Project: Writing the Social Self

Project #1: The Social Self: Exploring Cultural Influences through hypertext.

This project combines three different assignments. The first two require you to produce different texts in different genres (personal narrative and critical analysis), while the third requires you to blend the previous two into an image-enhanced hypertext. The three legs of the assignment are as follows:

First, you will choose a pop culture figure and write a brief autobiographical narrative which demonstrates the person’s impact on your own life. Select one or two memories that feature your cultural figure, then compose a short story (around 1200 words) from those memories, including significant details which show how you identify with the character. You may also describe the points where the identification ceases. Try to articulate both your attraction to and your reservations about the character. Narrating your agreements and disagreements should help to enrich both the portrait of the pop culture figure and your self-portrait. Though the assignment requires you to tell a story, it’s a story about influence, and influence is often complex and subtle. Which moments in your life demonstrate those complexities and subtleties most effectively?

Second, write a critical essay about that person’s impact on the world around you. In approximately 1200 words, describe the attitudes and assumptions the person represents, and discuss his or her importance to contemporary social life. How has this person influenced our thinking? What set of values and assumptions does (s)he evoke? Don’t just celebrate the person’s life, but write critically about how and why (s)he gained status as a cultural icon. You should locate at least 4 sources (a combination of magazines, books, and/or journal articles from the ECTC Library) concerning the person’s influence on society. Be careful to expand on the ideas of your sources, rather than merely rehearsing someone else’s ideas. Think of yourself as contributing to (instead of reporting) the conversation surrounding the person.

Third, divide the essay and the story into small units which will make for exciting hypertext pages. Link these units in ways that will highlight the interconnectedness of your life and the life of your chosen cultural figure. Using examples and articles from class as a guide, weave the separate compositions into one experimental piece, challenging your reader to follow both textual threads as they coil around one another. Follow a paragraph from your essay with one from your story, and vice versa. You might even place textual units from both compositions on the same page, provide various links to other units, and invite your reader to navigate your site according to his or her own interests. Use background textures and graphic images to illustrate the themes of your hypertext.  The site’s design is largely up to you, but must include at least ten electronic pages.