The following is the prompt for the English 102 Archival Project. So far in the semester, students have completed the Qualitative unit, where they discovered what a specific demographic thinks about a particular issue/research question. In the archival unit, they extend their research into what a specific demographic thought about the same issue in the past. This research can include synchronic (at one point in time) or diachronic (over a period of time). To find their answers, they use at least three artifacts and conduct primary & secondary research to understand what insights these objects can provide.
Instead of a traditional “paper” format, this project prompt requires students to create a digital museum-style exhibition that incorporates visual and often auditory elements to guide their audience through the exhibit. Students can create an ArcGIS Storymap, a GoogleSite, a videoessay, or other digital means to present their findings.
To illustrate some of the ways in which they may arrange their project, I created a sample diachronic archival project that examines cultural concerns illustrated by Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman and Matt Reeves’ 2022 The Batman: The Dark Knight Darker.
Archival Research Project
Welcome to our next academic research unit: archival research!
During the qualitative research unit, you joined a conversation about what regular people think about some aspect of the good death in this cultural moment. In this unit, you’ll enter a different type of conversation–one that is focused on primary sources and is grounded in the past.
As explained in your textbook, Rhetoric of Inquiry, this unit is an opportunity for you to situate your death-related line of inquiry “within the context of past conversations, communities, and cultures” (p. 155). You’ve already begun to see how our lives in the present have been shaped and informed by past events and experience, and knowledge about the past helps us better understand and interpret the present.
To discover new insight about the past, academics often turn to primary sources, which are typically located in archives.
So what are archives? The Society of American Archivists defines archives as “the permanently valuable records—such as letters, reports, accounts, minute books, draft and final manuscripts, and photographs—of people, businesses, and government … They are the documentary evidence of past events. They are the facts we use to interpret and understand history.”
Why is archival research important? Consider this explanation from the Society of American Archivists:
| Archival records serve to strengthen collective memory and protect people’s rights, property, and identity. For example, historians and genealogists rely on archival sources to analyze past events and reconstruct family histories; businesses use the records to improve their public relations and promote new products; medical researchers utilize records to study patterns of diseases; Native Peoples may use archival records to establish legal claims to land and privileges guaranteed by federal and state governments; and authors use archives to acquire a feel for the people and times about which they are writing. In short, archives benefit nearly everyone—even those who have not used them directly. |
For this project, you will conduct your own archival research to gain insight into how some person or culture in the past considered the good death. This can include several types of artifacts, such as some of the following:
- Obituaries
- Gravestones
- Mourning jewelry
- Effigies/In Memoriam Images
- Including things like portraits, graffiti, decals, fans, funeral programs, clothing, and other objects
- Memorial tattoos
- And even more!
This unit will culminate in a digital Archival Project in which you’ll pose your own good death-related query, gather and analyze primary sources from various sources, and use them to present your findings by creating a digital exhibit (don’t worry- it’s more fun than it sounds!).
Project Guidelines
Archival Project (Virtual Museum Exhibit)
- Length: 750 words minimum
- Style: Chicago citation (see Chp. 17 of WHH)
- Minimum: 3-5 artifacts (more is okay, but probably stick to 5 or fewer for best results).
- Minimum: 3-4 scholarly secondary sources. You’ll use these to better understand the historical and cultural context of your artifacts.
Task: Create a “virtual museum exhibit” that showcases several artifacts (items located in digital or physical archives) and use them to tell a story about our course theme. Your museum exhibit will accomplish the following goals:
- Open with an introduction that describes the theme or central idea in the story your project is telling and its importance. You will also want to describe the kind of artifacts your collection includes. What is the common thread connecting these artifacts to each other? Aim for 200(ish) words here.
- Display each artifact along with metadata about the artifact that helps readers understand it better. Your metadata may include a title, a short description, and info about who created it, how it was created, when it was created, and where you located it. You may also want to include a brief analysis of the artifact, saying why it is important and how it contributes to the story your virtual museum exhibit is telling. Aim for 50ish words/artifact.
| Here is the metadata we voted to include in class:-Title of Object-Date/Era-Size-Location-Creator-Purpose-Description |
- Conclude with a short essay that tells the story contained in your artifacts. When your readers look through these materials, what story do you want them to “hear” about this moment in time? Aim for 400-800 words.
The Archival Research Project is due [INSERT DUE DATE].
Audience
Your audience for this project is your English 102 classmates–that is, people who are interested and have personal experiences with the general course topic, but are not experts on the particular pandemics and questions you are investigating. Your job as the museum curator is to help this audience make meaning from what has happened in the past.
Rhetorical Purpose
Your purpose then has to take into account your audience and reflect your research question. While you may think the purpose of museum exhibits is to inform and explain, the rhetorical aims of museum exhibits vary. In fact, many museum exhibits have persuasive aims.
You could consider any of the other purposes below, adapted from the “Spectrum of Purposes” table on pages 20-21 of Rhetorical Choices.
- Express and Reflect (offers readers a shared emotional/intellectual experience)
- Inquire and Explore (offers readers a shared intellectual experience; new information and new perspectives)
- Inform and Explain (offers readers significant/surprising new information; presentation tailored to readers’ interests and presumed knowledge)
- Analyze and Interpret (offers readers a new way of looking at the subject matter)
- Persuasion/Taking a Stand (offers readers reasons to make up or change one’s mind about the question at stake)
- Persuasion/Evaluating & Judging (offers readers reasons to make up or change one’s mind about a question related to worth or value)
- Persuasion/Proposing a Solution (offers readers a recommended course of action)
- Persuasion/Seeking Common Ground (offers readers new perspectives, reduced intensity regarding difficult issues)
For your exhibit, choose one or two of the above rhetorical aims to focus on. A focused purpose will help guide your interpretive work as you select and analyze the objects for your exhibit.
Steps:
- Explore the archives / develop your research question. Unlike secondary source research, where you start out with a relatively defined research question, it’s normal to dive into the archives without a clear sense of what you’re hoping to find. Because archives are accumulated over time, they often include surprising and unexpected material, and your sense of your research question may change as you explore what is available in the archives. Take your time looking about in archives that seem related to your interest and our theme, and then decide on an area that you want to dig into a little more deeply.
- Submit a short description of your areas of inquiry and next steps. Once you have a sense of the direction you want your archival research to head in, you’ll write up a short description of what caught your interest and what you’re going to do to continue to study it. So for instance, if you noticed that the archival holdings include a lot of old photographs by people who claimed they’d seen Bigfoot, you’d say that, then describe the steps you’d take to understand these materials more (e.g. making sure you’d found all alleged photographs of Bigfoot in the archives; reading any letters in the archives that mention Bigfoot sightings; doing a little secondary research in the databases to understand why people think they see Bigfoot).
- Gather and analyze your objects. Then, you’ll follow the steps you outlined for yourself. Gather and save your objects, save the metadata associated with them (e.g. the information about the object), then analyze the object.
- Draft your exhibit. Pull a draft of your complete exhibit together, including the introduction, objects, labels (metadata), and bibliography.
- Revise your exhibit. We’ll peer review our exhibits together; and you can also bring your exhibit to the Writing Center. Once it’s ready, you’ll submit your exhibit.
Unit Breakdown
This unit is divided into 5 weeks. Each week, you’ll work through a series of materials, readings, and assignments, and all work for each week will be due by 11:59 pm on Friday unless otherwise specified.
- Week 7: Introduction to Archival Research
- Week 9: Archival Research Strategies
- Week 10: Analyzing Primary Sources
- Week 11; Writing your Archival Research Project
- Week 12: Revising Your Archival Research Project
You are free to work through the materials as your schedule permits but be sure to manage your time wisely and plan your schedule so that you will submit your work by 6:00 pm on Friday each week. I encourage you to review the materials early in the week so that you will have time to contact me before your work is due if you have any questions.
Samples
This kind of archival exhibit is relatively common in public scholarship. You can get a sense of what your exhibit might look like by checking out the following models:
- Hockey, Hip-Hop, and Other Green Line Highlights.
- Revolutionary User Interfaces.
- Here’s a couple that I’ve created myself, which use the system you’ll most likely use for your project:
The Bad Medievalist 