Essay #1: The Multimodal Autobiography

Length: one page, excluding media

(typically no more than 300 words)

Rough Draft Due in class and via Canvas: 4/13

Final Draft Due via Canvas: 4/18

102J Main Page | Syllabus | Essay #1 | #2 | #3 | #4

Your first assignment requires that you represent yourself as an artist in three different media: in writing (300 words or fewer), with a photograph that shows your face, and in a third medium that may be chosen from the following:

Video
Audio
A photo of your artwork
Animation
A poem
A concept map
A Prezi presentation
A chart
A compilation of media (e.g., newspaper) clips about your work (five or more)
A series of testimonials (five or more)
Some other Dr. Andy-approved medium that you propose

The Purpose of an Artist’s Creative Autobiography

Every artist must present herself and her work to different “executive” audiences, that is, audiences that have resources that they might share with the author of the autobiography. Sometime the resource is time or a referral, but often it’s money, ranging from the money needed to purchase a ticket to an event, all the way to an investment in the artist through the purchase of a major work or the awarding of an important prize, grant, or fellowship.

To appeal to such audiences, the author of an autobiographical statement must communicate authority, accomplishment, trustworthiness, legitimacy, and creative vision. An autobiographical statement should also reflect and exemplify the creative spirit that informs the life of a creative professional. A successful autobiography does this by presenting elements of the creative process, including surprise, engagement, narrative, conflict, imagery, and other forms of exemplification.

As the name suggests, autobiographies are written in the first person, using “I” statements. You will have a chance to talk about yourself in the third person (also an important skill) in your final project.

The Process of Writing and Creating the Multimodal Autobiography

Part A: Your Work on the Document

Research: Find five or more online artist-written biographies of practitioners in your own genre(s) of artistic expression. Prefer those that meet the criteria discussed above (that they be engaging, creative, worth emulating, etc.).
Reflecting on your research: Write a sentence or two in response to each biography, indicating what resonates for you as a reader. Look also to see how each artist uses visuals and other media to communicate his or her life and accomplishments.
Pre-Writing: Looking at your existing resume, the “about” page on your Facebook account, or other representations of yourself in print or online, determine what parts of yourself you will represent in your multimodal autobiography. Arrange these elements purposefully, such as in a mind map.
Outlining: Determine and write down the purposeful arrangement of the assertions and facts of your multimodal autobiography. Experiment with different arrangements of the parts of your project; consider areas of emphasis, and, eventually, elements that should be cut.
Drafting: As you write your first draft, be receptive to unanticipated connections and images that you discover through the writing process. At 500 words or more, your rough draft may be too long for the assignment, and that’s fine at this stage. You’ll be cutting quite a bit later.
Writing and Revision I: Consider ways to make your prose engaging as well as informative. Consider thematic connections between paragraphs, specific evidence to support claims, and mini-narratives to hold the interest of your reader. Multimodal autobiographies without specifics will not be memorable, and will rarely earn a grade higher than a C. Keep this in mind as you revise.
Writing and Revision II: Cut those parts of your multimodal autobiography that you determine to be less relevant, engaging, or vigorous. The version you share with classmates should be muscular, revised, purposeful, and impactful. Keep the Five C’s of Style in mind as your revise.

Part B: The Draft Workshop

Make available to classmates your revised draft of your multimodal autobiography during our in-class draft workshop. Be receptive to their critiques, concerns and suggestions. Consider the best strategies and choices to sculpt your multimodal autobiography down to 300 words or fewer. As we will discuss in class, you should revise your multimodal autobiography while paying attention to your autobiography’s ideas, organization, specific supporting evidence, style, and mechanics. Remember that autobiographies are written in the first person.

Part C: The Photograph

As you did with part A1, above, research ten or more author photos or artist photos that clearly represent the subject’s face, but which also make some sort of subtle or clever artistic statement. Consider which photographs you will emulate.
Alternatively, look through photographs that you have of yourself, and determine which, if any, represent you purposefully or creatively as an artist, while still also representing how you really look. Most of us don’t have examples of such artistic cleverness among our profile pictures.
If you don’t have a suitable artist’s photo of yourself, arrange for a friend to take one. We will leave time in class to talk about what makes an effective artist’s photo, and even to take a few photos ourselves.
Ours is not a photography or design class, so as long as you provide something more purposeful than any nearby or default picture that you happen to have online, your multimodal autobiography will not be demerited for the artistic faults of the photograph you choose.

Part D: The Third Medium

Consider in what third medium you will represent yourself or your art. As with C4, above, you should be thoughtful with this part of the assignment, but the majority of your time should be spent revising the prose portion of your multimodal autobiography.

Part E: “Publication” on Canvas

In order to facilitate our getting to know everyone in the class, and in order for you to have practice writing for different audiences, we will eventually be publishing our multimodal autobiographies on our class Canvas site.

While you are welcome to explore and experiment with different themes, submissions for this assignment will be assessed primarily according to the quality of the writing in your autobiography, rather than on the ambition or complexity of the design (or “look”) of your autobiography as it appears in your submission or on Canvas.