“Make Something That Moves” – Final Project

Overview

In groups of three to four, students will create a final project that engages relevant questions, themes, history, and text from the course in order to creatively explore a topic, question, idea that is meaningful to the group. The aim of the project is to think about and with the black tradition’s ongoing experimentation in the relationship between movement and constraint. To that end, the project must move in some way. Perhaps you adopt a mobile project form (ex. a live campus parade) or perhaps a key objective of your project is to move its audience emotionally, spiritually, and/or physically (ex. a mural that engages the history of black bodies dancing through pandemics or a campus scavenger hunt).

Guidelines / Check List:

1 – Subject or topic of the project must engage something (i.e. a question, topic, text, issue, debate, place, etc.) that each member of your group finds important or meaningful (albeit not necessarily for the same reasons).

2 – Must engage a critical theme and/or question from the course.

3 – Must meaningfully engage at least three of the course texts (including at least one prose text and one non-prose text from the course).

4 – Must meaningfully engage black history (may draw from panel papers and class lectures though should also supplement with additional research from at least wo reputable sources).

5 – Must employ medium, medias, genres, structures and/or other formal choices suited to content and objectives of your project.

6 – Must have a specific purpose / objective.

7 – Must have an intended audience even though the project should be something that folks outside your intended project may still be able to reasonably engage and appreciate.

8- Must complete Project Proposal, Project Check in.

9 – Must present project to class at the end of the semester. Presentations should be five to seven minutes; incorporate all group members; and include some form of audio/visual aid (does not need to be a PowerPoint or Prezi). Think about the presentation like a Show-and-Tell. Make sure you have something to show (even if the project is not yet complete when you present it.)

10- Must submit project with 4-5 paged “group-authored” reflection essay. The essay should A) describe the project (including your objective(s), intended audience and the rationale behind the choices you made in terms of form and content); B) discuss how the project meaningfully engages one of the key questions and/or themes of the course; black history; and at least three of the course texts; C) explain how the topic of the project is meaningful to your group and how working on the project has affected the group’s relationship to the topic; and D) reflect on what parts of the project design work and why as well as what changes you’d make if you had more time and why.

Grading Rubrics

Individual Grade = 50% Project Grade + 50% Assessment Sheet (circulated by email)

Group Grade = Each of the ten project guidelines listed above are worth 10% of the project grade.

Please note that while the essay is worth the same amount as all the other guideline, the essay has additional value in that it allows you to very clearly articulate the what and why of your project. Aspects of your project that might not be as clear or appear as strong in the final execution (say due to the fact that you’re not professional painters or that you shot your movie with your iphone and whoever you could get from your dorm hall).

Types of Projects Previous Students Have Done

Children’s Cook Book

Book about a Book

Performance Zine

Cooking Show

Comic Book

Dramatic Readings

Live Performance

Audio-Collage

Digital Scrapbook

DIY “Flowers for the Living” Craft and Meditation Video

Sonic Annotations

A(t) Black BC Campus Scavenger Search

Pop Up Classes

Lesson Plans (for a community workshop, elementary class, Lit Core unit, etc.)

Healing and Mindfulness Awareness

Guerilla Art Activism

Collection of Poems

Fashion Show

Music Video

Memorial for Jefferson (the Black man on death row in A Lesson Before Dying) – complete with a eulogy, music, photo-memory book for signing, and Jefferson’s favorite food.

Series of reviews (submitted to relevant journals and/or blogs)

Conference Paper (with abstract, must be submitted).

Syllabus (GenEd FirstYear writing, high school English class, 91stY(MCA) Youth Writers Workshop Series)

and more.