Options for the Portfolio Project are only limited by students’ imaginations! Returning to the words of Prof. Winstead:
We want you not only to know the material you’ve studied, but to own it. The various options below are designed to target your strengths and interests—are you an artist, a songwriter, a poet, or a storyteller? Do you love to perform? Are games your passion? There’s something for everybody, and we’re open to suggestions! We want you to “think outside the box” (“the box” being the standard essay) and to participate by your inventions in a living literary tradition.
Here are some of the options provided in the syllabus:
- Imagine four authors, one from each of the periods we have covered, in a debate about an issue that, as you know from their writings, they have thought deeply about (war, sex, happiness, despair, the nature of good and evil, what women want, etc.). What might they say to each other? Where would they agree and disagree? The scenario you describe must reflect your knowledge of each of their works. Feel encouraged to “document” their ideas by having your interlocutors say things like, “As I tried to show in Beowulf….” Or “as I wrote in ‘The Flea,’” etc.
- What better way to appreciate the time, skill, and creativity it takes to write a good sonnet than to try doing it yourself? Write four sonnets, each inspired by one work we studied, each from a different literary period. These don’t have to be literary masterpieces—follow the rules, do your best, and have fun.
- Devise a playable prototype for a game that requires players to demonstrate their knowledge of British literature pre-1800. Your description and instruction must demonstrate your expertise in the materials.
- Reading Evelina will have familiarized you with the conventions of the epistolary novel. Retell an episode from a narrative from each of the four periods we covered as an epistle. Be sure to indicate who’s writing each letter and whom they are addressing. You may embellish or elide the original, but your epistle should be consistent with the original telling. Preface this assignment with a paragraph or two reflecting on how rewriting your texts as letters affects themes or characterization.
- Write a poem, story, or essay in a genre from each of our pre-1800 literary periods. You might, for example, write an elegy in the spirit of “The Wanderer,” a portrait of a friend or acquaintance using the devices of literary portraiture that Chaucer employed in the General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, a Shakespearean sonnet, and a reflection in the manner of Johnson on one of your own favorite contemporary genres. Your creations should demonstrate your familiarity with the conventions of the genre you’re using. Preface your pieces with a short artist’s statement identifying and discussing the salient generic features of the early literary forms you are adapting.
- Are you an artist? Create a set of stories, poems, song lyrics, or drawings based on works from each of the four periods we’ve studied. Preface your “anthology” with a short introduction explaining your artistic choices.
- Much of the literature written prior to the 18th century was meant to be read aloud. Perform an extract of a passage from each of our four periods. Your performance should be polished and evince your interpretation of a passage that might be open to various interpretations. Be prepared to answer questions about your selection and interpretation. Each performance should run, say, 3-5 minutes.
- Narrate what you feel are crucial episodes from each of our four periods from the point of view of another character. Don’t change the “facts”—just the perspective.
- Write something you can imagine published on a blog, explaining the cultural significance of a genre/work/concept encountered in each of the periods we’ve studied. Tell us about the audience you anticipate and what strategies are you going to use to engage them or to combat misperceptions. Your template could be “What can X teach us about Y today?” (e.g., What can The Tempest teach us about race today? What can Beowulf teach us about gender today?)
- Not enough choices? With the prior approval of your recitation leader, devise your own project.