Our class, via the 105 most used words in blog posts:
Twine is a tool that lets you create choose-your-own-adventure type stories. (Here is an example of a relatively basic one. There are also more complicated examples) This is a good tool if the historical narrative you are working with has many moments of contingency that you want your users to be able to explore. You can combine Twine with longer narratives by linking to your Twine from a wordpress page.
Using Twine:
Step 1: Go to https://twinery.org/ and select “use it online”
Step 2: Add a new story
Click on the “+story” button and name your Twine
Step 3: Create a welcome screen
Twine works by creating a series of questions and answers – different paths through a story.
In order to create a path, you use the following syntax: [[answer -> page that answer links to]] For example, in my Twine, the first question is “Do you know what Atlantic history is?” and the options are [[yes -> yes]] and [[no -> no]]. Selecting yes will take you to a page called yes, selecting no will take you to a page called no.
The page looks like this
Step 4: Create other paths. In my simple Twine, I had a followup question for yes and no. The Twine can end a user at one of two pages – more info on an Atlantic history class, or a squirrel waving goodbye
Step 5: Add images
For this class, your Twine will need to include primary sources. To insert a primary source, use the code <img src=”url for a primary source”>
Make sure you play through your Twine a few times to check that everything is in order
Step 6: Download and publish your Twine
Click on your Twine title and select publish to file. A file that is named your twine.html will download to your desktop. Before you do anything else, edit the file name so that it has no spaces. So, for example, I changed mine from Atlantic history.html to atlantic_history.html
Then, login to your reclaim account, and navigate to the file manager
Double click on your public_html folder, and then select “upload”
Upload your file
Finally, navigate to http://yourdomain.com/yourtwine.html – you should see your game!
Practicing in class
In your groups, pick a section of the reading for today, imagine a character from that section, and come up with a Twine that gives historical insight into the life of that character. You will probably want to sketch out the different pathways on a piece of paper first. Make sure you have at least five decisions.
Once you have sketched out your Twine, work together to build it online. You do not need to save the Twine to your domain, just let me know when you are done and we can play through them.
Using WordPress…
Using Omeka…
Components of a website:
If you decide to go with a wordpress site for your project, you should have:
Some additional resources
A Colony in Crisis: The Saint-Domingue Grain Shortage of 1789
You can embed an image using the “add media” button in WordPress, or using a thing called an iframe, which basically lets you embed one website within another.
To read more about iframes, look here.
To add images that exist on the web (where the url ends in .jpg) look here.
Colonial North America project
When you search for a text in google scholar (http://scholar.google.com) you can also see the texts that have cited your source.
