Creative Connection
Project (10%)
Make a connection between any reading from this class and your personal expression of it. Your
personal expression may take the form of a short paper if you wish, but it doesn’t have to.
Consider other forms of expression—art, drama, music, media, or any combination that works.
What can you do? Indeed, what can YOU do?
Art: Complete an original drawing, painting, or sculpture. For example, create a portrait of the
Freedom Riders; create a photo collage of the “Letter from Birmingham Jail”; “I Had a Dream”
speech; Montgomery Bus Boycott???
Drama: Perform a monologue from a story or team up with someone else and perform a scene
from the sit-ins or marches; write your own scene to be performed; turn the conversation between MLK and clergy
into a scene; invent a scene (make up your own).
Music: Perform a song or tune, original or not; bring in your guitar or keyboard and play “Buses are Comin’”;
“Abraham, Martin and John”; Society’s Child; create song lyrics for the Freedom Riders; “Emmett Till; Edgar
Medgar Evers; “Letter from Birmingham Jail”; ???
Media: Create a PowerPoint presentation, a mini-documentary, or a commercial. For example, put together a
PowerPoint on Greyhound, Woolworths, pastoral scenery; make a mini-documentary on voting rights; make a
commercial to “win” a weekend in Birmingham, Selma, or Money Mississippi set in the 60s???
Pop Culture: Create a 10-page flip-book, or jacket, movie poster, cartoon, or comic.
example, design a movie poster for the Bus Boycott in Montgomery or the March to
Washington, or “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”
For
Be The Teacher: Create an exercise for fellow students to do in relation to a poem, story or play. For example,
calculate the distance the protesters marched from Montgomery to Selma—how long it took them; what was their
fate? Create a crossword puzzle for a work???
If none of these venues appeals to you,
you can do some creative writing:
Prologue: Create some “back story” for a character and explain what could have happened to
make the character the way he or she is. (This history must be plausible and explainable by
textual evidence. Aim for two typed, double-spaced pages.)
Epilogue: Go beyond the end of the story and explain what might happen next. (This extended
ending must be plausible and explainable by textual evidence. Aim for two typed, doublespaced pages.)
Poem: Write a poem in the form and style of a poet from our text.
Letter: Write a letter to a character offering your concern and advice. Make references to the
text (poem, story, or play) in your letter. (Aim for two typed, double-spaced pages.)
Be creative! Create your own
idea for your project. Run it by
me before launching into it!
I want you to have fun with this project, but there is a writing component to it, even if you
choose a non-writing project. It is your Creative Connection Proposal.
A Creative Connection Proposal (one page, typed) 1) what you plan to do, 2) why you chose
this project, 3) how you plan to do it, 4) what resources you think you will use, and 5) what
you will need to present your project to the class. Due 4/16 at the latest! (See ”Creative
Connection Proposal” handout.)
In addition to the Creative Connection project, you will be able to earn up to 200 points to add to
your Daily Grade average by writing up to four 50-point Creative Reviews. (See “Creative
Reviews” handout.)