assignments ENGL303 Writing Our Heritages:
Your Life In Pictures
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Overview: Pictures are one way we document our lives. This has increasingly become the case given that most of us walk around with cameras for every waking moment of our lives.
How we look and engage with photos has changed, however. Mostly we don’t keep scrapbooks (though some people do) or photo albums. People keep images on their phone or post things to social media (which is not my thing because I don’t like the world knowing about my private life). But I get it.
I was just with my niece who spent, like, hours on my phone (which she magically figured out the password for) scrolling through photos of a lot of people she didn’t know. She would ask me about who they were and who they were to me and to her. My nephews do this too. They love to watch videos of themselves from when they were children and ask me stories about when it was filmed–who took the video, what was I doing with them at the time, etc. In that way, the photos become a narrative that articulates who we were, who we are, and the myriad connections to the people and places that make up our lives.
Details: For this mini-assignment, I am asking you to select three to five photos that you can use to construct a narrative about your heritage that gets at two questions: 1) how do these images show what you’ve inherited from this life? And 2) how does it show changes over time in that inheritance.
Evaluation
This mini-assignment is worth 10% of your final grade. In order to earn the B grade for this assignment you must:
In order to earn an A for your 10% you must:
In order to earn a C for your 10% you must:
If you do not meet the requirements for the C grade, you will fail the 10% this assignment counts for in your final grade.
How we look and engage with photos has changed, however. Mostly we don’t keep scrapbooks (though some people do) or photo albums. People keep images on their phone or post things to social media (which is not my thing because I don’t like the world knowing about my private life). But I get it.
I was just with my niece who spent, like, hours on my phone (which she magically figured out the password for) scrolling through photos of a lot of people she didn’t know. She would ask me about who they were and who they were to me and to her. My nephews do this too. They love to watch videos of themselves from when they were children and ask me stories about when it was filmed–who took the video, what was I doing with them at the time, etc. In that way, the photos become a narrative that articulates who we were, who we are, and the myriad connections to the people and places that make up our lives.
Details: For this mini-assignment, I am asking you to select three to five photos that you can use to construct a narrative about your heritage that gets at two questions: 1) how do these images show what you’ve inherited from this life? And 2) how does it show changes over time in that inheritance.
- Some advice about selecting images: You have free reign to select any images you want. You don’t need to write about all of them, but you must write about three. As part of this assignment, you will need to in some way make the images available. That said, I want to encourage you not to simply select the first 5 images that pop up on your phone. Look around, see what you can find in scrap books, in family albums, from relatives. Remember that you have two questions to answer. And those two questions will be easier to answer if you select images that support a good story that answer them (what you inherit and what has changed over time in that inheritance). NOTE: You can select images that you’ve already used in class for the first assignment if you want to, but it has to be an actual photograph, not a pic of an object you took specifically to show the artifact.
- Write concise descriptions of your images: Once you’ve selected images, I’m asking you to do two kinds of writing for them. First, please write the best 100-200 word description of the image as you can. I know that’s hard. We will practice in class. The trick is to know what is most important for a reader to get about the image in the shortest space possible–because too much description is boring.
- Ask someone who is in the images what they remember about the moment. This might not be possible for all of your images (for instance, I have an image of all my aunts and uncles that I want to use, but they have all passed away). If you can’t talk to someone about the actual moment, try to talk to someone who is connected to the photo about what they think it says about what you’ve inherited and what has changed over time. You’ll turn the notes from these talks with your final product when you turn it in.
- Write a letter to one person in each image. You can choose to write a letter to one person who appears in all three (to five) images). You can choose to write to yourself at different ages (if you are in the picture or took the picture). You can choose to write a letter to different people, one from each of the three images (up to five). There is no limit on how long the letter is (that’s just for you Gabe). But, keep in mind the project: you are writing to this person in the image about 1) what you inherited and 2) what has changed over time.
Evaluation
This mini-assignment is worth 10% of your final grade. In order to earn the B grade for this assignment you must:
- Include 3 to 5 images that tell a story about what you’ve inherited and what has changed.
- Include the notes from the people you talked to about the images when you turn in the final piece.
- Produce 100-200 word descriptions of each image you include.
- Produce letters of indeterminate length to people in the image (alive or dead) or to yourself at different ages in your life.
- Participate in the workshop of the letters/image descriptions.
- Turn in your revised material by the due date.
In order to earn an A for your 10% you must:
- Do all of the things required for the B grade
- Demonstrate good descriptive skills that are informed by what we talk about in class.
- Demonstrate that you’ve really answered the two questions central to this assignment (what have you inherited and what has changed over time in that inheritance).
In order to earn a C for your 10% you must:
- Include at least 3 images
- Complete the 100-200 word descriptions as well as the letters of indeterminate length and turn them in BY THE DUE DATE.
If you do not meet the requirements for the C grade, you will fail the 10% this assignment counts for in your final grade.