One-page Project Proposal: Due February 24
Final Project: Due May 11
Final projects may be individual or collaborative, and they can take two forms:
- A conference paper, written for a specific scholarly conference, that somehow addresses the content of this course. Conference papers are typically 15-20 minute presentations. Should you choose this option, you will submit a 2000-3000 word paper as well as a 250-word abstract. You will also need to include either a CFP that you are responding to or a description of the conference that you have in mind.
- A creative work, using any medium you choose, that somehow addresses the content of this course. This means you might submit short fiction, poetry, a video, a sound project, or any other medium you feel best allows you to achieve your goals.
The project proposal that is due February 24 should be no more than one page and should do the following:
- Describe the project and its goals
- Provide a roadmap for completion, including deadlines and benchmarks for drafts and revision
All final projects must be accompanied by a Statement of Goals and Choices (SOGC). This is an assignment that comes from Jody Shipka's book Toward a Composition Made Whole, and it asks you to reflect on why you built, wrote, and/or designed your project the way you did. There is no minimum or maximum number of words for the SOGC - it takes as many words as you think it takes to explain why you made certain choices and what you were trying to accomplish with the project.
The SOGC should answer the following questions:
- What, specifically, is this project trying to accomplish - above and beyond satisfying the basic requirements of the assignment? In other words, what work does, or might, this work do? For whom? In what contexts?
- What specific, rhetorical, material, methodological, and technological choices did you make in service of accomplishing the goal(s) articulated above? Catalog, as well, choices that you might not have consciously made, those that were made for you when you opted to work with certain genres, materials, and technologies.
- Why did you end up pursuing this plan as opposed to other possibilities? How did the various choices listed above allow you to accomplish things that other sets or combinations of choices would not have?
When providing feedback on your project and SOGC, I will be looking for the following:
- Does your project demonstrate detailed and in-depth research and engagement with the course material?
- Have you carefully considered the affordances and constraints of your method and/or medium?
- Is your project effectively designed? Is there evidence that you've carefully chosen your medium and that the medium is appropriate for what you're trying to communicate?
- Does your SOGC address all of the questions listed above?
- Is your SOGC (and your project, if it uses written language) generally well-written and free of grammatical errors?
