Guidelines for Final Project (Essay)
Your Final Project for this course will be a virtual time capsule. A time capsule is a grouping of items for future discovery. For our purposes, we will imagine that our time capsule will be buried at the end of the course and opened 100 years later. The goal of our capsule is to provide an overview of what you believe future generations should remember about the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The project can be composed in Microsoft Word.
It should include the following eight parts:
1. A letter of introduction to tell someone in the future about your day-to-day life. What is your daily experience? Tell this person about your habits, your customs, your feelings about our present time, and your dreams for the future.
2. An example of morality and decision-making in current culture in 100 words or more
3. Your definition of meaning of life in 100 words or more, including how you came to this view
Next, you will also chose an artifact for each of the following areas (4-8). You will explain the item in one paragraph, giving it context, and describing it. Then spend at least one paragraph justifying its inclusion in the time capsule: Why is this item worth preserving for the future, and what does it communicate about our culture today? Why this object above all the other possibilities?
4. A significant literary work (poem, short story, play, or novel)
5. A significant example of art or architecture
6. A significant song or group of songs
7. A significant film
8. A significant historical event or epoch (e.g., Coronavirus Covid-19, WWII, etc.)
Please feel free to include examples that you discovered in our studies this term. Challenge yourself to choose items that might be valuable for the future, though they might not necessarily be your favorites. Cite sources if you use them. As always, contact your instructor if you have questions.
Your final project must be original work written for this class. This means that you must be the author (turning in a project written by someone else is plagiarism and will not be tolerated) and you must not have turned in your project (or another version of it) for a grade in another class. Your paper must be minimum 1200 words and maximum 3000 words.
