English Project plan
Narrative Collage – Bertsch – ENGL 1100 - Outline/Concept (scene by scene)
CONTENT/NARRATION VISUALS
1 Think of your first project as a kind of
written collage or quilt about yourself in
relation to others.
Collage picture—from Shutterstock
2 You’ve probably made a collage at some point in your life. Maybe you pasted
together magazine images that
represented something about you. Maybe
you assembled a series of photographs to
document a family trip. Or maybe you
displayed a collection of mementos, like
this collage that a sportswriter created to
showcase souvenirs from sporting events
he attended over the years.
My own photos: Magazine collage Family vacation photos Sports pins
3 A collage, essentially, is a weaving together of several different items to
make a whole, just as a quilt weaves
together different patterns and fabrics to
make one piece of art.
Photos of my own quilts: Quilt one Quilt two
4 For your first writing project, you'll create a narrative collage -- a weaving or
quilting together of written vignettes,
which are brief personal stories and,
if you want, visual images.
Black screen – assignment name Black screen – definition of vignette
5 Let’s look at another example of a
collage. This one represents my
memories of my grandmother and the
work she did – she raised chickens and
sold their eggs to make extra money, she
baked award-winning desserts, she
quilted and did needlepoint.
My grandma collage (photos only)
6 Right now, my collage is purely visual – it’s a collection of photos and artifacts
from my grandma’s life and work, but I
can remember the stories that accompany
those items.
More grandma photos
7 I could write out those stories, and then use them to create a written collage, like
this, which I've called “Egg Money”
because it focuses on the importance that
eggs had in my grandma’s work and life.
My grandma collage – text only
8 Notice how I have multiple vignettes here—several individual stories that
make up the collage. The first vignette is
about my memory of baking with the
eggs from my grandma’s chickens. The
second is a separate but related memory
about her backyard chicken coop. The
third vignette is about my discovery,
years after my grandma’s death, of a cash
ledger in which she’d recorded decades
of egg-selling transactions.
My collage text with annotations to show design elements
9 I’ve threaded my vignettes together here with asterisks, but I could’ve used
headings or extra space or something else
to distinguish the individual pieces of my
written collage and to help readers see
the overall design.
More collage text with annotations and arrows to show design elements
1 0
I might decide to enhance my written
collage by weaving some visuals into it,
like this. [4-SECOND PAUSE]
My grandma collage – text and photos
1 1
Your own collage should illustrate and
reflect on a particular part of your
identity. You'll think back through your
own history and pull out memories,
stories, images that will tell your readers
something about where you've been,
what you've done, and who you are as
mom/ son/ gardener / an athlete, a friend,
whatever...
Black screen with key words pulled out: who you are, where you’ve been, etc.
1 2
It’s time to create your own collage.
What stories will you weave together?
Collage image from beginning (Shutterstock) Black screen with reminder to check out full assignment instructions on Blackboard