William FitzGerald							Spring 2007
English 394 - Song to Cyberspace

Final Project- A Multimodal Presentation of Research into Communication Practices
(this assignment sheet will expand to support various stages in the project)

Overview

     In this major activity of the course, you are to identify some aspect, practice, mode or genre illustrative of the technology of communication (oral, written, textual, visual, hybrid), one 
that you can research productively and about which you can produce a well-crafted 5 to 7 minute in-class presentation about your project and a multimodal composition, the equivalent, in words, of an 8 to 10 page paper. 

     A researched, multimodal composition is one that draws upon an appropriate range of examples and authoritative sources to produce an informative exposition that itself manifests 
at least two modalities of communication, e.g., words + graphics. In summary, successful
completion of this project will require
     (as work-in-progress)
     	a one page proposal (due Thursday, March 8);
	a three page progress report (with bibliography);
	a substantive draft for peer and teacher review;
     (as final deliverables)
	an in-class presentation (with appropriate visuals, aurals and/or tangibles);
	a formal "paper" (both in hardcopy and electronic form, e.g., .doc, .html, .ppt)

Possible Projects

     The options are seemingly endless. Here is a list of mediated forms and practices of
communication that may spur your thinking:
	the design and use of logos and branding in business or academia;
	the story-telling capacities of quilts/memorials/monuments;
	online and offlines shrines/sites of tribute/memory projects
	the development of video games and/or other electronic mediated activities;
	the role of murals in urban communal spaces;
	the oral transmission of cultural knowledge in nursery rhymes or jump rope songs
	Mayan or other non-Western writing systems;
	the functions of typography (including font choice) in designing effective resumés;
	changing practices in interpersonal communication, e.g, electronic greeting cards;
	changing practices in business to customer/client communication;
	historical/contemporary practices in th production of books, newpapers, magazines, etc.
	the repurposing, remediation, or even 'death' of various communication practices;
	the role of material improvements to an existing communication technology;
	new hallmarks of the information age, e.g., youtube or facebook;
	urban legends (and their propagation through the internet);
	forms of prayer or other ways that technology mediates religious practices;
	changing practices in libraries and/or information storage/retrieval;
	practices/histories of handwriting/penmanship/calligraphy;
	writing with computers (including with specific software programs and features);
	sound-based technologies, e.g., ipod, podcasting, audiobooks, satellite radio;
	vision-based technologies, e.g., billboards, flyers, graphic mode of narration;
	modes of orality including public speaking and preaching;
	chatrooms, text-messaging;

In any project you ultimately choose, the task is to research the issue responsibly and creatively, by becoming familiar with prior work on the issue, by adopting a critical perspective toward the material, by imitating wisely the excellent work of others. 

First stage: a one page proposal (due March 8)

     Your first activity is to write up a statement of interest identifying as precisely as you can the object under study and explaining the basis of your interest. This exercise is also an opportunity to demonstrate to us both that you can find relevant materials as well as discuss them intelligibly. You might, therefore, be as clear as possible about the approaches you will likely take, e.g., historical, comparative, theoretical, and the form your project's final productis likely to assume, e.g., a traditional paper enhanced with media; a well done slide show (with embedded images or sound files; a small web-based exhibit with a navigation scheme and/or external links, a poster project with an accompanying guide. All of your projects will involve producing a bibliography (e.g., list of works cited, credits for images used, additional references). 

     You may submit the proposed project in class or by email. I will respond within several days) to each proposed project with some statement of endorsement or by suggesting ways to modify the proposal. 

Note: the final product should have a particular viewership in mind, one that is broader than the single reader of your instructor; you should, therefore, consider and be explicit identify who, ideally, will encounter your project.