Understanding Texts Project
*Quick note: I realize at this point in the semester we haven’t read all of the texts assigned for the course. It may be hard to imagine possibilities for an assignment when you don’t quite have all of the resources. But you don’t have to have a fully formed idea to get started and know/plan for this project.
To the world outside, English Studies are about reading and writing texts — and that’s just about that. But over the past few decades the field itself has questioned not only those activities but texts themselves and recognizes the complex processes of understanding texts, authorship, and what it means to read or engage with a text.
The final project of our course asks you to enter into this English Studies conversation. You have a few options for undertaking this assignment.
A literary textual biography: This option is a kind of media archeology dig where you are invited to write about the life of your chosen text. As we know from our course content this semester, a text develops meaning from material technologies of writing, printing, distribution, reading, and storage as much as from the author’s imagination and culture.
Here, you will select a text and consider what theory of textuality, of language, writing, and/or reading is implied? What kind of text technology did the writer use to create the text?
What was the first published edition/ Did it go through subsequent editions? printings? Is the text out of copyright? How has copyright affected its fortunes? How does the text enlist materiality in the making of its meaning? What text technologies does it reference (does it make figurative reference to technologies of writing, reading, print, etc)?
How does it reflect on or otherwise signal its own materiality? How do words interact with matter to create meaning? What is the media ecology in which it first circulated? How would the meaning of the text change if it were to be remediated into a different text technology?
With this option, you’re exploring the text as a text and not analyzing or interpreting its characters or plot but rather providing a different way of understanding its meaning, its history.
A remediation/revision of a previous assignment from the class: With this option you might build on a previous writing response prompt, expanding the scope and creating a more traditional analysis or essay. You might also take any of the assignments and remediate or remix it into a different form. So, you might turn a writing response prompt into a podcast or your literacy practices assignment into a webpage or a data driven presentation. You might focus on a theme like “love” and create a visual argument that brings several texts into focus for us. With a remediation option, the purpose is to turn something textual into a multifaceted composition that communicates your ideas in a compelling manner. If you’re interested in this, push yourself to be creative about the possibilities. We can brainstorm ideas, of course, together.
Teaching Plan : Develop and articulate an approach to teaching one of the texts we’ve covered. Because of the nature and topic of the course, my agenda was to challenge our understanding of texts and their meaning. This project option gives you the reins and allows you to think about how you might teach one (or more) of these texts to a particular audience. Maybe you want to teach The Great Gatsby to high school seniors. Would you consider teaching the graphic novel? And how would you approach the task; ask students to approach it? You want to explain what kind of background material you would provide via readings or lecture, the kinds of assignments that might accompany the reading and the ways in which you would lead students through the text.
Something you propose: You might want to work toward an article length project or a paper you would submit to a conference. Maybe you have something you’ve always wanted to research; maybe one of the projects sparked other research ideas. Perhaps you want to focus on a theme in multiple texts rather than focusing on one. This is your chance. Your proposal must engage with course content and our course texts in some way and the project must be approved in advance.
General guidelines: I recommend talking with me about your ideas.
Secondary research is required. The research process will differ depending on your project. For example, sources for a teaching plan would likely be pedagogically focused while sources for the text biography might be historical and archival.
Word count/length will also vary depending on the project. Videos, for example would be around 3–6 minutes. Podcasts would likely be 15–20 minutes. An article-length project is typically 15–20 pages while a paper to present at a conference is 7–10.
Projects are due April 30.
