Points possible: 10
Length:
Because this piece will be tailored to each  individual student's needs, it's impossible to dictate an exact length. Size and scope will be negotiated by working closely with instructor and peers.
No grace period. Late projects are ONLY accepted with documented evidence of serious hardship or illness. |
Conference Draft Due
April 28th, SE 208, at your sign-up time
Presentation Draft Due
May 5th, ARLA
Finished Version Due
May 12th, SE 208, hardcopy AND electronic
Hand your final version to me in class and/or take it up to my office during our meeting time. If you want it returned to you, you MUST include an envelope or some kind of mailer, self-addressed and stamped. Anything turned in without these materials will be used for kitty litter. Note: I CANNOT hold items in my office!
Note: if your project is entirely electronic, the one you post in Blackboard will count as the completed work and you don't have to hand me anything in class. (Remember that everyone needs to put some kind of electronic version in BB, however.)
Put your supplemental letters and Work Cited pages (if using) in the Forum created for this in our Discussion Board.
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General Instructions
This is a self-designed project using both words and images, an assignment you'll devise for yourself through consulation with your instructor and others. Consider yourself an EXPERIMENTOR or even INVENTOR of new genres, new art forms, new ways to communicate in the 21st century. You project must involve a type of technology or a medium which you have not yet used—or used very little. It should also:
- assist you in completion of your major (a portfolio piece in a capstone course, for example);
- assist you in some personal hobby or life task;
—OR—
- assist you in your current or future workplace.
You will submit a brief proposal for instructor approval, present a well-developed draft to the class for an 8-min. discussion and critique, and hand in a final version by 3:30, Wed., May 12th .
Your work must be both VERBAL and VISUAL.
Supplemental Letter
As with Project #3, you will include a Supplemental Letter (about 2 double-spaced pages) which comments on your experience, aides your instructor in fairly grading your work, and reflects on class materials and lectures for this last part of the term.
Purpose
The purpose of this project is to further improve your "visual literacy" by asking you to work with visual technologies or media you haven't used much before. The purpose is also to help you further reflect on visual culture.
Suggestions Up the Wazoo
- A comic book (drawing heavily of course on McCloud).
- Something involving "new media": computer software such as Flash, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, or Typo3; newer computer hardware; new web genres(social media such as Facebook, Twitter, blogs); new directions in poetry and fiction (visual poetry, animated poetry, small-screen poetry, hypertext fiction, electronically interactive fiction, etc.).
- A film (narrative, essay, documentary, or some invented genre).
- Installation art (something 3D which uses space as part of its form).
- Performance art (real-world events framed as art, or art works framed as real-world events).
- A one-act play (you'd turn in a script and perform the work on film, YouTube, or some other venue).
- A political brochure or pamphlet (relatively easy--would likely need multiples).
- A TV commercial.
- An additional component for a project already completed. I.e., take your photo essay or timeline and build on it in some way, using additional media.
- A proto-type for a new magazine on...photography, literature, politics, art, basketweaving.
- A game (physical or electronic).
- A verbal-visual Christmas toy for a needy child.
- A visual novel or memoir. Or some other kind of experimental book (fiction, nonfiction, poetry).
- Verbal-visual clothing.
- Something which is primarily TEXT: essay, poetry, flash fiction, etc. but with relatively subtle or secondary visual elements.
- A typographical experiment. Create a new alphabet. Improve the current one. Invent a new font.
- Write a children's story with nothing but pictures. (I know of a wonderful example; will try to show it in class.)
- A family history.
- An historical photo-book on Fargo, or Minneapolis, or NDSU, or 3rd St. South.
- A visual biography of someone you love, think is important, believe should be recognized, or find otherwise interesting.
- A manual on graphic design.
- A survival guide for first-year students of English (or Art, or Architecture, or Pharmacy, or Political Science, etc. etc.)
- A prayer book.
- A prayer.
- An anti-prayer.
- A full-page ad for your sister-in-law's new ...gift shop/photography store/restaurant/computer repair shop/gas station.
- A visual resume.
- A philosophical treatise in pictures.
- A new design for driver's liscences/cereal boxes/the Norton Anthology of English Literature/the first billboard anyone would see as they approach Fargo on I90. The Bible. The Koran. Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. Cambells Soup cans. Doggie sweaters.
Tip: ASK TEACHERS AND ADVISORS FOR IDEAS: WHAT PROJECT FOCUS WOULD GIVE YOU MEANINGFUL PRACTICE IN YOUR CHOSEN MAJOR OR FUTURE PROFESSION?
Proposal Draft due in class, April 21st; a polished version is due in our Discussion Board by the time of your conference on April 28th
Your proposal should include the following:
- A name or title for your project.
- A description of what you hope to make (1 brief paragraph).
- A description of your intended audience (1-3 sentences).
- An explanation of how the project is appropriate for this course (2-4 sentences).
- An explanation of your goals in creating and completing this project (1 paragraph). This should include some reference to the aims and requirements listed under "General Instructions" above. Why have you chosen this assignment for yourself? How will it help you? How will it challenge you? What new medium or technology will you use?
- A plan for completion (1-2 paragraphs). This should include mention of what sources you will consult (both primary and secondary), what equipment or tools you will use, and aproximately how much time you will devote to each step leading toward a final product.
- A summary of the criteria by which you believe your work should be evaluated (1 paragraph).
- Headers to assist the reader of your proposal.
- Editing and proofreading for clarity, concision, and adherence to standard sentence conventions.
If your project idea changes as you work on it, you may modify the content of your proposal. Be sure to discuss it with your instructor first.
Evaluation Criteria
Grading
A = 9-10 pts.
B = 7-8
C = 5-6
D = 4
Our eyes see very little and very badly – so people dreamed up the microscope to let them see invisible phenomena; they invented the telescope…now they have perfected the cinecamera to penetrate more deeply into the visible world, to explore and record visual phenomena so that what is happening now, which will have to be taken account of in the future, is not forgotten.
—Provisional Instructions to Kino-Eye Groups, Dziga Vertov, 1926
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