Your Work

Specs ("Speculations")

Points 25 possible (6 total; the best 5 @ 5pts each)
Due see calendar.

Focused yet incomplete and exploratory speculations grounded in the course's discourses (fictive and non-) which eschew evaluation in favor of analytical reflection. 250-500 words; posted to our class NetForum.

VTSF (Virginia Tech Online Speculative Fiction Project)

Points 15 possible (3 @ 5 each)
Due throughout the semester.

250 word minimum; to be posted to the VTSF (group training will be offered); entries can be biographical, historical, theoretical, commentative, thematic; not evaluative. Explore the VTSF website to get an idea of the project.

Collaborative Course Web

Points 20 possible (4 additions @ 5 each)*
Due throughout the semester.

Participants in the course will work collaboratively on a World Wide Web site, building from the more formal materials available with individual pages and clusters of pages, but focusing on areas relevant to the discourse we're calling "speculative fiction." Additions will be signed to give perpetrators proper credit.

Precis

Points 10 possible*
Due: you pick the date, but all precises must be completed and online (i.e., posted to the relevant forum) by April 23rd. This grounded and focused speculation about your term project (500-word minimum) will be posted to the class Netforum for community response and revision.

Term Project

Points 30 possible
Due --Monday, May 10, 5pm.
This project will reflect your work across the semester, focusing on the ideas, structures, or other literary aspects of one or two texts or writers. The paper may be linear or hypertextual, but it will be linked into the course web in either case (linear essays can be easily converted into HTML). In all cases, emphasis will be on lucidity, substance, development, and specificity in the analysis of some issue or text(s) we have encountered in the semester's discourses.