Essay
Weight: 30% of final grade
Due: Wednesday, May
14, 5 p.m. Please slide your essay under my door in Sierra Tower 803.
Format: approximately 5 pages typed anddouble-spaced with 1-inch
margins andpages numbered. This essay
is about the difference it makes
to think about a text in relationship
to the material and/or social circumstances
of its production and reception.
The requirements are:
- Return to your analysis
of your passage, done for
Mini Web Project or your Group Web Project.
- Use one or two aspects
of the material or social
dimensions of the text, as
you learned it from the Group
Web Project (whether your
part or another’s contribution),
to refine, revise, or re-frame
your analysis.
- You may include ideas about
relationships between the
physical page and the words
that you didn’t have
an opportunity to include
in your earlier projects because you did not yet have the necessary knowledge or perspective.
- For your thesis, you should make a
claim about the significance
of the passage or the importance
of the material or social
dimension(s) that you discuss.
- The essay should be properly formatted in MLA or another accepted style for literary ctiticism with your sources cited appropriately.
- Provide a title that indicates
something about your approach
or argument.
- Provide a bibliography at the end which indicates all the sources you have used.*
* Note: If you have used an article from a printed journal or a book which exists in print, cite it as a printed source, even if you have acquired the source online. Hence, if you read provided on the course web site or by Project Muse, cite the source as according to the method you would use for a printed text and provide the page numbers as they are printed in that version published in pritn. You only need to provide a URL for web sites (i.e. sources which cannot be found in print).
Group Web Project
Weight: 30% of final grade
Due: 23 April (Plan due 9 April)
The group’s site is to focus on a primary text or cluster of related texts. The site should contain:
- A “network” of related pages, each examining a specific aspect of the text(s).
- An introductory page that indicates the site’s authors and summarizes and/or relates a perspective on its topic, as well as providing access to the site’s other pages. It should also provide a link to the assignment page for the class and the same sort of “copyright” claim as the Mini Web Project.
Grading of individuals is based on:
- Quality of research on topic.
- Quality of presentation both in terms of its written and its visual dimensions. The balance of written and visual dimensions may lean more one way than the other. While this class is not about visual design, you should feel free to use the possibilities the web affords you. Proofreading, useability, and legibility count, as does adherence to the practices of academic honesty.
- The organization and synergy of the group’s site. Although it is acceptable to present simply a collection of pages related to the group’s topic, it is preferable to indicate through explicit discussion and design of the site what the parts convey when considered as a single composition.
- How well and how fully you as an individual contribute to the group effort.
Procedure and Plan: The group will need to exchange e-mail, decide on who will be the “webmaster,” keeping the page on his or her web space, and making sure that the site as a whole works. The group should also decide on someone who keeps everyone on track with their work (the “taskmaster”), reminding them to get drafts done to share with others. Individual pages (or at least full drafts of them) will need to be done enough ahead of time for composition of the introductory page. The design and substance of that page should be a group project, though one person will need to be in charge of final polishing and proofreading.
You will turn in a Group Plan on 9 April, which will specify the following elements: the webmaster, the taskmaster, the person who will polish and proofread the introductory page, the topics each member will present for the project. I will then give you commentary and some further direction. Please contact me early if you need to discuss possible topics.
Topics: Any topic may be narrowed or expanded as seems best; the length of any presentation should be the equivalent of 3-5 typewritten, double-spaced pages (if you do something more visual or dynamic, the “equivalent” will be in terms of detail and depth). Be sure to provide proper references for quotations and ideas derived from essays and web sites. Provide at the end a list of essays, books, and web sites that you have used in your research and presentation (i.e. a bibliography). All bibliographical references should be cited in a recognised scholarly format such as MLA; however, this format may be modified if something in your web site design warrants it.
Research tips:
- Bibliographic databases to consult include the MLA International Bibliography and the Bibliography Databases listed on the Resources page.
- Although you will find many fabulous resources on the internet, the majority of scholarship is still confined to the print medium (even if it is then reproduced on the web, as with ProjectMuse). Work which does not make sufficient use of printed books and journals is therefore likely to be of an inferior depth and will be graded appropriately. So make sure you begin research soon, leaving time for interlibrary loans, if neceesary.
- Always write down full bibliographical information for your notes, mark quoted words with quotation marks, and record the page number(s). Otherwise it will take you twice as long to check these things at the end.
- There are many good resources out there which you might not be able to find with a casual search. If you can't find what you need, ask me for help.
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Mini Web Project
Weight: 25% of final grade
Due: 12 March
Choose a text from the syllabus that you
think you will enjoy working on for a series
of assignments. For your first assignment,
you will concentrate on a short passage
from your chosen text, approximately five
to ten lines long. The purposes of this
assignment are for you to learn to make
a simple web page using html coding, to
begin to think about the material dimensions
of the text in its medieval manifestation(s),
and to begin to analyse the meanings of
the text.
For this assignment, you may not use Dreamweaver
or any other program that does the coding for
you. Although you will be given instruction in
html coding in class, you may also wish to get
ahead by reading the tutorials
from htmlgoodies.com.
Your web page should
have the following components:
- A thumbnail image of one page of
the manuscript for your text, linked
to a full-sized image on another
web site or on the CSUN server. Ideally,
the image will be the very page that
has your chosen passage on it, but,
since everything isn’t
on the web, it may be a different
page of the same (or a closely related)
text or from the same manuscript.
Next to the thumbnail image, you
should give information about the
source web site and the manuscript,
listed by its library shelfmark.
- A physical description of the page,
including its dimensions,
condition, the kind of handwriting,
any decoration, punctuation, and
so on. If you have found a facsimile
of the page with your text, whether
online, in another digital medium,
or a print facsimile, describe the
page that has your text, even if
you have had to link to a different
page. If you have not found a facsimile
of the page, even after consulting
with me, then describe the page you
found online, stating in what ways
you think it may be similar.
- An analysis of the meaning of the
short passage you have chosen (a “close
reading”), in which you discuss
what it says and how it says it,
getting into such matters word
choice, tone, metaphors, imagery,
and rhythm. You may also wish to include discussion of the historical context. This part should be the
equivalent of about three typed pages
in 12-point font.
- Your name, a statement that you
are responsible for the content of
the web page and that no one is to quote
it or use your ideas without proper
attribution, a statement that it
is an assignment for our course,
and a link to the course web site.
You should keep your web page on your
CSUN account (or another host, if you
already have one) and e-mail the
url (address) by the due date to me (scott.kleinman@csun.edu).
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