In my upper-level survey and seminar classes, I assign students a final project with a lot of self-direction. They get to choose whether to work solo or in a small group (2-4 students). They get to choose whether to write a paper, whether to connect the current course to their overall course of study, or whether to do a creative “unessay” project. Finally, they get to choose whether their project will be publicly available or only submitted to me.
Here’s the current prompt for the creative project:
Develop a webpage, board game, video, piece of art, short story, film, or other creative work related to the content of this course. It may focus on one or a group of texts on the syllabus. Alternatively, the creative project may focus more broadly on the literary or cultural concepts we discuss. You will be required to participate in the drafting and revision process, so your Project Proposal will need to include a plan for what you will submit on the draft deadlines. Method of submission will be specific to the type of project. You will also write a reflection on the project.
This may be a group project. Maximum group size is 4 students. Groups should include a plan for division of labor in the project proposal.
Here are some past examples of projects in response to this prompt.
Your project should be significant and polished. We are giving four weeks of our class time to this, so that is approximately 30 working hours from each student.
This semester’s public creative projects are a mix of informational websites, instagram galleries, and interactive Telegram bots. Please visit some of these and offer up some interaction as appropriate for each platform!
- Over on Instagram, Soviet Fantastics reviews otherworldly films from the second half of the twentieth century. They’ve definitely added to my to-be-watched list! https://instagram.com/sovietfantastics?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
- On Telegram, inspired by Yasmine Seale’s new translation in The Annotated Arabia Nights, this bot will ask questions to determine your alignment and match you with a character from the Arabian Nights! https://t.co/agvY5Ai4lm
- On Instagram, Telegram, and Solesea, one group of students is publicizing an NFT gallery with original art featuring Powerful Women from fantastic texts. https://instagram.com/powerful_women_nft?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
https://t.me/powerful_women_nft - This website gives an introduction to South American author Jorge Luis Borges and the genre of magical realism. https://kzhivotov.wixsite.com/jlborges
- This self-guided, interactive Canva presentation explores the similarities and differences between Captain Marvel and Ms. Marvel in their respective comic books and films.
- This Telegram bot presents a fan-fic text quest in the Blade Runner storyworld. (for my fellow children of the 1980s, this is like a which-way book) http://t.me/bladeofnes_bot
- This website is a reader’s guide to Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti: The Complete Trilogy. https://nikitagordonov.wixsite.com/bintitrilogy
- This text-based video game (download required) draws on Borges “The Garden of the Forking Paths,” contemporary popular culture, and common games. https://yakovetskayaia.wixsite.com/my-site