, students were intrigued by what could be termed the geography of the individual, more abstract constructions of the same in the vein of the Carte de Tendre.[12] We anticipated students would plot texts onto a map to visualize the Francophone world in the first phase of colonial expansion, perhaps conceptualizing the overarching course theme through mapping. The student’s approach was a tapestry focused on relationships around a single author. Perhaps our project example focused on Chardin served as an impetus for them, but students chose to explore on a micro-level Sévigné’s social circle rather than on the macro-level of course readings across time and space. This led to particularly productive reflections on the nature of social and epistolary networks: who were the recipients? what were the relationships between Sévigné and her correspondents? where were they when they wrote or received the correspondence? what was the nature of the correspondence and how were epistolary and social practices inscribed in the texts? That is, it was common practice to read these letters aloud--what stylistic choices hinted at these practices? Finally, what was the import of geography and how could mapping help to visualize this polyphonic network and set of relationships?

Students raised these and more questions as they grappled with the reality of transforming these observations into more precise data points that could ultimately be mapped and visualized digitally. We discussed “translating” their questions and answers into tabular form. This was a particularly productive moment because it touched on design and project scope while helping students to clarify and isolate data that was truly necessary for their primary objectives from information which might serve as secondary considerations later in the project. It should be noted that this was the culmination of our introduction to digital tools and methods and occurred in the latter third of the semester. Because we purposely scaffolded pieces of this process into earlier assignments (i.e. methods for data collection, the importance of metadata and appropriate categorizing of information, etc.) students were able to draw upon and then recycle those methods independently. Students quickly recognized that the initial scope of their project, given Sévigné’s prolific letter-writing habit, was imposing and pondered how they could efficiently extract the data points from the thousands of pages of letters. This opened the window to return to the question of editions raised earlier in the semester during discussions of manuscripts and printing practices. We brought in the critical edition of Sévigné’s correspondence by the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade to discuss the paratextual material made available through the preparation of the critical edition itself. Importantly, this included an appendix that indexed the letters by correspondent, date, and location. With this appendix, students discovered many of the data points that they had previously discussed and encountered additional data points that arise in letter writing that they had not considered.

Students then embarked on the final DH activity, entering the data points into a spreadsheet and mapping the data. We created the columns and headings in advance to maximize in-class time, using categories discussed in the prior class, and during the class we reviewed the role of metadata (in this case the column headings) in the mapping process as well as modified the spreadsheet as necessary. Due to the collaborative features of Google Sheet, each small group entered unique data points while observing how their colleagues entered the material (see figure 3 below).

At one point, work came to a halt when one student raised the issue of how data points like correspondents’ names and days of the week were being entered. The class briefly discussed abbreviations and entering French terms rather than English, or vice versa, because they realized common data points would not be mapped appropriately if they were not uniformly entered. We did not participate in this conversation, making space for the students to independently resolve the issue, which they did, admirably. This moment encapsulated many of our learning goals, particularly in observing the students interact as professional colleagues interrogating their methods for meaningful data collection and the implications of collaborative research design.

Once students established their controlled vocabulary and entered a few dozen data points, we shifted to Google Fusion Tables and selected the locations from the letters for mapping. At this point, the whole room deflated when everyone realized that the only locations on many of the letters compiled into the spreadsheet were Sévigné’s two residences. We loaded the csv file into Stanford’s Palladio and explored how the relationships could alternatively be mapped (see figure 4 below), reinforcing the importance of identifying tools and methods that support the research question.

While the class did not culminate with a glorious map, we nonetheless observed the students’ transition from a class of, well, students, to a community of scholars. This started as early as the first month of classes, when students could see each other’s Zotero folders and began recommending sources to each other. Their back-channel communication resembled the ways colleagues manage workplace issues, including advocating for each other. The DH aspect of the course opened the whole class to a greater breadth of research in modern languages. While independent research projects can result in one student learning the value of critical editions or using a visual medium to interrogate a text, this often occurs within a bubble comprised of the student and the professor. There is little opportunity to delve into nuances or to test the implications from several perspectives. The DH project shifted students from solo practitioners experimenting in discipline-specific practices into a community of scholars debating, critiquing, and building upon those practices in collaborative and engaged ways. This communal model of research in the DH classroom echoes the laboratory model wherein researchers test ideas within a shared space before public release. Humanities faculty seeking models to mentor student research may find this idea of the classroom as a micro-DH an attractive approach, with the potential to develop over time as a humanities laboratory that cumulates research from class to class and eventually support individual student research. DH did not present an easier route, but a different route to critically analyzing literature in the L2 context.

Through our interactions with the students during and after the course as well as through student evaluations and feedback, we noted a range of outcomes that paralleled our own goals for the course: (1) the skills students learned were highly transferable, not only to future professional contexts (which are intangible to many students) but immediately, to other class projects (i.e. the final research essay, research they were conducting in other disciplines from the social to the hard sciences); (2) students became comfortable with and conversant about the critical apparatus surrounding course topics; (3) several students chose to continue and pursue more advanced research topics in the discipline (for example, one student worked with the ML professor on a more advanced topic the following semester, resulting in a published paper); (4) students developed a more profound understanding of what labor and work in the humanities encompass (i.e. teaching, research, and service; research across humanities disciplines, particularly in literary criticism; and what work looks like in various settings, be they institutions of higher learning, museums or public archives, or academic or commercial presses); (5) students in the class formed an engaged community of scholars who assumed roles as active project designers and researchers. These outcomes underscore the vast potential a global, multilingual DH-inflected approach informed by new literacies represents.

Creating flexibility for student-driven decisions and troubleshooting capitalizes on characteristics of digital pedagogy that correlate nicely with L2 pedagogy, but we did not fully embrace one aspect of digital pedagogy: the exhortation to reach a larger public. While in a previous course the focus was to share results publicly and openly, a key component to DH [Sample 2013] [Sample 2011] [Spiro 2012] [Antonioli and Cro 2018], in this course we sought to extend the traditional definitions of “public”. We propose that, particularly within a pedagogical context, DH project work might be conceived as communal in addition to or in contrast with public-facing. That is to say, we encouraged students to present results within their own scholarly community, recognizing that while it would not result immediately in public-facing, open scholarship it would represent an important step towards that ultimate goal. Moreover, we pointed out that the initial work done here would be shared with future courses in the field, thereby building a wider community beyond their own class that would share in the findings. At each step we laid the foundation for students to engage in public scholarship in the future by emphasizing open source, open access technologies and discussing implications of authority and access in the public sphere, outside the confines of an academic institution.

We believe that exploring DH in the L2 classroom allows a productive space to examine notions related to linguistic and cultural power-dynamics. The more diverse the approaches to DH, the more diverse DH itself becomes. Moreover, exploring digital tools as cultural products with their attending sociocultural contexts in terms of language, costs, and access, challenges the inherent monolingualism of the field and diversifies approaches to and perspectives on DH, DH tools, and DH methodologies. In the L2 classroom, even students for whom English is their first language, the language of technology can be as new and unfamiliar as a second language. Exploring the digital humanities from a scaffolded perspective that calls attention to the nature of cultural power dynamics and the ways in which information is transmitted and interpreted enriches the field immeasurably. For example, students in this course engaged in the participatory nature of new literacies, DH, and L2 practices that emphasized taking advantage of interactive tools to reconsider primary source texts while elaborating that work within a global context. Taking a micro approach to community capitalizing on the iterative, reflective, project-oriented practices inherent in L2 pedagogy and new literacies theories resulted in a course design that drew attention to larger theoretical concerns within DH such as definitions of public and open-access in various contexts, the import of productive failure, and the potential and importance of collaborative practices with shared authorship among all participants.

In terms of community building, students formed their own scholarly community through both in-class interactions and private social messaging apps, creating forums to discuss the academic literacies they encountered within the context of a specific class. These interactions promoted students’ agency and reconceptualized their roles in scholarly endeavors, enabling students to recognize their own potential as authoritative voices. This student-to-student tutelage reflected the “triangular” learning and social constructivism observed in other DH projects in L2 environments [Mahony et al. 2014]. We consciously worked to encourage students to feel comfortable engaging in disciplinary discursive practices from which they often feel excluded because they lack a perceived authority and agency therein. We were particularly gratified when students chose a research path distinct from what we had anticipated, illustrating how new participants to an academic literacy transform the conversation and practices, and solidifying that they felt invited to the table to participate. The true value of informing DH and L2 pedagogy with a new literacies perspective is to focus on inclusive discursive practices.

In addition to students developing their own authority and confidence, we worked to broaden their notions of success. We sought to help students understand more fully the “nuts and bolts” of research design and project management, particularly in terms of defining scope and setting realistic timelines. The average semester-long course can promote false notions that research projects can be begun and completed within three to four months. Additionally, not every research endeavor ends in a neatly packaged product. The reality, as researchers in the humanities know, is vastly different. This project helped to promote patience, in terms of design and results, and with themselves as researchers. Students began to understand that they could (1) participate in multiple projects, such as traditional papers and DH explorations, simultaneously and (2) that not all projects may be defined and designed in the same way. Throughout, we emphasized the importance of process over product, giving the students space to design and conceptualize without the pressure of needing to have a predefined deliverable ready by end of term. This approach diverged from facile notions of success in terms of completion, focusing instead on the potential for failure as a productive practice [Croxall and Warnick 2016] that may be just as important to the ultimate research process as success and would lead to successful completion. This perfectly encapsulated and modeled a scholarly conversation — students shifted roles from readers to researchers, claiming an active part in the work.

Furthermore, re-defining success permitted constructive discussions regarding labor and the division of the same, both in DH research initiatives and in terms of designing such a course. Boyles, et. al. (2018) note the precarity of digital humanities in academia, both in terms of those who support DH initiatives (often contingent labor from across various departments in the institution or faculty/staff whose work flow differs substantially from the teaching faculty) as well as the students who are participating therein [Boyles et al. 2018] [Anderson et al. 2016]. While the “utopist” ideals of collaborative teamwork and inclusive practices have been variously espoused and critiqued in DH scholarship [Price and Siemens 2013] [Presner et al. 2009] [Burdick et al. 2012], as Anderson et. al. have noted, “very little deals with students as collaborators or active participants in the projects whose success depends, to a great degree, on their labor”  [Anderson et al. 2016, ¶4]. It was imperative, in our course conception and project design, that students be fully engaged and understand the potential and ramifications of work in the digital humanities. This, in large part, was why we ensured that all DH project work took place in the confines of the classroom where we could work alongside students. Additionally, students were invited to participate in this sphere as fully contributing members, involved in design and work equally. While the impetus for creating the DH project was faculty-led (and noted in the syllabus as part of the course goals), the project itself was a cooperative effort that attempted to correspond to the best practices, including clearly formalizing group structure and work, treating project management and training as part of the course content, encouraging student-led design in the project, and recognizing that projects need not have the same finite deadlines as other coursework [Anderson et al. 2016]. Underscoring the process as product itself greatly facilitated this work.

Alongside varying expectations for success, we also promoted building a community that recognized at once the multiplicity of voices in the room and reflected on the impact of discipline-specific practices in a global, multicultural context. In our approach to instruction, we capitalized on the benefits of zones of proximal development [Vygotsky 1978] through extensive group work, characteristic of L2 pedagogy to promote language acquisition. This focus on collaborative practices necessitated students prioritize listening to and learning from their peers. Such an approach valorized diverse perspectives and experiences that may diverge from a student’s own worldview. Students’ prior experience with this type of group work in the L2 classroom facilitated transitions to the intensely collaborative work that characterized our classroom and are imperative to a global DH. Working with a global DH in mind contributes towards developing a nuanced, egalitarian, and collaborative work ethic that is particularly apropos to multicultural and multilingual interactions that are increasingly common in the workplace. Not only did we encouraged all participants to practice agency and advocacy through their shared scholarship, these competencies reflect our institutional land grant values. This evokes the core mission of the Modern Languages department, namely to “prepare a linguistically competent and culturally aware citizenry poised to live and work in an increasingly global and diverse society, in accordance with Kansas State University's land grant mission” (Dept. of Modern Languages n.d.). These values, namely the ability to advocate and participate equally in a multicultural and multilingual environment, are at the base of global DH. Adopting this type of approach, however, is not without consequences; namely, that of the time involved. We worked to ensure that integrating a global DH approach into the seminar would not overwhelm students and that the project itself would not exceed the limits of obligation for any one member of the team. This ensured a balanced approach to student labor that ultimately corresponded to our course goals and expectations.

One aspect of labor that must also be considered is that of the faculty members involved. Designing and implementing this scaffolded approach was a time-consuming process. We met and corresponded regularly outside of class both prior to and during the semester to consult on design, reflect on student progress, and modify where necessary. A nimble approach to DH projects demands that faculty prepare for multiple research scenarios depending on student interest and design. This involved investigating more tools and resources than were ever introduced or used in class. Our own level of collaboration increased over the course of the project as we progressed from initial conversations about a specific DH project and became more invested in a DH-inflected course. As others have noted [Harris 2013], the inherent time and labor necessitated by the faculty embarking on such an approach is at times staggering. While it may be true that future collaborations will be less time-intensive because we designed all the materials and assignments for this course and the approach from scratch, a significant portion of time was spent in meetings to reflect on progress in the course and consider how best to address questions raised and desired outcomes. This type of reflective practice would be necessary whenever implementing this approach.

It is true that this approach requires time and patience, two commodities that are not easy to come by, particularly as one reflects on one’s institutional profile and the inherent requirements of faculty therein. However, there are concrete benefits to a DH approach informed by L2 practices and new literacies, both in terms of student learning and faculty development. We found that the student learning theories and practices that already informed our discipline-specific work with students (such as best practices in second language acquisition and new literacies perspectives) remained highly relevant to our implementation of DH pedagogy. Rather than supplanting or overshadowing disciplinary-specific discursive practices, we found that DH methodologies put those practices into greater relief, forcing students and faculty to more consciously explore processes that can become unconscious or habitual. Moreover, this type of experimentation and collaboration is immensely beneficial, particularly if made part of faculty’s research, teaching, and service agendas. While larger institutional attitudes regarding expectations for tenure remain challenging to modify, we who are tenured faculty can shape our scholarship practices to record our own work in collaborative pedagogical endeavors, thereby lending credence to initiatives to widen what counts as “scholarship”.

This project, conceived as an introduction to research methodologies in the digital humanities, is a collaborative work among participants in the course. The objectives are the following:

For this project, we will use Google Maps and Fusion Tables.

In order to prepare this project, we will need to:

We will work in class each day over the next month. At the end of that period, we will analyse what we can learn from our visual conceptualization and determine whether this work has helped us to conceive of the texts and/or period differently than before.

You will be evaluated according to the following criteria:

1. Collaborative Work in Class (25 points)

You work in a productive and positive manner, contributing fully to the shared work. You respect your classmates and propose ideas in order to enrich and improve the work and project as a whole. You share the group work proportionately with your peers and contribute concretely to the success of the project. You help the team to achieve their goals. You add information to the spreadsheet, observing the criteria established by the team and your contributions conform to team expectations.

2. Conception of the project (25 points, shared grade)

The team works together to (1) establish criteria and project goals; (2) select the form and data to include in each citation/entry; (3) decide on the form of the project. The conception is realistic according to the time we have to work on it and conforms to the expectations of a research project at this level.

3. Result: Final Project (30 points, shared grade)

This project will not necessarily be completed during this class. However, you will prepare a database that could be elaborated by students in a future class in order to map a conception the team has chosen. The final project is usable and useful, conforms to the conception and criteria established by the team, and will be accessible to a larger public beyond the classroom. The project is well-organized and clearly presented, compelling, and convincing in design. There are no grammar or spelling errors. You will share the results of your work during the final class period for this course.