Overview of the Assignment

Assignment 3 Designing Your Exhibit

In the last of three assignments exploring exhibits as storytelling, students will design the exhibit described in their introductory narrative developed in Assignment 2.

Open Educational Resource

For this storytelling project students will use the open source American History site The American Yawp to provide a narrative foundation for an online history exhibit on a topic distributed by instructor and as one source of primary source exhibit materials. Students will also use other open source collections, including the Library of Congress.

Completed Sample Assignment and Rubric

Use Notes for Faculty

This exhibit design assignment takes place over 4-5 weeks. We advise having students complete and submit a draft for review and comment by instructor. Assignment work takes place throughout the period, interspersed with content-based lectures, additional in-class activities, and occasional supplemental homework assignments. Faculty may decide that it is possible to devote one or more class periods to group work.

Scaffolded Activities and Lessons

Goal: To encourage students to think creatively about effective design for digital storytelling

• Critical assessment of sample virtual exhibits.
• Workshop on tools/platforms for virtual exhibits. Faculty may consider devoting more than one class period to exploring technology tools, including in-class time to work in groups with assistance from instructors.
• Story boarding of exhibit: though students may choose to build their narrative exhibits directly in the exhibit platform, it may be more productive to encourage them to build their exhibits on paper first.
• Transfer of story from paper to digital medium, with an eye toward understanding transitions (visual and textual) from one section to the next

Goal: To build the skills necessary to communicate a story in a way that bridges the gap between academic history and popular history

• Refining the Introductory panel/communicating ideas using energetic and compelling language
• Focus on succinct accessible writing and the role of the provocative in exhibit stories
• Group presentations of exhibits: translating the virtual experience into an in-class conversation about the process.
• We recommend a culminating reflective essay on challenges and benefits of using storytelling to present themes in American history, as well as a final evaluation of the project and the group process.

Header Image: Eyre Crowe, Slaves Waiting for Sale, Richmond, Virginia, 1861, via University of Virginia, The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas. Retrieved from http://www.americanyawp.com/reader/enslaved-persons-for-sale/