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