Context

Exhibit.so is an online platform that creates interactive digital collections. Students can scroll through online exhibits of objects (images/details of images, screenshots of texts, 3d images) that have been arranged in a certain order alongside text that glosses or tells a story about the objects in the exhibit. exhibit.so can be used for a traditional museum style exhibition, with a sequence of objects and descriptions, a close reading of a single object (as in the NYT close readings feature), or a close reading of a literary text paired with images and artifacts (as in this Dore/Coleridge exploration on BC’s student-led Deep Readings site).

While exhibit.so has a multitude of possible uses, this sample assignment page explores using the platform for an alternative final essay assignment in an undergraduate English course. Exhibit.so particularly lends itself to topics that bring together literature and the visual arts. Many final papers in undergraduate literature focus primarily on the skills of 1) choosing an appropriate topic and formulating a thesis, 2) close reading a text to support a thesis with evidence, 3) drawing on relevant secondary material to enrich the close reading argument. All of these objectives can be met in an exhibit.so assignment and students can create a unique and interactive visual essay product.

Title

Final Essay: Close-Reading Literature Through Artwork

Sample/Suggested Texts:

• Illustrated books on Project Gutenberg
• Comic Book Adaptations of Classic Texts
• Bartleby Collections of Free Poetry Anthologies (can be paired or juxtaposed with artwork)

Example Project

May take short amount of time to load. Scroll to read and view the exhibit. To view the exhibit full screen, click here to take a look at it on exhibit.so.

Objectives and Skills:

• Students will learn a new technology to ‘translate’ academic work into a public-facing interactive product
• Students will form a thesis bringing together a text and art/illustration
• Students will close-read a text and accompanying art/illustration in exploration of their thesis
• Students will draw on relevant secondary literature in formulating their arguments

Sample Assignment Sheet:

Purpose:

To analyze how illustration/artwork informs and shapes our readings of literary texts.
To ‘translate’ analytical scholarship into engaging, public-facing work.

Description:

In this exhibit.so project, you will choose one literary text and 1-3 images that enrich your understanding of the text in some way. You should stick to a shorter text, like a poem, or an excerpt of a larger text (see Deep Readings site for an example for an exhibit using an excerpted long poem). Your artwork does not need to be an illustration for the text (though it can be); it just needs to be a helpful enrichment or juxtaposition with the text you chose (see Close Read for a sense of the range of pairings you could explore).

Your final product will be :

1. an exhibit.so project,
2. a 2-3 paragraph piece that explains your choice of text and images, your thesis, and the general conclusions of your analysis
3. An MLA-formatted works cited page that includes at least your text and images, and any secondary materials you may have needed in your analysis.

Process

In this assignment process, you will be responsible for the following steps in the following order:

1. Selecting a literary text and 1-3 images: Choose a relevant text from class and pair it with 1-3 images. These images can be illustrations for the text or simply artwork that makes for an enriching discussion of the text in some way. Feel free to bring several choices and ideas to me as you decide on your materials. Your final choices will be due via discussion board post on the following day: [Add date here].

2. Brainstorm your thesis and area of analysis: Think through and write or audio-record yourself answering any or all of the following questions (whatever is useful to you)
   How are these images and this text related?
   What details in the texts inform the illustrations  and vice versa? What aspects of the text are highlighted through your choice of artwork? What aspects are not highlighted?
   What questions or ideas does this pairing raise? Does it give insight into a particular issue raised by the text? A historical moment? A controversial topic addressed through your pieces? A particular strand of symbolism in the poetry?
     

3. When you have done some brainstorming, write out 2-3 paragraphs on your provisional thesis and ideas for how you will analyze this text and these images in relation to each other. This will be due via discussion post on [Add date here].

4. Familiarize yourself with exhibit.so. Follow the documentation here to experiment with creating an exhibit. Once you understand how the platform works, you can start to create your outline with the final product in mind. Contact your librarian to ask them to create IIIF manifests for your images and any text screenshots you may need to create.

5. Create an outline: simply begin to sketch out your general sequence of argument and think about which images/which parts  of the text will go with different parts of your argument. This should be informal and can be changed around at any time.

6. Begin to create your formal blueprint (Feel free to use this template) See a real finished blueprint  here. The blueprint is the main document from which you will build the exhibit. It is important for it to be mostly complete (in final draft form, only in need of minor tweaks/proofreading before you start to create on exhibit.so, or creating on exhibit.so will be difficult.

7. When writing your blueprint, think about what story you want to tell the viewer to lead them through your art and text.

8. Your blueprint consists of two elements: 1) your commentary- this is like a simplified analytical essay- it should introduce your thesis and then lead readers through your argument in clear, bite-sized chunks, 2) your primary texts- what do viewers need to see as they read your commentary? This part is the sequence of material that viewers will look at as they read your commentary- it could consist of a screenshot of the poem you are analyzing or artwork and illustrations that you are referencing in the commentary (again, look at examples to get a sense of how commentary and images interact).

9. Copy and paste the images you will use for your exhibit directly into your blueprint so you can get some sense of what the final viewer experience will be as you scroll through the document. Ask yourself: does this sequence of ideas and imagery flow well? Is the commentary engaging? Are there areas where zooming into a particular part of an image would be helpful (if so, make a note of that on the blueprint)?

10. Revise your commentary to be clear, engaging, and direct. It’s OK to have 1-3 sentence ‘chunks’ of commentary throughout; only use full paragraphs if you absolutely need to (e.g., summarizing a conclusion at the end of your exhibit). If you don’t need any paragraphs, that is totally fine.

11. Once you have finalized your images and commentary to the extent that you can, be in touch with the librarian for the class (contact info here) and send them ALL the images and screenshots from your commentary so that you can get a IIIF manifest for them.
    The blueprint is due on Canvas by [Add date here].. Font choice and formatting are not a concern here- just make sure the document is easily legible.

12. Build your exhibit from your blueprint. Now that you have created your blueprint, begin to build your exhibit on exhibit.so! Documentation here, and reach out to me if you are running into issues.

13. Finally, write your 2-3 paragraph description of your project and MLA-formatted Works Cited page. The description should explain your choice of text and images, your thesis, and the general conclusions of your analysis. The Works Cited page should cite your literary text and all images used. The description and Works Cited should be on two separate pages within the same document, Times New Roman 12-pt font, double-spaced. Contact me or the librarian with formatting questions.

14. Your exhibit, description and citations are due by [Add date here].