Assignments and Assessment

For this seminar, you will be required to keep entries in a notebook, create your own prototypes of a historical text (as part of the notebook), give a presentation, and compile a portfolio, which will integrate your prototypes into a collection of observations about your selected -ism. These portfolios will treat prototypes as evocative objects for describing your text, reflecting on your work, and conducting future research. They will not act as seminar papers or follow the conventions of academic journal articles. For our purposes during seminar, "prototype" will be synonymous with a "physical alteration" or "version."

Below is a list of the assignments, together with a description of what is expected for each and how each will be assessed. Please note that the requirements are subject to minor changes as the seminar progresses. If I do make a change to any of the assignments, then I will notify you in writing and well in advance.

The portfolio and presentation are essential to passing the course. Failure to complete these two requirements will result in a failing N grade (calculated as a 0 for your GPA). Please also note: I do not post marks outside my office, and I do not use plagiarism detection software.

Notebook (30%, due by 12pm on 20 April 2016)

Throughout the term, you will keep a notebook documenting your alterations to an -ism. Consisting of several simple experiments across digital and tactile media, your notebook will be shared frequently during seminar, and you will be expected to comment on experiments and prototypes by your peers. Your notebook will be assessed holistically, meaning your work will be given one grade (at the term’s end) based on its: 1) consistency, 2) development over time, 3) reflexive character, 4) integration of seminar discussions and workshops, 5) quality (including its combination of critique with creativity), and 6) attention to change. There will be a prompt for each entry in your notebook, and it will be related to a particular workshop, seminar discussion, and reading. The prompt will be circulated at least one week prior to the entry’s due date. Entries should be completed before seminar on the day they are due.

Near our sixth meeting of the term, I will circulate an interim mark for your notebook. My intention for holistically assessing your notebook is not to keep you in the dark about your academic progress. It is to treat a notebook as it should be treated: as a genre that develops and increases in complexity over time. Please note that the tone and style of your notebooks should be less formal than, say, a seminar essay intended for an academic audience. Where applicable, entries should be self-aware and reflexive. In the notebook, please feel free to reference work being conducted by your peers or to spark dialogue with them. Please also feel free to combine your preferred modes of composition: writing, drawing, collage, outlining, sketching, graphing, etc. In so doing, you’ll likely need to create an online folder, site, or repository (e.g., GitHub, Drive, or Tumblr) to share digital files, and then point your peers and me to its URL. In fact, for our purposes during seminar, your notebook should be considered a composition across digital and tactile media, with source material available offline and on.

For the notebook, grades will be assigned based on the following scale:

• 90-100 = A+: Notebooks in this range are incredibly detailed, rife with documentation, and demonstrate new or innovative uses of specific methods or techniques. They respond to seminar discussions, engage assigned readings, are reflexive, and exhibit a combination of critical thinking, creativity, and awareness of media/materiality.
  
• 85-89 = A: Notebooks in this range are incredibly detailed and rife with documentation. They respond to seminar discussions, engage assigned readings, are reflexive, and exhibit a combination of critical thinking, creativity, and awareness of media/materiality.
  
• 80-84 = A-: Notebooks in this range are incredibly detailed and rife with documentation. They respond to seminar discussions, engage assigned readings, and are reflexive.
  
• 77-79 = B+: Notebooks in this range are rife with documentation. They respond to seminar discussions and are reflexive.
  
• 73-76 = B: Research logs in this range are rife with documentation and respond to seminar discussions.

Please submit your notebook by 20 April 2016.

Portfolio (40%, due by 12pm on 20 April 2016)

Your portfolio should collect the best work you have done during seminar and contextualize it with a cover statement. The portfolio can be digital, tactile, or both, and it can be submitted online, by hand, or both. It should not be treated as a seminar paper. Its primary function is to exhibit your work as a collection of critical and creative takes on an -ism, with attention to fine-grained details. Awareness of these details should emerge from your prototyping as a form of research and inquiry, and where possible you should stress how prototyping demonstrates the ways in which meaning is articulated with matter, context, and use. Across the materials, but especially in the cover statement, you should demonstrate knowledge of the history, aesthetics, politics, and material composition of your selected -ism and text(s). To do so, you will need to thoroughly research your -ism as and after you prototype versions of it.

In your cover statement, I recommend treating your prototypes as evidence for understanding or interpreting your -ism as a form of "action writing," or a way to prompt specific behaviours. You may find it helpful to articulate a conceptual thread and run it through your cover statement (for the purposes of coherence), even if you don't make an explicit, academic argument about your -ism. You may also want to position your prototypes as situations or contexts for interpretation (as opposed to stable objects or exact replicas). What kinds of interactions, alternatives, feelings, negotiations, or interpretations do they encourage? What and how do they conjecture? Are they interested in the probable, or the preferable, or the possible, or the plausible, or . . . ? How do they use time, space, and ephemerality as media? How and under what assumptions do they alter your primary source, and to what effects on how we define primary sources in the first place? How do they perform your selected text(s) differently than in the past, and ultimately which differences make a difference?

Due by 20 April 2016, your portfolio should include:

• A cover statement (1000-2000 words, which should focus on the prototypes included in your portfolio and their relation to the historical, aesthetic, political, and material elements of your -ism),
• Four (and only four) prototypes from your notebook (prototypes can and probably should be revised since your notebook; one of the prototypes must be your "capstone" prototype, which is due on 30 March 2016),
• A title for each prototype,
• A description (~50 words) of each prototype (you may include between three and five descriptive keywords, too, if you wish), and
• References and further reading (MLA format; not just a works cited; should include primary sources for your -ism but also secondary sources about your -ism).

For the portfolio, grades will be assigned based on the following scale:

• 90-100 = A+: Portfolios in this range are especially sophisticated and perceptive pieces of work that make an original contribution to scholarly thinking about a particular -ism. They could be published in a multimodal journal or exhibited in an academic venue.
  
• 85-89 = A: Portfolios in this range are perceptive and original, but may require substantial revision for public circulation. They could act as core material for a conference presentation.
• 80-84 = A-: Portfolios in this range are adequate at the graduate level with regard to the research, presentation, and quality of content.
• 77-79 = B+: Portfolios in this range have significant flaws in some areas, but they still meet graduate standards.
• 73-76 = B: Portfolios in this range are marginally acceptable at the graduate level.

Presentation (15%, scheduled for 2:30pm on 4 April 2017)

Scheduled for 2:30pm on Tuesday, April 4th, your final presentation should include the following elements:

• Your "capstone" prototype, based on a prototyping exercise of your own design, responding to the final prompt, "_____ It";
• Tactile material to present and circulate (on a table, stand, or the like; your capstone prototype should not be displayed solely on a screen);
• A five-minute talk about your selected text, prototype, prototyping method, and findings/interpretations (this talk should stress interesting details emerging from prototyping as a form of inquiry; please practice this talk in advance; your audience includes other people in this seminar but also faculty and peers in the arts and humanities at UVic); and
• A tagline following this convention: A ____ of ____ist _____ (e.g., a ruination of Cubist emotion, an imitation of Expressionist linocuts, and a model of Orphist simultaneity). This tagline will be included in a poster that will circulate roughly one week prior to your presentations on the 30th. Please email me this tagline, together with your name as you'd like it to appear on the poster, before Wednesday, March 22nd at 9am.

For the final presentation, grades will be assigned based on the following scale:

• 90-100 = A+: Presentations in this range are incredibly compelling and even memorable. They demonstrate what was learned during the term and provide clear evidence of that learning. They prompt the audience to ask questions, and they spark conversation about a concrete topic emerging from the seminar. They do not visibly rely much (if at all) on reading a prepared text. Their structure is tangible and easy to follow.
  
• 85-89 = A: Presentations in this range demonstrate what was learned during the term and provide clear evidence of that learning. They prompt the audience to ask questions, and they spark conversation about a concrete topic emerging from the seminar. They do not visibly rely much (if at all) on reading a prepared text. Their structure is tangible and easy to follow.
  
• 80-84 = A-: Presentations in this range demonstrate what was learned during the term and provide recognizable evidence of that learning. They prompt the audience to ask questions. They do not visibly rely much (if at all) on reading a prepared text. Their structure is tangible and easy to follow.
  
• 77-79 = B+: Presentations in this range demonstrate what was learned during the term and provide recognizable evidence of that learning. They do not visibly rely much (if at all) on reading a prepared text.
  
• 73-76 = B: Presentations in this range demonstrate what was learned during the term and provide recognizable evidence of that learning.

Participation (15%)

Discussion and invested participation are central to the graduate seminar format, and they are important dimensions of academic labour. That said, I will assess your contributions to the seminar this term, including questions you ask, your involvement in workshops, your investment and role in dialogue, and your familiarity with the readings at hand. Near our sixth meeting, I will circulate interim participation grades.

For your participation mark, grades will be assigned based on the following scale:

• 90-100 = A+: Participation in this range demonstrates an incredibly high level of engagement with the course material. You are clearly familiar with the reading(s) at hand, actively engaged in workshops, sparking dialogue with your peers and me, listening attentively to others, and asking compelling questions, which have not occurred to me or your peers.
  
• 85-89 = A: Participation in this range demonstrates a high level of engagement with the course material. You are clearly familiar with the reading(s) at hand, actively engaged in workshops, sparking dialogue with your peers and me, listening attentively to others, and asking important questions.
  
• 80-84 = A-: Participation in this range demonstrates a high level of engagement with the course material. You are clearly familiar with the reading(s) at hand, actively engaged in workshops, sparking dialogue with your peers and me, and listening attentively to others.
  
• 77-79 = B+: Participation in this range demonstrates an acceptable level of engagement with the course material. You are clearly familiar with the reading(s) at hand and actively engaged in workshops.
  
• 73-76 = B: Participation in this range suggests you are likely familiar with the reading(s) at hand and engaged in workshops.