Final Project

Your final project will explore a dimension of local history or culture using a digital storytelling tool.

Topic

The topic is largely up to you! The primary parameters are that

1. It’s related to an aspect of the St. Louis region’s local history or culture, broadly conceived, and
2. It’s something you find genuinely interesting!

Examples from previous semesters include the Metro East’s light rail system in the early 20th century, music venues in St. Louis, conservation efforts at the St. Louis zoo, and the history of a local comic book convention. You have lots of options!

Format

The final project should use technology in a transformative way. That means that you’re not just writing an essay in a Word doc and pasting it into a blog post — you’re making use of a digital tool to do something that a traditional essay can’t. That might mean…

• Using a storymap to anchor the story to points on a map
• Using an interactive timeline to layer multiple chronological narratives together
• Using a scrollytelling tool to incorporate multiple kinds of media into an interactive experience

These are only a few options of many, and we’ll experiment with lots of tools over the course of the semester that you can make use of for your project.

You don’t have to build this all at once, and there will be lots of opportunities to get feedback and support along the way. Several assignments build to this project.

Assignments

Interest Statement (Due 1/21)

This blog post is just an opportunity to start thinking about what kinds of topics might interest you. You’re not committing to anything! But this helps me get a sense of where you might be headed so that I can share useful resources.

Assignment instructions:

Take a look at the course schedule in the syllabus. What topics, readings, or assignments look the most intriguing? What might you want to pursue further as the semester goes on? Write a blog post on this website of about 150 words about some of your initial interests in this class. Add the tag “Interest statement” before you publish it.

Place-based Research (Due 1/26)

This is another low-stakes blog post that focuses on the local area. What do you notice about where you live? What questions does it raise, what things do you love, or what frustrates you?

Assignment instructions:

Reflect a little about where you live. (This can be on campus, in the local area, or wherever you’re from.) What questions does it spark? Think about the times you’ve thought “I wonder where that comes from,” “I wish this could be different,” or even “Damn it, why does that happen?” Writing for someone who’s never been to that place, your blog post should lay out 1) the question, 2) the context, and 3) why your audience should care about it. Add the tag “Place” before you publish. (150-200 words)

Meet with Dr. Smith (Week of 2/23)

Now you’re starting to formulate a project idea, drawing on your early brainstorming and on things we’ve encountered in class.

Assignment instructions:

During the week of February 23, meet with me to discuss ideas for your final project. This is a brief, 15 minute meeting where we can make sure your project is feasible, talk through what sources or data you might need, and discuss potential tools you could use.

Project Proposal (Due 3/4)

This is the formal proposal for your project, where you’ll pull together all the things we’ve discussed into an outline.

Assignment instructions:

Write a project proposal for your chosen research question (300-450 words). Your research question should relate to an aspect of the St. Louis region’s local history or culture, broadly conceived. Examples from previous semesters include the Metro East’s light rail system in the early 20th century, music venues in St. Louis, and conservation efforts at the St. Louis zoo. You have lots of options! My primary goal — aside from engaging both the humanities and technology — is that you develop a question that you find genuinely interesting. Your problem statement should include:

• Observation, background, context: Here you might talk about what drew your attention to this topic, what struck you as interesting about it, and/or any important context for the topic.
• Problem: What problem or question arises from your observation?
• Frame: How are you approaching that problem? What’s your point of view?
• Example sources: Provide citations for one primary source (something that is direct evidence for the question you’re asking) and one secondary source (something that uses direct evidence to make an argument) that relate to your research question.
• Proposed technology: What tool or method do you intend to use in your project? This could be
  • A storytelling tool that you’ll use to share your research about a topic (for instance, an interactive timeline, a storymap, or a website)
  • A tool for data analysis and visualization that you’ll use to formulate an argument (for instance, text analysis, a distribution map, or charts and graphs)
  • A tool, project, or organization that you want to interrogate, to understand its impacts on a local or regional community (for instance, a municipal data platform, a tech-related organization or nonprofit, or a large language model)

Post your problem statement to the course website as a blog post by the start of class, using the tag “Problem statement.”

Project Draft (Due 4/13)

Submit a draft of your final project. This doesn’t need to be the full project! But it should have enough content that I can give you meaningful feedback on the direction of your project.

At minimum, you should have:

• A detailed outline (ideally a relatively full draft) of your written content
• A prototype or partial version of your technical component (enough that we can identify any bugs, technical challenges, or areas where you might want more resources/support for learning the tool); for example:
  • TimelineJS/StoryMapJS: some slides with your content added to them and any customization you want to do
  • A website: multiple pages with navigation and draft content
  • Data visualization: complete data sets and at least a couple different visualizations
• At least three sources for your bibliography

Submit your draft as a blog post (linking to external content if necessary) with the tag “Draft.”

Final Project (Due 5/4)

Your final project is due on May 5th. Submit it as a blog post (linking to external content if necessary) with the tag “Final.” Your final project should be about 900 words, although it doesn’t need to be in the format of a traditional essay, and it should make use of a technology we’ve used in class. It should cite at least three sources.

The rubric is intentionally general, to account for the many shapes that digital projects can take, but it gives you a sense of the primary categories by which I’ll grade it: the clarity and soundness of the argument, the use of reliable sources, and the suitability of the technology to the project.