You will complete four projects this semester. The first three projects will help you learn your way around the practical and the theoretical sides of hypertext authorship. The fourth project is one of two large-scale collaborations that class members will work on. Check back to this page as the semester moves on to see the specific project assignments.

Please note: All projects must be completed to complete this course.

See also: course revision policy
see Schedule (for due dates)

In the meantime, here are brief descriptions of the projects you'll be doing:

Project 1: Memory Archive

Barthes suggests that images arrest our attention with marginal details—obtuse meanings—that exist beyond easy interpretation. The Doll Games, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and La Jeteé show us how we can combine those arresting details with evocative language. Project one asks you to create your own memory archive, combining striking images with evocative text to give your readers a new sense of your topic.

Project 2: ARG proposal

As digital media becomes ubiquitous computing, the lines between online realities and digital realities blend. Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) take advantage of this blending. Your second project for this term will be to write a proposal for an alternate reality game and post it to on your class website. Along with your game proposal and some seed materials, you will write a two-page rationale explaining the audience, goal, and inspiration for your game.

Project 3: MyMap

Mapping provides a different way for us to examine and explain the world around us using imagery and dialogue. Working from You Are Here and How to Lie with Maps, you will produce a personal web-map.

Project: Loop

Having already experimented with hypertext and its rhetorical possibilities, our fourth project provides the opportunity to produce a more public, long-lasting work than we have yet done. The class will collaborate on a large-scale wiki project.