The story of Whitman’s influence is a story of continually inventing innovative ways to respond to this prominent figure in American literary history. The final project in this course is modeled on a similar call to innovate and create.
Your final project in this course will be a substantial research-based project that will go through various stages: a proposal, mentored research, a one-on-one conference discussing a project draft, peer review, and a final presentation. All projects must incorporate at least 6-8 secondary sources (i.e. sources providing the relevant critical, historical, and cultural contexts) in addition to a relevant primary source material. How you employ these sources will vary depending on your project. You have a great deal of freedom determining what this final project will look like for you. Here are a few potential ideas:
- A multimodal research paper, composed using the WordPress platform, launching a novel claim about some aspect of Whitman and his influence (3,250 – 4,000 words, or the equivalent of a 13-15 page research paper).
- A longer podcast or series of shorter podcasts exploring some aspect of Whitman and his influence
- A substantial creative project grounded in research into a specific school or mode.
- A lesson plan tailored for a target audience.
- An archival project using materials available through the Whitman archive
- An mini web anthology with headnotes and an introduction
I will work with you to negotiate what what a substantial equivalent of a 13-15 page research paper might be. You can also propose to work in small groups if your project warrants such collaboration. All projects will be presented digitally on the course website.
Refer to the schedule for the timeline that will keep us all on track. Additional information on the proposal, the project itself, and the presentation will be posted later in the semester.
Online and Presentations: The “home base” for your final presentations will be the course blog. This is where you will post your final project under the “Final Project” category. Please make sure you select this category. This final project post will evolve from your proposal and should accomplish the following:
- Introduce your topic or idea in a dynamic and concise way. Make sure you articulate the motivations for your project.
- Provide a description of the research conversation (including primary and secondary sources) that provided the crucial material for the project. Also mention if there is a particular “genre” that you are engaging (e.g. chapbook, anthology, podcast, research paper, etc.) and why you chose that genre.
- Embed or link to the project
- Make a case for the project’s purpose and significance. What knowledge or experience does it make available? What exigence drives the project? So what? Finally, why does this matter to you?
- Reflect on what you take to be the project’s highlights as well as any struggles you faced.
This post will also be a rough template for your 6-minute presentation, but you will also be asked to give your reader a a suitable “taste” of the project itself (a cut from a podcast, a moment of close reading from your paper, a series of images and text from a photo essay, etc.). Make sure you conclude with a brief reflection on why this project matters to you, why it should matter to us, and what you learned while putting it together. All final projects will also be made available online–you can link to or embed your projects in that final post.
Grading Rubric: I will evaluate your projects in relation to three basic categories: (1) the quality of your original idea as presented in the proposal and refined in subsequent conversations with me and your peers will be worth 10% of your grade; (2) the quality of the final project itself in relation to what was proposed will be worth 70% of your grade (half of this grade will relate to the quality, depth, and relevance of research); (3) the physical and online presentation of your project will be worth 20% of your grade, split evenly between the presentation itself, and the online delivery of your project.