Stewart and I sat down with Mary Elizabeth Leighton to discuss the upcoming workshop we're giving in her English 500 course. As this is the second time we will be doing the workshop we dissected the first workshop and came to some conclusions about what and how we'll deliver in March.
Session 1
1) We'll introduce XML as before and, as before, we'll look at some existing web sites that illustrate the value of markup in the context of scholarly writing/analysis.
2) We'll cover schema usage, but only in passing. We'll show the class a schema, explain that there are tools to help create schemas, and explain how to create an XML file bound to a schema in order to control its construction. We will not actually go through the process of building a schema.
3) We will find some new content (or not - we might use Sonnet 130 again) and ask students, in groups of 2, to discuss the inherent value of the document in question from the perspective of a scholarly editor, a librarian and a codicologist.
4) Once they've had a discussion they will physically mark up their photocopies to illustrate the importance of various aspects of the document. There will be two groups covering each perspective, and we hope to have some interesting discussion arise from the exercise that we can carry forward in to the next session.
Session 2
5) Groups will continue their examination of the document from their assigned point-of-view. This time they'll use oXygen to mark the document up with XML. If nothing valuable/interesting/compelling came out of our perspective-based discussion we'll fall back on a basic approach to guided markup in the second session.
6) We'll wind up the second session with a more detailed look at some XML-based projects and discuss some of the finer points and a question period.