Unit Three
Writing in the Archives


Unit Overview:

What can we uncover and discover about UVA by reading texts from its past? In this unit, we’ll dive into the Archives, both physical and digital, reading work from past students and faculty. Some of it promises to be troubling, some boring, some touching, and some maybe even riveting. We’ll identify a wide range of examples and bring them to light in a final exhibit to make them more apparent to others, and of course we’ll reflect on how these new-to-us materials further help us understand (a) the identity of UVA and (b) UVA’s “culture of writing.”

By the unit’s end, you should be able to:

  • Identify and request materials from UVA’s Special Collections.

  • Work professionally with those materials to study them effectively.

  • Select materials and create professional exhibit pieces, complete with appropriate scanning and image curation, as well as companion exhibit labels.

  • Draw on primary sources as subject and evidence for an essay, practicing both close reading and synthesis/interpretation in light of the course theme.



Major Assignment (3-5 exhibit pieces/labels + 3-5 page essay)

Part 1. Exhibit pieces/labels

  • Submit a PDF contact sheet (including a smaller version of the image+label)

    • Please title your file:
      ContactSheet_YourLastName_HES21

    • Here is the example folder.

      • Feel free to include multiple pages, as works for the # of exhibit pieces you’ve chose to include.

      • Just a note on Production—I set my contact sheet up using InDesign, but most of you will have the easiest time with either Microsoft Word, Pages, or Google docs. Feel free to ask me questions about page set-up if you get thwarted.

  • Submit the high-res image file and a text version of your labels to this Drive folder.

    • Create a new sub-folder. Please title the folder:
      FirstName LastName_HEfilesS21

    • Drop your files to that sub-folder.

    • You can see how I’ve set mine up as an example; I’ve already dropped those to a sub-folder for myself, in the link above.



Part II. Essay


Short version:



 Grading Rubric