Projects on Junot Diaz: “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao”

By Jeff Gandell, Dawson College

At a Glance

Discipline

Languages

Instructional Level

College & CEGEP

Course

Contemporary American Fiction

Tasks in Workflow

Social Plane(s)

Individual
Group
Whole Class

Type of Tasks

Solving problems
Analyzing
Reviewing & assessing peers
Creating & designing
Reading
Presenting

Technical Details

Useful Technologies

Computers

Time

Semester long

Instructional Purpose

Preparation & knowledge activation
Application & knowledge building

Overview

In this activity, students work on their own creative and analytical responses to the novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Junot Díaz) and cooperate to create a website to showcase their work.

In groups, students select a one-word theme that relates to the novel and which they use as inspiration for their final project. Throughout the rest of the course, they work individually on a creative piece/artifact – for example a painting, a poem, an essay, a song, a podcast – that responds to their selected theme. In addition, as a group they create a blog which they use to collect and showcase their work at the end of the course. The project of the members of the group can link with each other or operate more independently.

Please see this website for further information on the project and to download project guidelines and criteria.

Instructional Objectives

Students will be able to individually create an artifact using primary texts as inspiration and working collaboratively

Workflow & Materials

Activity Workflow

View on CourseFlow

Contributor's Notes

Benefits

The lack of strict criteria allowed students to engage in really unique and creative work and say something original about the novel;
Having freedom to explore their interests, students engaged more in depth with the novel and significantly improved their writing.

Challenges

There were some technical challenges with working with wordpress.

Tips

It can be useful to create a short video with screenshots and the instructor’s voice explaining how to set up a work with a wordpress blog. This way, students can quickly get accustomed to the site and in class can ask specific questions if they cannot figure out how a specific feature works;
It is useful to devote time in class to working on the website, as this is fun and engaging for students and can motivate them to engage at home in the more analytical and time consuming work of creating the content for the site;
Showcasing each group’s work at the end also leads to interesting discussions on the novel.

Applied Strategies

Peer Assessment

Critical thinking and communication

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Published: 29/01/2019

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