Remediating Leaf by Niggle with Hypothes.is Annotations

This assignment asks you to apply your Hypothes.is account that we used at the beginning of the semester. You will be writing a new set of annotations in our private class group to annotate, illustrate, and re-mediate J. R. R. Tolkien’s short story, Leaf by Niggle. This story introduces some of Tolkien's famous theories (also part of his Essay on Fairy Stories, about the need for poeple to share and occupy Secondary Worlds, and their place in a Primary World, and it is often assigned reading for designers of virtual worlds of all kinds. We are reading it as a preface for our exploration of game worlds at the end of this course.

Hypothes.is Annotation

Start by making sure you can still access your Hypothes.is account and our private class group at https://hypothes.is/groups/Z75eBVkM/fa2020-digit100. If you need help with this, check in with Dr. B or comment in this issue on the introDH-Hub.

Here are some screen captures to be sure you are opening Hypothes.is on your browser and working within our class group. These are taken from my Chrome web browser.

Hypothes.is Extension

Here is what the Hypothes.is extension looks like when installed on the Chrome browser:

Annotating as part of the Class Group

As a reminder, here is what you should see if you are annotating as part of our Hypothes.is class group:

what hypothesis looks like when you have joined the class group

Your Annotation Assignment: Annotating to Re-mediate in Two Rounds

Re-mediation work literally involving multiple kinds of media with the original text medium of this narrative. It will also help us to connect the narrative of this story to forms of media that help us to understand and visualize its contexts that matter to us. Our work will literally be to illustrate the text of Leaf by Niggle with our annotations, though a full re-mediation of it might involve creating a virtual environment or an animation that helps people to visualize and experience the events and ideas of this story.

In your annotations, consider yourself to be doing two kinds of things:

Explaining and discussing unfamiliar terms and concepts, and supplying more information that might help.
Illustrating with images and media to enhance the reading experience as you wish.

Your annotations may be doing both things at once: explaining and illustrating because often a picture can explain or demonstrate something in a way that responds to the text you are reading. Try to provide artwork, illustrations, media that do the following:

Explore some of the symbolism or mythology in the story,
Help connect the story to historical context at the time Tolkien was writing this (in 1938 from England, the year before England became involved in World War II),
Help connect the story to contexts relevant to our time, perhaps in art or fiction or game communities, or elsewhere.
Might inspire or help lead to a re-creation of this narrative in some other artistic medium

We will do two rounds of annotations: the first round (in which each of you posts at least three annotations to begin), before our next class on Monday November 16. The next round will occur after we meet to discuss this complex story together, and you will add at least three more annotations to the first set, and possibly go back and modify annotations you first made if you want to add something to them.