Final Project Guidelines
Project Description
In small groups of 3-4 people, you will develop multimedia scholarly editions of a text we have read this semester. A scholarly edition offers a range of critical resources on a particular text or a set of texts, and your group will be responsible for designing your edition through Blogs@Baruch as well as offering background information (such as publication history, author biography and historical context) and critical interpretation through close reading annotation and a series of scholarly lens essays.
Outline of Components
Website Design
Working with your group, you will design a site for your online scholarly edition using Blogs@Baruch. Since there are different components to the project, you will consider how to best structure and design the site, and choose a theme and layout that best showcases your online scholarly edition.
Following a workshop on how to build a site with WordPress, you will draft a plan with your group on how you want to design the site and assign responsibilities to each member of the group. Every group member will have “administrator” privileges to the site.
Introduction to the text
Collaboratively, you will write and publish on your site an introduction to your primary text that offers background information (such as publication history, author biography and historical context) and a brief synopsis of the text. As your edition will not contain the entire text (such a project would take years!), your introduction should also introduce your reader to the logic of your edition: why did you choose your specific selection for annotations / close reading? The introduction should be between 500-700 words.
Annotations
Using Hypothes.is, you will annotate your selections from the text together as a group. For this component, you will offer (1) a close reading of the language as well as annotations that (2) unpack historical or literary references, and (3) provide links to additional resources for the readers to explore (such as links to other websites, audio, video, or other multimedia information). The length of the selections for annotation depends on the type of text but will most likely be between 30-50 lines; you’ll choose this in consultation with your instructor.
To streamline the annotation process, you’re encouraged to divide tasks. For example, one of you can be responsible for the close reading annotations, one for literary references, one for historical context, and one for multimedia references. This shouldn’t mean that the other students do not contribute to these tasks; in fact, it’s a good idea to ask everyone to peer review your annotations. Alternatively, you can work in pairs on each of these annotation tasks. You’re in charge here, so make a plan that works for your group.
Scholarly Commentary / Lens Essay
Every group member will also publish their own scholarly commentary on the primary text. You each choose a particular lens through which to approach the source text. You might choose to do a close reading, or use a historical, socio-economic, autobiographical or psychoanalytic, etc, perspective to open up your interpretation of the text. Specific instructions and tips on each lens will be distributed. Each essay should be approximately 1,000 words.
Your essay will be developed in stages. First you will exchange essay drafts with members of your group, and then, after incorporating their feedback, you will complete a peer review with another group.
Optional Additional Resources / Creative Responses
With permission from the author, you might choose to include work already published on our class blogs as an additional resource for your readers. Or, you and your group might choose to generate additional content, which can be a more creative response to the text, such as audio of your own reading of the text, a photo-essay or response, or a discussion of any art or adaptations of your primary text. You might write a hypothetical interview between your author and a critic, or compose your own adaptation or translation of the text. Or, you and your group might do fictional archival work and discover a long lost document pertinent to your edition. This is where you can be creative, remix the text, and show off!
Presentations
On the last day of class, you will present your progress on your project to the class. In addition to being an opportunity for you to receive an additional round of feedback before submitting your final project, this presentation is a chance to showcase your edition. Presentations should be between 5-7 minutes and should focus on the structure and approach of your edition.
List of Texts – to sign up, click here
Grade Breakdown
Complete Final Project: 50% of course grade
Each component of the project is worth a percentage of the whole. See below for the grade breakdown and what’s considered in determining your grade for each component:
Component |
Assessment |
Preliminary Steps 5% |
|
Group Intro 5% |
|
Annotations 15% |
|
Essay 15% (graded individually) |
Detailed assignment and grade breakdown will be distributed in class |
Final Design 10% |
|
Schedule
Date / Week starting |
Component Due |
| April 3 | WordPress workshop and intro to project (in class) |
| April 10 (Spring Break) | Sign up for Group (Google Docs) by Friday 14th |
| April 17 | Group plan and division of tasks for annotation due (online class) |
| April 24 | Intros and Architecture site due (online class) |
| May 1 | Proposal and outline Commentary / Lens essay due (online class) |
| May 8 |
|
| May 15 |
|
| May 25 | Deadline Final Project (finish lens essay, review and complete annotations, intro, and site design–post everything online!) |
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