Projects for IDEA 3100

Three individual assignments are required for this course: a research project and two creative projects. The research project involves you choosing a specific theme or thread and exploring it in some depth (in whatever medium). We will discuss this project at length in class. The creative projects are opportunities for you to discover and explore creativity in your own life. Again, we will discuss these projects in class.

For philosophical reasons, I do not prescribe a particular length or structure for the projects: a great essay can be a few pages long (as we’ll see), and a great image can be once centimeter wide. Yet it is difficult to craft small projects of excellence without committing many hours of work. So, I offer two recommendations: make the projects as long or as large as they need to be; and make the projects longer and larger than you think they need to be. There is no upper limit on the length or complexity of the projects.

In terms of the research project (an essay, if you like) I’m not interested in how much you can write but rather in the quality of your writing. Perhaps you write like Hemingway, perhaps like Melville or Tolstoy. I don’t know, and maybe you don’t know either. But I can tell you this: writing a shorter piece of great precision is more difficult than writing a longer, more relaxed and wandering work. In the context of smaller projects every word is on display and under scrutiny, whereas in longer works the sheer bulk of the material tends to hide various flaws. Melville, in fact, is a good example of this.

You may write short narratives in this course, but please do not write short form as a means of avoiding work. You will know, I will notice, and neither of us will be happy. Instead, make your work as long as it needs to be. If you compose a lovely, resonant, short piece, you will receive an excellent evaluation. But as I said, writing shorter pieces
is actually more difficult.

The research essay is worth 30 per cent of your grade. The two creative compositions (projects) are worth 20 per cent each.