Reader’s Guide to The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo
What is it?
The class will jointly produce an online guide for readers of The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo. The Guide will offer articles that provide background information for people reading the book who become curious about Kosovo’s history and culture as well as other issues addressed in the book.
Who is the audience?
This publication will be launched on the Web, so the audience is potentially vast. Your readers are likely to be people who want to know more about the context and background of the places, people, and events discussed in the book.
Why are we doing it?
Though this book is written in a highly accessible style, it introduces readers to a part of the world that is little known to most of its audience. The Guide will provide readers with easy access to information that will answer the questions they have as they read. As a more practical matter, this assignment will also introduce you to the Gustavus library and its resources, strategies for finding quality information, and practice with writing from sources, including understanding rules for documentation and avoiding inadvertent plagiarism. These are all skills that you will need for other college courses.
What do I have to do?
This assignment comes in two parts. First, each member of the class will research and write an article for the Guide individually. The contributions should run around 1500 – 2000 words, or around five to seven double-spaced pages. Each article should introduce the topic by referring to how it is brought up in the book, then provide sufficient background to give the reader context. Each article should have a title and subheadings as part of its organization. Each should also include a bibliography of five or more well-chosen sources. First drafts are due October 16th; a second, graded draft is due October 20th.
In addition to contributing an article for the Guide, each member of the class will serve on a 4-person team overseeing a part of the entire project.
—The editorial team will compile all of the contributed articles and will ensure they fit together into a seamless whole. They will establish “house style” guidelines and will make sure that the contributions are consistent, cover the right issues adequately, and aren’t overly repetitive. They will also recommend changes to authors on organization, clarity, style, and usage. This team will complete its work first – and will report on October 31st.
—The design team will decide how the Guide should look – choosing colors, headings, fonts, and layout. If graphics are to be included, the design team will choose which to use and where, and will ensure that no copyrighted image is used without permission. They will present their design to the class on November 7th.
—The fact check team will double-check the information in all of the articles to confirm the accuracy of dates, historical information, the spelling of names, etc. Where accuracy is substantially questionable, they may ask authors to confirm information. This team will complete its work by November 7th.
—The copy editing team will perform the final proof reading of the articles before publication. They will ensure there are no misspelled words, typos, or ungrammatical usage. They may also query authors if they detect something that is inconsistent, unclear or confusing. They will also ensure that footnotes are complete, accurate, and consistent. This team will complete its work by November 7th.
What kind of language should I use?
This assignment calls for formal (though not stuffy) language. The articles should hang together as a group, and should not emphasize your personal voice but rather a dispassionate, unbiased perspective. Strive for clarity and organization rather than literary or artistic expressiveness. Consider how your article will blend with the whole project. We will as a group adopt certain conventions (such as using “Kosovo” or “Kosova”) to which all articles should adhere.
How will this be graded?
The grade will be a combination of your individual contribution to the guide (10% of the course grade) and your work as a team member (another 10% of the grade). Team members will complete both a self-evaluation and an evaluation of other team members’ work.
For the individual contributions, I will be looking for articles that are informative, well-organized, written clearly, and documented accurately using MLA format. The language used should be formal, but not stuffy. The information should be clearly tied to the book and should be presented in an unbiased manner. Each article must have a clear introduction and conclusion, but should focus on presenting information in an evenhanded manner, not on arguing for a particular position.
The teams will have to work on polishing and presenting the work as a whole and will have to negotiate how to share the work and meet deadlines. How well you organize and accomplish that task will be important to your grade, as will the finished product.