One of the most common exercises for a student of literature is the explication of a poem, wherein you analyze the versification, imagery, symbols, language, and structure of a literary work. You’ve all done this multiple times in your academic careers, and writing a short (4-5 page) explication of a poem should be old hat to you. (If it isn’t, read this guide from UNC Chapel Hill: http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/poetry-explication.html). (If writing an explication is not old hat to you, you can read this sample paper that was included in a textbook ancillary I wrote as a starving graduate student...LOL.)

But what happens if you explicate the same poem in a different way? What if, instead of just elucidating a poem through words, you were able to add sound and images to that explication? How would that change your approach, your focus, your content, your presentation? That’s what this assignment will test. 

The assignment has three parts. 

1. First, choose one of these sonnets:

• John Donne, Holy Sonnet 7, “At the round earth’s imagined corners, blow”

• John Milton, “On the Late Massacre in Piedmont”

• John Keats, “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer”

• Edna St. Vincent Millay, “If I should learn, in some quite casual way”

• Robert Frost, “The Silken Tent”

• Richard Wilbur, “Praise in Summer”

• Rita Dove, “Sonnet in Primary Colors”

2. Now write a traditional 4-5 page explication of the sonnet. Do the background research that you would normally do to write such an explication and document it in traditional MLA fashion. You may want to consult The English Major's Handbook for help.

3. Once you have written your explication, and feel comfortable that you really understand that sonnet, explicate it again digitally, this time using Microsoft’s free program PhotoStory. You can download the program as freeware at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/photostory/default.mspx and it should be installed in the campus labs in the "educational applications" folder.

Here's a handy guide to using PhotoStory that you may want to print out for Geeking Day. Bring the photos you'd like to use and the music you'd like to use to class on October 8 on your flash drive (or stash them in your Z drive) along with your microphone-equipped headphones, and we'll work on developing these together in a "geeking" session.

Present your explication in this program, using photographs, music, narration, and whatever other electronic elements you are able to include.

4. Turn in

• Your explication*
• Your PhotoStory essay in digital form (either by e-mail or on permanent media)
• The script of your PhotoStory essay*
  *Submit these to www.turnitin.com as well. Class ID # is 2339315 and the password (case-sensitive) is wintermute
• An analysis of at least two pages about how the explications differ, and what that has shown you about how digital media may affect literary criticism.

5. Due date is Wednesday, October 15 2008, at the beginning of class. We will have show and tell in class and you will be showing your digital explications to the class so that we can discuss what you all have learned. If I can get around the microphone problems I'm having with the computer in the office today, I'll be posting an explication of a Shakespeare sonnet for you to laugh at look at. Check back after Saturday. In the meantime, check out the "Three Words" Photostory demonstration posted on the Winthrop Writing Project website.