Assignments: Adaptation Project & Reflection

Deliverables

  • A single .PDF file submitted in Canvas containing:
    • A piece of visual media or a document designed using an Adobe Creative Cloud application, appearing as you imagine it might be found within the storyworld of one of the works you read or watched this semester (see instructions below for further explanation).
    • A 750-word reflection explaining how you selected your project, what you intended for it to communicate, and describing the close readings and historical research that influenced the form and content of your piece.
  • The “working file” of your piece submitted in Canvas, in the default file format of your chosen application (e.g. .PSD, .AI, .INDD, etc.).
    • If you produced your piece in Adobe Creative Cloud Express, select the "Invite to Project" icon in the upper right corner of the screen. Add my email address to give me editing permissions, and then below that, select the "Copy Link" option. Paste that link into the comments section of the Canvas submission.

Due Date

Friday, April 29 at 11:59 p.m.

The purpose of this assignment is to

  • Create knowledge through this creative practice, and through reflecting on this creative practice.
  • Within a single project, apply both the close reading and historicization skills that you have developed throughout the semester to interpret a work.
  • Develop a rhetorical literacy of an Adobe Creative Cloud software application, a staple software suite for advertising and media businesses.
    • This supports a computing literacy pedagogy project developed in collaboration between Adobe and Penn State’s Digital English Studio.
  • Contribute to a collective body of knowledge that you can take with you after you finish this course.
    • I will e-mail you a PDF containing all Adaptation Projects and Reflections after the end of the course.

Assessment Notification Timing and Criteria

Within three business days of the due date, I will record the grade it has earned according to the rubric linked here, based on the following criteria:

Media Piece

  • Completion, Length: is the piece sufficiently long/complex for this assignment’s considerable point value? A rough guideline is as follows:
    • Primarily text pieces (e.g. compilation of e-mails, text message exchanges, website pages, or journal entry): 750 words total
    • Social Media Graphics or Photos: a series of at least 3 images, including caption and alt text either in the images or in a document bundled into the .PDF.
    • Video: 0:45--1:30, depending on editing and graphics
  • Design & Demonstration of Functional Literacy: how well does the piece make use of the chosen application? How well does the piece simulate the chosen type of media piece? Has the writer submitted the original working file or Creative Cloud Express link?
  • Relation to Primary Work: how well and how specifically does the piece adapt a specific theme, keyword, or concept from the primary work?

Reflection

  • Completion, Length: what percentage of 750 words have been completed
  • Completion, Bibliography: the presentation includes a bibliography listing the primary work and at least one other source in Chicago Manual of Style, 17th Edition Bibliography format.
  • Indication of Trajectory: evidence of the different ways the author thought about the work before, during, and after completing the media piece.
  • Demonstration of Rhetorical Literacy: how well the reflection articulates a clear purpose behind creating the piece, and their critical understanding of the software application’s affordances and constraints
  • Argument: how well the reflection articulates the author’s understanding of the term, concept, or theme of the primary work that they have attempted to represent and their opinion or interpretation of it.
  • Close Reading: quality of close readings used in the reflection
  • Historicization: quality of historical research and incorporation of sources
  • Spelling, Grammar, and Punctuation: how “correct” the reflection is in these respects
  • Style: quality of sentences and paragraphs used to articulate the writer’s ideas. Language specificity, word choice, clarity, and appropriate complexity.

Special Notes

This is a complicated project on paper, but trust that my intent behind it is to create different way for you to engage with the study of literature, one that may play to a range of strengths different from academic essay writing, and might (amidst the stressful end to the semester) even offer a bit of fun.

Instructions

These instructions work like bumpers in a bowling alley: they do not guarantee success, but they limit the chances of things going wrong. Particularly if you are very comfortable with this type of project, you can follow your own path towards meeting the assignment’s criteria. But do skim these in any case, as they may include important technical formatting information.

    1. Pick a work we’ve studied this semester.

    2. Identify a theme, concept, or keyword within it that you find particularly interesting.

    3. Brainstorm a list of documents or media pieces that would exist in the storyworld of that work and that would exemplify that theme, keyword, or concept.

        • Possible choices might include corporate videos, social media graphics and photographs, company and team webpages, employee annual review forms, email and text message exchanges, and more.

        • The work itself might provide hints, as characters may refer to an e-mail exchange, document, or website that does not appear in the work verbatim.

    4. Considering your own experience authoring or designing digital media, select a type of piece that you feel reasonably confident that you could produce by the due date, and select the Adobe application best suited for producing it.

      • For beginners, I recommend Adobe Creative Cloud Express or Premiere Rush, which we will go over in class. More advanced users may wish to experiment with professional applications such as Adobe XD, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, or others.

    5. Identify a purpose for your piece. What of your understanding of the primary work do you want it to communicate or convey?

    6. Create a rough draft of your piece.

    7. Create rough draft of your reflection. Consider the following questions:

      • Why did you choose the piece that you did?

      • What do you intend for it to look like and to communicate?

      • How did the software application you used enable or constrain what you were able to do?

      • What close reading evidence and historical evidence informs the creative choices you made?

      • What further questions might the production of this piece have helped surface?

      • What might be the answers to those questions, and what close readings and historical evidence can you use to support those answers?

    8. Revise both rough drafts, focusing on high-level issues.

    9. Proofread both rough drafts.

    10. Combine final versions into a single .PDF.

    11. Submit the .PDF and working file to Canvas.