The following is an assignment I use for the coding component of the English 102 Qualitative Project. In this unit, students compose a research question based on the course topic, interview at least three members of a specific demographic, code their responses, and report their findings in a traditional IMRaD paper. Since I encourage students to complete this project in groups with assigned tasks, I create low stakes activities to teach everyone the concepts underpinning each step.

While it is not a perfect application for coding purposes, Voyant Tools is an exceedingly user-friendly way to teach students the opportunities and pitfalls of digital textual analysis. Many students use the visualization and charting features in their final paper drafts, as well as the analysis tools for their interview transcripts.

“Coding for Fun and Profit”

While only one or two people will be doing the coding for your group’s interviews, it’s important for everyone to get some experience in coding for conclusions. Since this is an in-class exercise, however, we’re going to use lyrics from 2-3 songs to practice drawing conclusions based on keywords or phrases. To complete this assignment, go through the following steps:

1. Pick 3-5 songs from the same musical artist (if possible, from the same album). Create a Word or text document where you’ll copy/paste the lyrics. Name the file “YourLastNameCode”
2. Go on www.azlyrics.com. and find the lyrics for your songs. Copy and paste lyrics into the document, including artist name and song titles. (You may have to Google “Your Song” + “Lyrics” if azlyrics doesn’t have them.
3. Once you’ve got all your lyrics in order, copy them all and drop the text into the box on https://voyant-tools.org/. Click the “Reveal” button to analyze your lyrics
4. Using the analytic tools, determine the most common words (besides stuff like “it’s” and “the”) and consider what this reveals about the song’s overall content, the artist’s message, and the audience. What kind of language is being used? What emotions do they invoke? 
5. In a paragraph of 200-300 words or so, discuss the following (at the beginning of your lyric document)
   1. What 5 words are used the most frequently? How many times is each word used?
   2. Are there any similarities between the words or are they varied in theme/content?
   3. What does this tell you about the artist’s possible intent with their songs?
   4. What does this tell you about what the audience expects from their songs?
   5. Were these discoveries surprising to you? Why or why not?
6. Submit your lyric document as completion of the assignment.