English
120 Major Project #2:
Collaborative
Art Review for the Web
Points Possible: 25
Length: aprx. 1,000 words, with a text-to-image ratio of about 1:3.
The review is a ubiquitous, real-world genre. It appears as evaluation of consumer products, as instructor comments on student papers, as arguments about the latest big budget movie. For this project you'll gain some expertise with this genre by reviewing and evaluating a work of art. You'll learn about the art form in question, and examine your own assumptions and beliefs about art as well. Afterall, everyone commonly passes judgment—sometimes rather severe—on movies, books, and music, but how often do we stop to consider what we mean by “good” and “bad”? Where do our tastes come from? Evaluation of art is obviously a very subjective and relative matter, but then how do we decide, as a community, what art will be supported? And how is it that so many people over decades and centuries—indeed, even over the span of a millennium—have agreed that certain works are especially great? What do you know about the canon debate, and about how art gets produced, funded, sanctioned? Are the arts an escape from the world, or a way to confront the world? What is sentimentality in art? Is art a minor, low-priority recreation, or a vital human endeavor? Should children (or for that matter college students) be required to take classes in art and music? What is imagination, and what is its role in our lives? Finally, what works in particular do you especially like, and why? What art would you recommend to others, and how important is it in your everyday life? For some questions about art to get you thinking, see the document titled, "Some Questions about Art" in the Bb folder for Project #2. For a thought-provoking packet of quotations about art, click here.
Pick a specific work of art (or a body of work by a specific artist) which all members of your group are interested in, and write a collaborative web review of it for any online magazine or film review site. You must be especially attentive to document design in this project, and also make the piece especially visual, since this is a common feature web reviews. You may include, in your review, a link to a short film or Power Point piece for YouTube. This will act as an informative and entertaining supplement to your print review. "Art" here can include painting, music, novels, film, dance, etc., as well as documentaries and nonfiction—whatever interests you. Tasks for researching, writing, editing, and proofing your work will be divided equally among group members. This is, in large part, a problem-solving project. Include, with your finished work, a "process narrative" to help
me understand your experience.
The visual component of this project is important, because reviews very frequently provide images, inserts, and graphics of various kinds. You should include a good amount of visual material in your review to enhance your thesis and in general lend interest to what you have to say. To see how graphics are used in reviews, check out websites such as Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert's site, and Movies.com. Look carefully at the visual format for the reviews at those sites, and develop a plan, as a group, to design an interesting and usefully visual review. You can build your web page in a variety of ways: Weebly.com can work well, Prezi is excellent though challenging, and many other templates and tools are availble on NDSU systems.
You will write this for an educated audience who is fairly knowledgeable about the art form in question. This audience wants to know whether they should hear/watch/buy the item you are reviewing.
Your purpose is to evaluate your subject, and help your readers decide whether to purchase it. Also: you will help your readers come away with a better understanding of the piece in particular and of art in general. You will also gain experience writing in real-world genres, analyzing audience needs for any writing task, and practicing both verbal and visual literacy skills.
For help with all of these items, see all documents in our Bb Project #2 folder.
Click here for the evaluation rubric and criteria checklist. You will need to check this carefully as you work on your project and before you hand it in. Click here for your group member evaluation sheet. Need help with your WRITING? Try the Center for Writers |
