The final project for this class combines both creative and critical components depending on your choice.

Option 1: Creative Path

If you choose the creative path for this assignment, your goal is to create a new and original narrative work, in any medium, that in some way extends or disrupts the boundaries narrative form established in this class. Some media types will be inherently experimental (such as hypertext or interactive fiction) and other forms (prose, comics, painting, sculpture) will require some extra creativity on your part to break out of that forms dominant or conventional mode for expressing narrativity.

There is no requirement for length, other than that it be substantive enough for you to analyze. If you choose this option, the work must be original and it must be new. It cannot, in other words, be something that you've created prior to this semester or for another class this semester.

After completing the work, you will prepare a short (~ 3 page) analysis, reading out its narrative strategies from the point of view of a third-person critic.

Timeline:

Tuesday, Nov. 24

Propose your creative project, both in class (informally) and through a blog entry

Describe project in as much detail as possible including form, scope, goals, and content

Thursday, Dec. 3

Complete work on creative project

Begin work on analysis

Thursday, Dec. 10

Analysis paper due (submitted electronically)

Meet to share project outcomes with informal presentations

Rubric:

Option 2: Analytical Path

If you choose the analytical path, your gaol is to produce a close, narratological study of some form of narrative other than the one's we've considered this semester. Anything other than film, television, comics, animation, CYOA, hypertext, interactive fiction and videogames is appropriate source material.

Choose a form, and then offer a close reading of a particular artifact in the form, "reading out" the essential narrational features. For example, if you choose architecture, select a specific building to analyze. If typography, select a particular typeface or typeset work.

This analysis should take the form of a 4 - 6 page paper written in careful, academic prose. Consult outside sources as needed, and provide full citation (in MLA style).

Timeline

Tuesday, Nov. 24

Propose your project, both in class (informally) and through a blog entry

Identify the form and specific examples under analysis

Thursday, Dec. 3

Complete rough draft of analysis paper

Thursday, Dec. 10

Submit paper electronically

Meet to share project outcomes with informal presentations

Rubric