FINAL PROJECT and Presentation
We will meet together in Room 219 for our final project presentations at 2:00pm on Monday, May 8th.
You should prepare a 10-15 minute presentation. However, your presentation should be a snap shot of the greater work and thought you put into the project. You should leave me with an array of work that is self-explanatory and symbolic of your original ideas related to the novel.
Your project information is included below:
MUSEUM of the Morrison Imagination
Remember the first day of class? Remember the Dancing Mind? Your final project is to document, literally and visually, a waltz between your mind and the mind of Toni Morrison as presented in the novel of your choosing. As she states, the reading/writing enterprise “is the dance of an open mind when it engages another equally open one.” Trace, if you can, this space, this movement in your own imagination. What do you see and feel and understand from the novel? How can you help us inhabit the same space, teach us the steps, and “bear witness” to the world and testimony of the novel. Please recall the first anecdote she shares about the young man who has an original experience with literature after having been alone with his own mind. I hope that you would strive for a similarly original experience and revelation.
After choosing a novel written by Toni Morrison (not including The Bluest Eye of Song of Solomon) and consider the following questions:
What words, phrases or literary concepts recur and resound in the novel?
How can we better see, feel, taste and know the culture manifested from the pages?
Is there relevant historical context or allusion that informs us about this world or culture?
Who are the people in your novel’s neighborhoods? How do we get to know them?
Are the cultures, races or classes identified by space or setting in specific ways in your novel?
Which words give value or distinction to these spaces?
What does Morrison think about the identity of Americans based on your reading of her novels?
What life lessons or aphorisms does your novel teach?
In what ways do lines and phrases you have chosen construct a political world?
How does Morrison symbolize and articulate love or freedom through your novel?
I expect you to present to the class the imaginative world that you share with Morrison in the novel you have read. You should write thoughtfully about the constructs, metaphors, images, lifestyles and perspectives portrayed in your novel. Represent these ideas in your own words and images.
Imagine that you are the new curator of the Toni Morrison Imagination Museum. You have been contracted to construct a space and design the content of a room about the Morrison novel you read. What would be in the room? To what information and critical understandings of literature and culture will you need to direct your visitors? What diagrams or pictures can you create and display that will allow the guests of the museum to experience the novel? This endeavor should in no way resemble a book report or summary of the novel. This project should be physical and literary. You may portray the suspended worlds of mystic realism, abstraction and reality. You may construct a model or diagram of the proposed museum. Where might we build it? How would it look and feel based on your novel? What are the major exhibits and themes? Ultimately, I implore you to stretch your intellect and memory of class experience to depict the multilayered universe of Morrison’s imagination as represented by her book.
Be original; have an original experience and attempt to demonstrate through word and form your original ideas about Morrison’s world. You may employ the mediums of computer technology, photography, studio art, drawing and painting, film or music and sound. I would prefer that you not cut and paste electronic images that already exist, but create your own images. Whatever form of writing you choose to express your project should represent three weeks worth of work. Poetry, journals, creative writing, literary analysis, essays and blogs are acceptable.
Although class will not meet regularly, you are required to meet with me once a week for 20 minutes (3 meetings total) to discuss and describe your experiences, plans, and updates related to your imagination museum. We will have a final class on Tuesday, May 2nd during H period to share some last minute ideas and progress reports. Please let me know if you need help gathering supplies and resources to create your visions.
Your 10-15 minute presentation to the class will be scheduled for Monday, May 8th at which time your entire project (in all forms) should be submitted to Miss Jefferson. Lateness will drastically affect your grade. This project is worth 20% of your semester grade.
You should prepare a 10-15 minute presentation. However, your presentation should be a snap shot of the greater work and thought you put into the project. You should leave me with an array of work that is self-explanatory and symbolic of your original ideas related to the novel.
Your project information is included below:
MUSEUM of the Morrison Imagination
Remember the first day of class? Remember the Dancing Mind? Your final project is to document, literally and visually, a waltz between your mind and the mind of Toni Morrison as presented in the novel of your choosing. As she states, the reading/writing enterprise “is the dance of an open mind when it engages another equally open one.” Trace, if you can, this space, this movement in your own imagination. What do you see and feel and understand from the novel? How can you help us inhabit the same space, teach us the steps, and “bear witness” to the world and testimony of the novel. Please recall the first anecdote she shares about the young man who has an original experience with literature after having been alone with his own mind. I hope that you would strive for a similarly original experience and revelation.
After choosing a novel written by Toni Morrison (not including The Bluest Eye of Song of Solomon) and consider the following questions:
What words, phrases or literary concepts recur and resound in the novel?
How can we better see, feel, taste and know the culture manifested from the pages?
Is there relevant historical context or allusion that informs us about this world or culture?
Who are the people in your novel’s neighborhoods? How do we get to know them?
Are the cultures, races or classes identified by space or setting in specific ways in your novel?
Which words give value or distinction to these spaces?
What does Morrison think about the identity of Americans based on your reading of her novels?
What life lessons or aphorisms does your novel teach?
In what ways do lines and phrases you have chosen construct a political world?
How does Morrison symbolize and articulate love or freedom through your novel?
I expect you to present to the class the imaginative world that you share with Morrison in the novel you have read. You should write thoughtfully about the constructs, metaphors, images, lifestyles and perspectives portrayed in your novel. Represent these ideas in your own words and images.
Imagine that you are the new curator of the Toni Morrison Imagination Museum. You have been contracted to construct a space and design the content of a room about the Morrison novel you read. What would be in the room? To what information and critical understandings of literature and culture will you need to direct your visitors? What diagrams or pictures can you create and display that will allow the guests of the museum to experience the novel? This endeavor should in no way resemble a book report or summary of the novel. This project should be physical and literary. You may portray the suspended worlds of mystic realism, abstraction and reality. You may construct a model or diagram of the proposed museum. Where might we build it? How would it look and feel based on your novel? What are the major exhibits and themes? Ultimately, I implore you to stretch your intellect and memory of class experience to depict the multilayered universe of Morrison’s imagination as represented by her book.
Be original; have an original experience and attempt to demonstrate through word and form your original ideas about Morrison’s world. You may employ the mediums of computer technology, photography, studio art, drawing and painting, film or music and sound. I would prefer that you not cut and paste electronic images that already exist, but create your own images. Whatever form of writing you choose to express your project should represent three weeks worth of work. Poetry, journals, creative writing, literary analysis, essays and blogs are acceptable.
Although class will not meet regularly, you are required to meet with me once a week for 20 minutes (3 meetings total) to discuss and describe your experiences, plans, and updates related to your imagination museum. We will have a final class on Tuesday, May 2nd during H period to share some last minute ideas and progress reports. Please let me know if you need help gathering supplies and resources to create your visions.
Your 10-15 minute presentation to the class will be scheduled for Monday, May 8th at which time your entire project (in all forms) should be submitted to Miss Jefferson. Lateness will drastically affect your grade. This project is worth 20% of your semester grade.
posted by Ms. Jefferson at 10:22 AM
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