“A Brief, Urgent Message”: Slaughterhouse-Five Final Project
As your final assessment for Slaughterhouse-Five, you will design a project that reflects your
analysis and understanding of, and reaction to the themes presented in SlaughterhouseFive. Your project may take the form of a compilation album (a CD with 6–8 tracks) or an
art exhibition (a PowerPoint with 6-8 artworks). You should consider each track/artwork as a
“brief, urgent message.” Taken as a whole, the album/exhibition should communicate “an image
of [the novel] that is beautiful and surprising and deep.” The album/exhibition should have
unity and flow (the songs/artworks should make sense together and the progression of
songs/artworks should create drama). Challenge yourself to think beyond plot-based
connections between the music/art and the novel to connections related to theme, mood, and
tone.
Additionally, you will write liner/curator notes that articulate the significance of each work. You
have freedom in choosing the format of your notes; you may write them as one complete piece
that communicates your overall vision for the album/exhibition, or you may address each
track/artwork in a separate paragraph.
NOTE: This project is designed for groups of 2. If 3 people wish to work together,
then please add 2-3 more works to whichever project you choose. No more than 3
per group, please! If you wish to work alone, you may reduce the number of works
to 3-4.
This assignment asks you to experiment with style and voice in writing your notes; they should
not be written as a formal essay, nor should they be a simple report of the connections you see
between the book and the music. You may use poetry, imagistic language, an informal tone,
and/or other writing techniques that you don’t get to use when writing a formal essay. However,
what you write will need to communicate clearly the connection you perceive between the
music/art you have selected and Slaughterhouse-Five. Also, freedom from formal constraints is
not an excuse to do sloppy work—words should still be carefully chosen, spelled correctly,
punctuated appropriately, and so on. For your final product, you will submit to me either a CD
with a track list and your liner notes or a PowerPoint with artworks labeled with
artist/title/date, and your curator’s notes. You should expect to cite Slaughterhouse-Five
in your liner/curator notes; please remember to include page numbers! If you refer
to ideas or phrasing from a source other than the book or the songs/artworks about which you
are writing, you will need to correctly attribute those and include a works cited page.
With regard to the CD option, this project falls within the bounds of fair use copyright law as
long as the songs you include on your compilation CD were legally obtained (purchased from an
online music store or imported from a CD you purchased). Please respect the fair use guidelines
as you prepare this project.
Finally, you will be required to present one song or artwork per group member* to
the class and discuss your notes and thoughts on it and its connections to SlaughterhouseFive. This project is worth a Test/Essay grade.
*Thus, if you work with one other person, you will present two works, with each of you presenting one
piece.