Assignments

PRE-TRAVEL (SPRING SEMESTER)

10%            Attendance
5%              Class Discussion/Participation
20%           Watercolor Paintings
5%              Venice Novel Book Analysis Blog Entry (book list to come)
15%             Midterm
20%            Class Presentation
25%            Final Paper (broken down as follows):

•            5%            Idea statement
•            10%            Free write
•            10%            Thesis
•            50%            Rough draft
•            25%            Final paper

TRAVEL/POST-TRAVEL (FALL SEMESTER)

10%            Attendance during trip (showing up for the art assignments, meeting each evening)
70%            Semiotic Journal/Portfolio
20%            Class Presentation

Pre-Travel Class Presentation: The class presentation demonstrates the student’s ability to collect, synthesize, and present information in spoken and visual form.  Students must prepare a Pecha-Kucha-style PowerPoint presentation (20 slides, 20 seconds/slide, for a 6-minute, 40-second lecture) to be presented in class and uploaded to the web.

Pre-Travel Final Paper: This 5-to-7-page final paper demonstrates the student’s ability to collect, analyze, synthesize, and apply information in written form.  Students must take one aspect of Venice’s semiotic importance and prepare a historical and analytical presentation for other students. Page count does not include title page or references.

***

Post-Travel Semiotic Journal/Portfolio: The final journal and art portfolio demonstrates each student’s understanding of semiotics as it applies to Venice as a signifier. The paintings, poems, and stories must all use some aspect of Venice as a symbol for some broader aspect of the human condition and for the student personally.

Developed over the course of the pre-travel and travel phase and finalized thereafter, the journal and portfolio will consist of 12 response essays, plus a minimum of 12 original creative works, to include at least 2 watercolor paintings; 1 sketch; 1 and no more than 3 art photographs or short videos; 1 poem; and 1 work of fiction (short story or complete scene for a script).

Students may choose to turn in a paper journal/portfolio or create a digital journal/portfolio in the form of a blog or website. At least one painting (from a photograph the student takes) will be completed post-trip.

Post-Travel Class Presentation: Students will give a10- to 15-minute presentation about their creative and documentary work completed during the trip, including showing artwork, photographs, and/or video; reading poems, a short story, or diary entries; and presenting a personal response to Venice-as-symbol: What has Venice come to symbolize for each student, individually?

What if I’m graduating after spring semester?

Talk to us so that we can work out your units with Study Abroad and the Registrar’s Office. You will be required to complete the post-travel assignments (we want all students to participate in the assigned activities during the trip), but we will discuss alternative forms of post-travel presentation — for example, we may require you to videotape your presentation or put it online as a podcast/slideshow combination on a site such as SlideShare.