Paper and Zine Assignments
Paper 1 Vivid/Personal Narrative (five typed pages): In this paper, the focus is creating vivid imagery for the reader through a narrative. Whether it is descriptive detail of the setting, action, or emotional expression, readers should be able to "picture" the elements and "see" the story. This can be any story from your personal experience. You might try recreating a particular moment in time. I would make the scope of the story as compressed as possible. You think of this paper as an attempt to recreate a moment, or an incident, rather than a full story. Narrate in present tense as much as possible and in first person "I.". These are the stories I do not want to see: a paper in which anyone dies (classmate, grandparent, parent, sibling, friends, etc.), stories of automobile accidents, prom, leaving home and/or coming to college, spring break, stories of school competitions (i.e., band, debate, cheerleading, gymnastics, and so forth), any parties you or someone you know went to involving you or someone else ending up drunk/stoned or otherwise intoxicated. We all have these stories and while they mean a lot to us, they are all pretty much the same from person to person. Your challenge is to try to find something in your life more original than the aforementioned examples and tell it in a way that is original and striking. Your life has been full of interesting, important, original moments and incidents; you just need to examine it.
Paper 2 Visual/Textual Interaction (three typed pages): Choose a visual text to analyze (for example, a magazine ad, a propaganda poster or pamphlet, a work of art, a flyer, a religious icon, a building facade, a statue, a stained glass window, graffiti, a photograph, a cereal box, a CD cover). You must include the object, a photograph thereof, or a high-quality full-color (unless, for example, you are talking about a black and white photograph) copy with your paper and your drafts. Do not put in anything that you would be crushed if you didn't get back. Through a careful analysis of various elements including color, placement, size, shape, line, lighting, and so forth the paper will explore such things as emphasis and connotation, audience awareness and intent, and the meaning(s) the visual text conveys. Address a particular theme and demonstrate how certain elements of the visual text support and/or complicate that theme. The paper should have a clear focus. It should not be a haphazard assemblage of random elements that do not connect. Do not use "I." This paper should not be about your feelings regarding the visual text but your analysis thereof. I want to see a specific one sentences thesis summing up your main point, highlighted or italicized, near or at the end of the first paragraph.
Paper 3 Radical Revisionof paper 1 (The length depends on what sort of revision you try): For the radical revision, I want you to take a risk and attempt something that radically and fundamentally alters the story and its presentation. You may consider this paper as more of an experiment. As there can be no real risk-taking without the possibility of failure, I am not grading it on how successful it is as a story but rather how well the story fulfills the request of the first sentence and exhibits the spirit of experimentation. However, this is also not license to slap something together without the care, consideration, time, and effort we would devote to a "normal" story. Revision. Re-vision. To see it completely new as if for the first time. Information on 317-318 and 383-393 of On Writing.
Paper 4 Zine: You and your group members will construct a magazine. Each person should submit an article (at least three pages in the standard format), an advertisement, and a column (at least one page in the standard format). The column might consist of want ads, an advice column, new of the weird, classified advertisements, get rich quick schemes, and so forth. That's the minimum. If you give me more, I may be able to give you more. I would organize the zine around some sort of a theme and give it an original title, but you might have a real magazine (including tabloids) in mind that you use as a sort of model. All the material in the zine will be original; the images you may get from wherever. The zine should have an interesting cover and a table of contents listing all the work in the zine with page numbers and authors. For example, "Selling Preowned Camels for Fun and Profit" by Lawrence Welk page 14. Additionally, on the table of contents page, please include a brief explanation of the zine's purpose and target audience. This should not be a stack of stapled together or paperclipped pages, and should not appear in a three-ring binder. To bind the zine I would suggest using either a glue gun or buying one of those plastic reports covers that lets you slide the work in. I would not suggest paying Target or someone a dollar per page to laminate and spiral bound the zine, but it's your money. We want the zine to look good without having to sell plasma or go to the pawnshop. Fonts, colors, page setup, and so forth are entirely up to you. The zine gets an overall grade for presentation and construction, but the majority of your grade for the zine comes from your individual writing. One final note: not everything has to be G rated, but I don't want to see any images I would have to fork over identification at a store to buy.
Each of the four assignments should be accompanied by a one page process memo. The process memo will talk about your writing process for that assignment. Process memos usually deal with a variety of questions and issues. How did you come up with and develop the idea? How did you revise? What problems did you encounter? Did you solve them? How? What did you get from the assignment? What are do you want the reader to get from the assignment? With the zine process memo include information about what you did to help the zine as a whole in addition to discussing your own writing. Examples of process memos may be found in On Writing 33-35, 41-43, 105, 109, 224, 228, 288-289, 293. 304-305, 382-383, 392-393, 463-465, 469-470, 541-542, 546, 550-551, and 558-559.
The portfolio should be a folder with pockets.