Showcases

Section 1: Title and author of the text

This is a bit obvious but be sure to start with a section detailing the title and author of the text. If you can include any images or videos to enhance this, you are welcome to. In the example, I included a picture and a video of the author reading the book.

Section 2: Summary

In this section, students will create a book summary that identifies 6 points of the plot. This section of your webpage should bullet point each of the following 6 points and explain what happened in the text. You do not need direct quotes, just put this in your own words.

• Exposition: main characters, setting, foreshadowing central conflict
• Inciting Incident: conflict that puts plot in motion
• Rising Action: Tension building through events and obstacles
• Climax: Conflict comes to a peak, highest point of tension
• Falling Action: Tie up loose ends in story and ease tension
• Resolution: Resolve main conflict

*Note: There are some texts, like poems or songs, that this specific structure may not apply to. If that’s the case, you can summarize the text in your own words with as many of these elements included as relevant.

Section 3: Form of Literature

In this section, students will discuss the form of literature of this text. Students should identify the form of literature this text is and discuss the elements that classify it as that form. Bring in specific examples. This might take some outside research to identify specifics about these elements. In my example, I went to the copyright page of the book and pulled details about the publication, art form, and how the book itself is classified in regards to genre.

In this project, students will create at least 6 pages, one for each form of literature:

• Poem
• Short story
• Movie
• Song lyrics
• Essays
• Myths/Folklore
• Novel (optional)

Section 4: Genre(s)

Students will next identify the genres this text can be classified under. Typically, a text can fall under several genres. Based on our lectures, we identified the following genres and characteristics of these:

• Childrens literature
• Gothic literature
• Fiction (historical, drama, science, romance, YA, etc)
• Fantasy
• Dystopian
• Mythology
• Nonfiction: biography, autobiography, memoir

This is not a complete list of genres so students may need to conduct additional research to determine which genres a specific text can fall under. In addition to identifying the genre(s), students should discuss elements of the story that help categorize this text within that genre. Students can bullet point these identifying factors or create brief paragraphs discussing this. Students can also choose to include a video or audio file of this discussion.

**I hope to see every genre represented within your final project. If you complete 7 pages and then realize you have two of the above genres left, you do not have to go back and redo your work but try to keep track so you cover every genre above at least once throughout this project.

Section 5: Literary Devices

Through close reading of the text, students will:

1. Identify several literary devices the author used in the text
2. Quote specific examples of these literary devices (with MLA parenthetical citations)
3. Discuss how these devices impacted the text itself

Students are required to include at least 3 different literary devices from the text but can include more if desired.

Section 6: Theme

There are many different themes that can be identified within a text. Students can choose any themes to identify within the text, as long as they can make a strong case for that theme being present. Students should identify 3-5 themes found within the text, if possible. Within each theme, students should bring in specific examples from the text demonstrating that theme (these can be directly quoted or paraphrased with parenthetical citations) and develop their own discussion of how this is representative of that theme. The examples and discussion of each theme should be in paragraph format.

Section 7: Application of Literary Criticism

Finally, students will choose a type of literary criticism to apply to this text. In paragraph format, students will identify various elements of the text that classify this criticism and discuss their application. Students are responsible for ensuring that they use each type of criticism only once throughout this project. For example, if students used Marxist Criticism once already, they cannot use it again. That means students will have 2 criticisms they will NOT use. Here are the criticisms we learned this semester:

1. Modernism 1890 – c. 1950
2. Postmodernism 1930s – present
3. New criticism 1930s-present
4. Marxist criticism 1930s-present
5. Deconstruction 1966-present
6. New Historicism 1980s-present
7. Postcolonialism 1990s-present
8. Feminist Criticism 1960s-present
9. Gender/queer studies 1970s-present
10. Critical Race Theory 1989-preset
11. NO AI!!!
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