Overview. The main aim of this course has been to increase your understanding of gender as it is constructed, performed, evaluated, and negotiated through language in general and through texts in particular. The second major project in this course asks you to collaborate to develop a virtual exhibit that demonstrates your learning and educates others about an interesting idea in gender studies.
Purpose and audience. Your purpose is to develop a virtual exhibit that introduces online visitors to a particular concept in gender studies that weve covered in the course. The exhibit will include visuals, sound, film clips, new articles, artwork, and other media you can think of, along with accompanying short texts to clarify the relationships among elements of the exhibit. Your exhibit will be published online using a web platform of your choice (medium.com, wordpress.com or weebly.com are some easy options), and youll include a link to your exhibit in your e-portfolio. This means youll have to imagine that a variety of readers might come across your exhibit: those interested in gender studies, teachers and students, and probably others who will stumble upon the site.
Genre. You may be interested in exploring some good examples of virtual exhibits to help you imagine the structure and organization of your own virtual exhibit. Below are links to professional examples of this genre. (Please note: while I expect you to make every effort to produce a virtual exhibit that is as content-rich and professional-looking as it can be, I also understand that you only have limited time to complete this project and are probably not web designers.)
“Outlier: Gender Identity and Agency”
https://outlier2760.weebly.com/
Historic Threads: Three Centuries of Clothing
http://www.history.org/history/museums/clothingexhibit/index.cfm (Links to an external site.)
Exploring Lifes Origins
http://exploringorigins.org/index.html (Links to an external site.)
Causes of Color
http://www.webexhibits.org/causesofcolor/ (Links to an external site.)
Also: See peers work from previous Gender and Culture courses: Link to gallery module.
Details. Youll be working in small groups to complete this assignment. Your group assignments are found on the “People” page on Canvas. I would recommend assigning someone in your group to be in charge of editing the final text and someone to be in charge of editing the visual design so that the final product looks professional and well-integrated. You can set up a “Collaborations” google doc if it will help you. The following are expectations for this assignment:
The exhibit should include about a 250-300 word introduction that situates the site in the context of the gender studies concept youre working with and defines the sites key terms.
The exhibit must include at least 8 texts (oral, visual, and written texts all count) with about 150-200 word descriptions for each. These descriptions can include analysis, historical information, theory, etc.
Since you are not developing the texts yourselves but are actually curating them from the web, be sure that each text includes a credit to the author who wrote it and where it was originally published.
Somewhere on the site should be an About section that includes brief descriptions for each person in your group.
The exhibit should be organized in a way that allows visitors to move through it with ease. It should be visually pleasing.
E-portfolio submission and reflection. Each individual student will need to create an English 2760 page on e-portfolio. The page should include the following:
a 200-300 word Summative Reflection. Reflect on how you thought about gender before you took this course and how you think about it now that the course is over. Have any of your assumptions or understandings changed? Why? What assignments, activities, or readings in this course were influential in your learning?
a 200-300 word Virtual Exhibit Process Reflection. What were your groups goals for your virtual exhibit and how did you meet them? What are the strengths and limitations of your exhibit? How did completing this virtual exhibit enrich your experience of this course?
a link to your groups virtual exhibit.
The e-portfolio submission is worth 50 points.
Major Project 2 total=200 points
