I encourage scholars and learners to make use of this project in their classrooms. Here you can find a sample prompt I've used in my Medieval and Renaissance Studies course to produce TEI-encoded transcriptions of a short number of paratexts. This work is adapted from Laura Estill's “Encoding Early Modern Commonplace Books in the Classroom,” in Using Commonplace Books to Enrich Medieval and Renaissance Courses, edited by Sarah E. Parker and Andie Silva (pp.119-140).

Below are some samples of student-produced materials, shared and cited with permission:

Brianna McPherson, encoder. "The printer to all women that covet the practice of good housewivery as well as maids," in John Partridge, The Treasurie of Commodious Conceits and Hidden Secrets, printed by Richard Jones, 1591. XML file here.

Ariana Dharambeer, encoder. "The Printer to the Gentle Reader," in Edmund Spenser, Complaints. Containing sundrie small Poemes of the Worlds Vanitie, printed by William Ponsomby, 1591. XML File here.

Kaylah Agard, encorder. "The Printer to the Reader," in Gervase Markham, The famous Whore, or Noble Curtizan, printed by Nicholas Okes for John Budge, 1609. XML file here.

• We also generated an HTML page in class using GitHub's CoPilot as a way to discuss the potentials and drawbacks of so-called "Vibe Coding." This page is here.



Some Considerations

• The assignment prompt, sample TEI template, and "encoding cheatsheet" are available for download in the project's GitHub repository.
• I originally taught this assignment in a literature survey course, where students had varying comfort levels with technology. We worked from a template with the TEI header mostly pre-written, with placeholders and comments where the students were to add their own information.
• An in-class workshop (preferably on a computer lab) is imperative for hands-on practice and to give opportunities for peer support.
• Following Estill, I also set up in-class exercises for students to 1) work on their their transcriptions; 2) proofread their work with a peer; and 3) highlight the textual elements they wished to mark up, such as page breaks, gaps, and publication titles.
• I left it open as to whether students would normalize their transcriptions or not. Some students chose to employ the 'choice' element to offer both options to readers. Folks seeking consistency in the submitted work may require students to stick to one, pre-determined option.
• The original work for this assignment was produced in Fall 2025 in a class titled "AI before AI," in which we discussed the connections and differences between AI and print as technological shifts. As such, we had one in-class exercise where I launched CoPilot to show students how GenAI has been used in programming. The result of that page (which was generated in my local machine) is linked above, in association with Kaylah Agard's work.
• In order to bypass the fact that we didn't have Oxygen licenses or a quick way to pre-install the software in our school computers, we used a simple online XML editor. For more hands-on learning with TEI, instructors may consider LEAF VRE's Leaf Writer, instead.