Assignment 1

Read some of Maira Kalman's work on The New York Times website:
"'I lift My Lamp Beside the Golden Door'"
"The Inauguration. At Last."
"Back to the Land"

Answer the following questions with your group members:

1. How does Kalman organize her story?
2. Explain the aspect of the stories that strike you most.
3. What is the effect of Kalman's use of different media in her story?
4. How does Kalman use different types of pictures to tell her story?  Explain the effectiveness of the pictures .
5. Kalman uses different amounts of text in places in her story.  Sometimes the text furthers the story, sometimes the text comments on the picture.  Choose one example of each instance and discuss each instances role in telling the story.
6. Overall, what is Kalman suggesting about America?
7. Do you like any of the stories?  What is appealing about them? OR, what is unappealing about them?
8. How can you use Kalman's work as an example for your own project?

 After you look at the examples of Kalman's work and you answer the above questions, work with your group to plan your own blogs. You have two options:

• Option 1: do one blog that consolidates all of your stories into one (if you do this, the blog will be longer than the directions suggest)
• Option 2: do three or four mini-blogs that represent each of your stories separately (number of blogs depends on the number of members in your group).

You should spend class time working together to create an overall vision for the blog.

Homework: locate or create images for the blog.