Reading-week commentary (10%)

Reading week commentary assignment guidelines

Description

  1. Write and/or record a commentary that brings together
    — an object or location on the UBC campus (see next section, Instructions > 2)
    UPDATE: OR wherever you are during reading week
    — and one of our narrative texts from Weeks 4-9: Adventuring and other Romance romances.
  2. Work alone or in a pair or small group (3-4 people).
  3. Around 500 words / 5 minutes talking per person:
    • For a pair, that would be 1000 words / 10 minutes; for group of 3 people, 1500 words / 15 minutes; for 4, 2000 / 20 minutes.
    • Form / format: the default is a recording, podcast.
    • This could be a video.
    • It could be recording a voice-over accompanied by at least one slide with an image of your chosen object or location.
    • It could include background music.
    • Like in a lyric poem, you are aiming for quality not quantity.
    • Writing without recording is also an option; or you could work in a pair and distribute the work so that one person does more writing and the other more performing.

Instructions and further details

  1. Reread Marie de France’s Lais & The Romance of Silence.
  2. Quest: find a local UBC object or location
    UPDATE: OR wherever you are during reading week
    that illustrates, represents (including mood, feel, tone), or can otherwise be connected to a scene, episode, event, or text passage in one of Marie de France’s Lais or in The Romance of Silence

    • Go to one of the museums / collections on campus—free for students—for example the MOA, Beaty, or Belkin
    • OR to an outdoor location: a garden (ex. outside our classroom, Nitobe, Botanical, and other smaller gardens and vegetative/reflective spaces around campus).
    • Look around until something catches your eye: ask yourself what in the Lais or Silence it reminds you of;
    • repeat until you have found “your” chosen object or location.
    • If you find too many possible objects or locations and cannot decide: consider forming a team so that you can talk about more than one of them.
    • UPDATED 2021-10-15 (thanks anonymous student for the question) Some options for pairs and groups:
      • one object or location, multiple interpretations (2, 3, or 4: one per person); this could be a larger more complex object or location
      • OR one text, multiple objects or locations (2, 3, or 4: one per person)
      • OR … open to other options and ideas, come and talk to me
  3. Adventure: explain your choice and the connection. This is your reading and commentary.
    • (This could include retracing your steps before you chose your object or location, or your rationale for choosing, if it was a complicated process rather than love at first sight.)
    • Include an image of the object or location in your commentary.
    • Situate the scene/passage that you’ve chosen very briefly (1-2 sentences): use your word limit for argument, explanation, and ideas.
    • Use the text (Lais / Silence) to provide examples to support your reading.
    • Focus on your reading, interpretation, and response to your object or location of choice.
    • THIS IS NOT AN ESSAY. Commentary is an older form beyond (and before, outside, behind, and underneath) the essay. What might you include in your commentary? What is a commentary? This (slightly ancient) guidance might be useful: ”On reading, writing, and commentary” (O’Brien 2016)
  2. Post your podcast (or writing, if you prefer to write instead of recording):
    • where: week 10: reading-week commentary assignment Canvas Discussion
    • by when: Tuesday 16 November, end of day

      • that discussion  stays open, please don’t panic about the due date

      • THIS IS A SOFT DEADLINE!

Items 1 and 2 above, the research part, might—as with all research—be what takes you the longest:

  • reading and rereading the Lais and Silence
    • (pro tip: you could choose one and reread it several times very attentively)
  • wandering around campus and visiting beautiful gardens and places like the Museum of Anthropology
    • this is what should take you the longest
    • it’s also a not very subtle way to give you an excuse to spend time in these places ????

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Inspiration (with way more historical background, yours is NOT a research exercise but a reading exercise, and none of us are advanced expert professional museum curators!): a multimedia project from 2010 that brought together a museum exhibit, a virtual exhibit, and commentary. The commentary was a radio broadcast and collected as a book and audiobook. 

Learning objectives:

  • “romancing” a local world
  • observation, description, and close reading
  • thinking analytically and analogically, doing comparative and pattern-recognition work (similarities, difference, what sticks out, what’s difficult and resistant and problematic; troubling, haunting, echoing, resonating with your other knowledge)
  • writing: critical and creative and communicative
  • showing insight: wandering and wondering, and saying something curious, fascinating, and wonderful

Marking:

  • Criteria for an A / A+:
    • (1 point) You completed and submitted work for which you undertook research;
    • (2 points) you developed an argument and used evidence to support it;
    • (3 points) you showed thought, understanding, and insight in your reading;
    • (2 points) and you presented your ideas in a clear, compelling, creative, and inspiring form.
    • (1 point) You handed it in on time (or later but with an extension agreed between us beforehand).
    • (1 point) Other students appreciated your commentary, by liking and/or commenting on it in the week 10: reading-week commentary assignment discussion
  • Criteria for a B / B+: 
    • nearly all of the above (7 points)
  • Criteria for a C:
    • most of the above (6 points)
    • (if this happens, or a lower score, I’ll invite you to talk to me and submit a rewrite later for a compromise mark; my aim in this course is that all of you should—as you can—comfortably have at least a B/B+, so that you can focus on learning and not be distracted by worrying about grades)