Key Dates
- Sunday, Oct. 30: Class Field Trip
- Wednesday, Nov. 2: Discussion of Class Field Trip
- Friday, Nov. 4: Introduction of assignment, discussion of visual rhetoric, and brainstorming session
- Friday, Nov. 11: Signed proposal plan due in class
- Monday, Nov. 21: Peer review of projects
- Tuesday, Nov. 22: Deadline for individually completed field trip assignments
- Wednesday, Nov. 30: Final projects due. Note: there have been several extensions on project assignments thus far in this course. There will not be an extension for this project—the space is booked and the show must go on!
Project Overview
What’s missing from Georgia Tech’s campus? You’ve spent the semester exploring numerous facets of Atlanta’s history, many of which were unknown to you before the fateful day you signed up for ENGL1102: Documenting Atlanta. Which elements of this history do you not see represented in the sites of commemoration on Tech’s campus? Which of these hidden histories or suppressed stories do your peers—as well as GT’s many staff, faculty, and visitors—most need to know about in order to more fully understand the socio-historical elements that inform the Institute?
For this project, you (individually, or in a group of up to four people) will propose a monument or memorial to be erected on campus. Cost and scale are no object; rather, your only constraint is that your design should draw on features of at least two monuments/memorials in the city. These can include any of the monuments/memorials we saw on our field trip, that Gregor Turk discussed in his guest lecture, and/or that you have encountered in our many readings and viewings. Your proposal and rendering should demonstrate why you have chosen to incorporate these features; that is, what particular affordances do they lend your proposed monument/memorial?
Project Breakdown
This project will consist of the following elements:
- Field trip assignment (#WOVEN).
- Deadline: Nov. 2 (class trip) or Nov. 22 (individually completed).
- Value: 20% of project grade
- Proposal plan (#W). Your plan should include an outline of your project proposal, as well as a list of group members, division of tasks, and timeline for completing these task. Please bring a printed copy of your plan to class with signatures of all group members. This document will serve as a formal agreement that you have committed to working in this group and to completing the tasks by these deadlines. If you choose to work individually, your proposal plan should include a breakdown of the tasks you foresee as essential and a timeline for completing them.
- Deadline: Nov. 11
- Value: 10% of project grade
- Proposal (#W): Your proposal should make a compelling argument for why the GT community will benefit from the presence of your proposed monument/memorial on campus. Your proposal should address a decision-making committee made up leaders in student government, deans, the Institute’s president, and two major donors. Proposals should conform to the following five-paragraph structure and be 500-750 words long
- Introduction: What needs to be commemorated and why? Use five key terms from the course–from any part of the course!
- Monument as Text: What are the affordances of the monument? Which features have you adapted from existing monuments/memorials, and why?
- Arena/Audience: Where exactly is the monument/memorial located on campus; how does it spatially relate to existing monuments/memorial
- Performance: Is the monument or memorial interactive? Does it invite visitors to do something? How might students/visitors use the monument?
- Conclusion
- Deadline: Nov. 30 (submit on T-Square before class)
- Value: 30%
- 2D or 3D rendering of your proposed monument/memorial (#V and potentially #E): Renderings may be architectural plans; computer-designed posters; sculpted models; 3D printed objects; animated videos. Choose the medium that is best suited to your design plans and artistic capabilities. You will present your rendering of your monument in a public “gallery walk” in the Hall Building during regular class time. Please avail yourself of the many resources on campus to produce your rendering. These include (but are not limited to): the Multimedia Studio on the ground floor of the library; Paper and Clay in the Student Center; and the Invention Studio in the MRDC.
- Deadline: Nov. 30 (Please bring rendering to class, ready for display. If you require anything special to display your rendering, please let us know well in advance.)
- Value: 30%
- Elevator pitch (#O and #N): Everyone should be prepared to give a 30-second elevator pitch about their proposed monument/memorial and to reply to an informed audience’s questions about their proposal and rendering. Your elevator pitch should be adapted from your proposal. We will all take turns circulating in the space and hearing each group’s “pitch,” and an online poll after class will determine the winning monument/memorial. The winning individual/group will receive a special prize from the Office of Serve-Learn-Sustain.
- Deadline: Nov. 30 (during gallery walk)
- Value: 10%
- Post-project Reflection (#W): You will complete a short questionnaire regarding your participation in your group. Honesty about your actual contributions is strongly advised (i.e. your group members will rat you out anyway, so you might as well be straight-forward about your actual effort and contribution). Your individual project grade will be determined by both your Field Trip Assignment grade and your reflection. It is possible that all group members will get (something like) the same grade, but differing grades according to self- and group member-reported contribution are quite possible.
* Image credit: The Grace Vault at the Star Community Bar on Moreland Avenue. This shrine to Elvis inhabits a vault in this former bank turned dive bar. Courtesy of sidewalkradio.com.
ENGL1101: Documenting Atlanta 