Timeline and Assignments for eBook Project

Yesterday was an important class period in English 295. We made some concrete plans regarding individual contributions for our eBook project. Those absent might wish to download and listen to the recording from yesterday's class, here.

I'm meeting with individual students to review their chapters on Thursday and Friday, June 2-3.

Timeline:

• Friday, 6/3/11 - First draft of individual chapters posted to individual blogs. (We will be responding to these in class on Friday)
• Monday, 6/6/11 - Second draft of individual chapters (based upon responses received on Friday)
• Wednesday, 6/8/11 - Final draft of individual chapter due (to be delivered to the editing team so they have time to edit)
• Friday, 6/10/11 - Focus on targeting audiences for the eBook
• Monday, 6/13/11 - Last day of class (details TBA)
• Wednesday, 6/15/11 - Final Exam - presentation about the final eBook (details TBA)

Requirements for individual chapters:

1. Primary Text
   Your literary text must figure centrally in your contribution. You must analyze portions of the text using traditional close reading / formalist analysis
2. Secondary Texts
   You must include at least one traditional scholarly source as well as an online / non-traditional outside source either in analyzing your primary text or in helping you with the third requirement about digital culture.
3. Relevance to writing about literature in the digital age
   Your chapter must be written in such a way that you are making a larger point about how literature is read, researched, and written about in the digital age (in order to make your own contribution relate to all the others).
4. Specific claim
   Your chapter must take a stance, making a claim that will engage and divide an educated audience.
5. Personal
   You need to give some kind of narrative of your process that communicates your personal interest and your personality.
6. Length
   We are shooting for about 700 words per person, so it will require concision and focus in order to meet all of the above criteria in this limited length (comparable to 3-4 double-spaced printed pages). We may change this but not for our first drafts.

I recommend that you review your past posts in order to leverage work you have already done that contributes to meeting the above criteria.

Each student will also be put onto a production team for the collaborative project. So far, these are the teams and their members:

• Design Team (Annie Ostler, Ben Wagner, Sam McGrath)
  This team will test the viability of publishing to the epub format using Adobe InDesign and will make formatting recommendations
• Visual / Art Team (Rachael Schiel)
  This team will find/create/prepare/propose/finalize the eBook cover art and oversee any other visual art elements, cooperating with the design team and individual authors as needed.
• Editing Team (Nyssa Silvester and Ashley Nelson)
  This team will copyedit the assembled chapters, pin down our style guide, and edit for adherence to that guide)
• Publishing Team (Bri Zabriskie, Derrick Clements)
  This team will take the edited epub file and get it properly submitted with metadata, etc. to the various outlets (Amazon, etc.)
• Outreach / Marketing Team
  This team will make a plan for disseminating word about our publication to appropriate audiences, drawing upon group suggestions and target markets we identify together.
• Teaching / Learning Team (Ashley Lewis, Amy Whitaker, Carlie Wallentine)
  This team will focus specifically on the utility of the eBook for educational purposes and for eLearning and will find and propose specific uses of this book, in coordination with the outreach / marketing team.

Students not yet assigned to a team:

• James Matthews
• Ariel Letts
• Aly Rutter
• Taylor Gilbert
• Matt Harrison