The Course Project: You can work alone on your course project or you can collaborate with another student in the class. In general, I would expect that a collaborative project be twice as broad and comprehensive as a solo project. Regardless of whether you work alone or with another student, your specific topic and approach must have pre-approval before you begin. Although you should have no trouble coming up with your own acceptable course project topic, I have made a short list of topics that have potential at Possible Topics. The bibliographic section that follows each chapter in the Brunvand text also provides hundreds of possibilities, and his short overview of student research in folklore (pp471-475) might help point you in the right direction. Lastly, there is the Journal of American Folklore (as well as other sources ) available at the local libraries. Please try to select a topic you are interested in. In fact, take the time to focus on a topic and approach that is personally relevant. For example, if you plan to be an elementary school teacher, you might consider developing a few teaching modules on folk games. Or, if you are a geology major, you might consider creating a PowerPoint slideshow on the lore of dowsing (water witching). If you are an English major, you might consider writing a paper on the common motifs found in the Cinderella tale-type. If you are a film major, you might create and edit a video on a local festival. Start thinking about a possible topic and approach early in the semester, and review what will be required for the abstract. Whether you do a paper, PowerPoint slideshow, or a web site, you must follow MLA format when citing sources (in-text cites and a Works Cited page). Please also check for spelling errors and sentence problems in any text. While the specific grading criteria will vary somewhat depending on the approach selected by the student, I will generally grade a Course Project according to the following: 70% on content, 20% on organization, and 10% on mechanics. Of course, a video course project will require that I take a slightly different grading approach, and a web site created for 7th graders to explore proverb use would also require that I consider different grading criteria. If you are concerned about not losing any points on the mechanics, consider taking the text of your course project to the COS Writing Lab or at least asking a competent friend to take a look at your text to help remove writing errors. Information on MLA cites is available from the Purdue On-line Writing Lab. As for getting the project to me, well, the best method will again depend on the whether you are doing a paper, a web site, or a video. Those of you doing a written paper can just mail or email the paper to me, but those doing a web site or video might have to drop off a zip disk or tape to me at College of the Siskiyous. Please take a look at the course project examples below.
Student example of family folklore/folksong web site : Web Project created to make a historical record of folksongs commonly sung by the student's father. Student converted old audio tapes to digital format, created a web site, and does a basic analysis of folksong function.
The Evil Step-Mother : Project paper written by a step-mom to examine presentation of the step-mother in folklore. Well researched and shows lots of insight.
PowerPoint and MS Word Project on Siskiyou County Festivals. The student created the PowerPoint slideshow for local presentations, and the associated MS Word file was created to keep her observations and reseach in a common file type (note the PowerPoint file contains lots of images and might be problematic for viewing over a slow Internet connection).
Tawny's PowerPoint on Blonde Jokes
Rachel's Web Site on Family Lore (viewed best at 1024 X 786 in IE 4+)
Mike Young's Web Site on the Afterlife (should be viewed at 1024 X 786 in IE 4+)
Marianna's Web Site on Llorona
Rosanna's PowerPoint on Wedding Customs
Sharon's Web Site on Theater Superstitions (best viewed at 800 X 600 or above)
Tamra's Web Site on Talking Klingon (should be viewed at 1024 X 768)
