my open door.net

I’m excited about having Sharpshooter as our Common Book at Pellissippi this year. It is the absorbing story of Willis Carr, a 13-year-old boy from East Tennessee who becomes a guerrilla fighter, prisoner, guard, and sharpshooter for both sides in the Civil War. Along the way he develops deep conflicts about his experiences and loyalties. I had the privilege of designing the book when it was published by UT Press, and I look forward to having author David Madden come introduce Willis Carr to our students on September 7.

Several of my students are reading Sharpshooter, and we are having brief discussions in class. CGT 1030 Intro to Mac students will undertake three exercises and a semester project that relate to the Common Book. Related projects will be undertaken in my Typography and Design I courses as well.

Intro to Mac students will trace Willis Carr’s path with an online Sharpshooter Map with captions and references to the book. These maps will exist in Google Map’s database and will be available and searchable for other readers and researchers. You can click here to see my sample map that includes places mentioned in the first few chapters.

Second, they will use the online archives from the Library of Congress’ American Sheet Music collection to create an Antebellum Remix T-shirt Design. These designs will utilize period typography and ornaments from the visually rich period of the late 19th century. Victorian letterpress is enjoying a popular resurgence, and students will no doubt discover some gems among 19th century sheet music and broadsides.

Next, these students will create an online Sharpshooter Online Photo Essay documenting the places in East Tennessee that still show traces of the war, from Fort Sanders to evidence of the pontoon bridge across the river.

Students will also create a researched Civil War Collage that may include photographs and text from and about the American Civil War. This will give them an opportunity to reflect on this dark period in our history and to create contemporary creative work based around those reflections.

The CGT 1030 students will end the semester by creating CD packages for Antebellum Audio Books. The audio files will be sourced from LibriVox.org. Students and other will be able to download, print, burn, and assemble their own audio CD with pre-1863 works of fiction, non-fiction, short stories, and poetry.

My CGT 1105 Digital Graphic Design I students will have the opportunity to design and actual book that existed pre-1863. Some of these designs may be placed inside a virtual Bleak House being constructed online in Second Life. They will also be available as downloadable PDFs from this blog.

Finally, my CGT 1110 Typography students will recreate an special edition of the Knoxville Whig, a unionist propaganda sheet published right here in Knoxville during the Civil War. Students will have the challenge of typesetting and designing Parson Brownlow’s words to transform verbal buckshot into a visual juggernaut.

That’s seven exercises and projects related to our Common Book, and I don’t even teach literature. Wow! It promises to be an exciting semester. Stay tuned to myopendoor.net to see results from these projects posted online.