Tutorial Syllabus: Remaking the Book

First pre-semester meeting, 1-3 p.m.

We will introduce ourselves, go over some information for registration, and discuss course planning.

Note that these first few days are not normal course meetings. The first regular meeting is Thursday morning.

• The Grinnell College catalog, Education in the Liberal Arts (the first four sections, ending with the one called "The First Year")
• What Questions Do You Have? (handout at first group meeting)

First assignment!

I know your schedules are tight between our first meeting on Saturday and our advising meetings on Sunday and Monday. Make some time for these short readings; they are important building blocks for our advising conversations leading to registration.

After you do the readings, use the pamphlet that you made in our first meeting to create the following and bring them to our meeting:

1. Your driving questions. This is the list of three questions that you compose in response to "What Questions Do You Have?" Write them on the first interior page of your pamphlet.
2. A visualization of your preliminary course selections. In the rest of your pamphlet, create some combination of words and visual elements that shows me the three main non-Tutorial courses you're thinking of taking, some backup courses, and something about the reasons for your choices. I am not asking you to create gallery-quality art but rather any useful way of helping yourself think about your course choices in light of the readings. A reference to at least one of the readings should appear directly in your pamphlet, in whatever way you find useful.

Bring your questions, visualization, and card with you to your first advising meeting in my office on Sunday or Monday.

Advising meetings! Your time is on the schedule I handed out Saturday. My office is HSSC N3146.

Your registration happens in two rounds: you choose your first course at 10:00 and your other courses at 2:00. I will be in my office from 9 to 11 in the morning and 2 to 3 in the afternoon.

• Read the class syllabus on Connections, including the main syllabus and the Assignments and Policies sections. Note at least two questions or points you especially want to remember.

We will spend the first part of class reviewing the syllabus and looking ahead to our semester together. In the second part of class, we will do our first campus observation exercise.

• Jenny Odell, from How to Do Nothing (packet of course readings)
• Rob Walker, from The Art of Noticing (packet of course readings)

Choose a noticing activity based on the readings from Walker and Odell. By 9:00 the night before class, post to your Classwork Document at least 150 words about your activity and what you experienced when you tried it.

In class, we will share experiences of noticing, then work together to articulate the goals of our in-class discussions. Finally, we will do an exercise in making the book booky, a concept I will explain in class, and reflect on how our discussion has gone.

• Kelli Anderson, Design to Challenge Reality
• Hedi Kyle and Ulla Warchol, The Art of the Fold (class textbook): read all sections of the Preface thoroughly and then explore the rest of the book, getting some sense of the kinds of structures you can make with its instructions. (This is a famous book in the world of hand-bookmaking; Hedi Kyle invented a number of structures that have become widely popular.)

By 9:00 the night before class, post to your Classwork Document at least 150 words addressing both of these two questions. First, how do you respond to Anderson's ideas about the role of making things by hand in an increasingly digital age? And second, in the spirit of our semester-long exploration of the implication of book forms, choose one of Kyle and Warchol's book forms and describe why it might be an appropriate way to describe some element of your Grinnell experience so far.

In class, we will be making books that have a cut-out shape on their covers. Bring a shape to class! Make it something simple enough to cut with basic tools. You can bring the idea of a shape that you'll be ready to draw and cut, or if you want to be more exact, you can bring a cutout of the shape for tracing and cutting.

• Keith Houston, Chapter 14, "Ties That Bind: Binding the Paged Book," from The Book: A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time (course textbook)
• Adam Smyth, Chapter 2, "Binding: William Wildgoose," from The Book-Makers: A History of the Book in Eighteen Lives (packet of course readings)
• Roland Allen, Chapter 1, "Before Notebooks," from The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper (packet of course readings)
• A short video on why we wash hands rather than wearing gloves while handling rare books
• Optional bonus reading: an artist's book playing with the idea of binding

By 9:00 the night before class, post to your Classwork Document at least 150 words addressing any connection you'd like to make that brings together the three readings. Be sure to include at least one page citation from each of the readings. (You can simply put page numbers in parenthesis for this assignment. We will work on Chicago Style citations next week.)

This session will involve our first experience with Special Collections materials.

By 9:00 the night before class, post to your Classwork Document at least 100 words about EACH of two prototypes for your campus observation book plan. For each prototype, describe a book form (such as codex, scroll, accordion, or slats), the content of campus observations that you would place in that form, and your rationale for matching the form with the observations. The two prototypes must involve different book forms and different observational content.

We will spend the first part of class workshopping your prototypes and the second half in a working session getting started on your books.

• Charles Chesnutt, "Baxter's Procrustes" (packet of class readings)
• Christy Hyman, "Charles W. Chesnutt: A Biographical Sketch" (packet of class readings)
• Erik Simpson, Close Reading section of the Start Small, Start Strange packet
• Erik Simpson, Quotations and Sources section and Appendix on Chicago Style from the Start Small, Start Strange packet

By 9:00 the night before class, post to your Classwork Document a) two quotations you found especially striking from Chesnutt's story, for reasons of their language or metaphors (not just their importance to the action of the story) and b) at least 150 words explaining your rationale for choosing those two quotations.

In class, we will use Chesnutt's story as a way of discussing methods of reading, and we will then practice Chicago Style citation in preparation for your projects.

CAMPUS OBSERVATION BOOK DUE. By 9:00 the night before class, post the essay component of the assignment to your Classwork Document. Bring the book itself to our classroom by 8:15. We will gather the books, hear from IGE staff about international study opportunities, and walk to a Tutorial Plus session that begins at 9:00.

• Academic Honesty Guide for Grinnell College (packet of course materials, also available on the web)
• Anonymous survey about AI
• The essay component of the project that you submitted on Thursday (your own essay)

This is a thrilling three-part assignment! By 9:00 the night before class, post in your Classwork Document 1) a statement that you have completed the anonymous survey about AI, 2) three specific questions you have about the Academic Honesty Guide, and 3) three specific questions you have for a classmate about possible revisions of your essay. (Make these revision-based questions more substantial than details such as "is this the right word here?" but still specific enough that you are looking together at moments in the essay, not the piece as a whole. The questions could concern organization, use of evidence, quotation and citation, or similar issues.)

In class, we will do a peer workshop of your project essays. I will bring printed copies so that you can look at them in groups of two or three. Then we will spend the rest of our time in discussion of the Academic Honesty Guide and AI, with consideration of how AI might be helpful and harmful in a liberal arts education.

CAMPUS OBSERVATION BOOK: FINAL VERSION DUE. By 9:00 the night before class, post the essay component of the assignment to your Classwork Document.

In class, you will each do an informal presentation of your book to the class. The presentation should be three to five minutes long; I'll help you keep track of the time. You can present the book however you think most effective. You are welcome to use material you wrote about in the essay component of the project, but do not read the text directly. You can use brief notes written on a card or small sheet of paper if you find that helpful.

• Timothy Burke, "Academia: The Evolving Case for Reading" (packet of course readings)
• Dan Sinykin, "‘Close reading’ is a solution for students looking to live a good life" (packet of course readings)

By 9:00 the night before class, enter into your Classwork Document at least 150 words about your reaction to some element of these readings, using a specific quotation from each of them.

In class, we will do a close reading exercise and then attend an event featuring Dan Sinykin himself.

• Roger S. Wieck, Painted Prayers: The Book of Hours in Medieval and Renaissance Art, Introduction, "Calendar," and part of "The Hours of the Virgin" (packet of course readings)

By 9:00 the night before class, enter into your Classwork Document at least 150 words about elements of the Book of Hours that you want to look for when we see examples in Special Collections (and why you want to see them).

• Christopher de Hamel, "Books for Everybody," from A History of Illuminated Manuscripts (packet of course readings)
• Kathryn Rudy, "Dirty Books: Quantifying Patterns of Use in Medieval Manuscripts Using a Densitometer" (packet of course readings)
• Erik Simpson, Thesis section of the Start Small, Start Strange packet

By 9:00 the night before class, enter into your Classwork Document at least 150 words comparing two pieces of evidence, one from each of the readings. Explain why you think these two pieces of evidence illustrate the different approaches to using evidence in these two essays. How do de Hamel and Rudy use different evidence to construct different kinds of claims about Books of Hours?

In class, we will talk about the two essays and then do an exercise on thesis construction. Be sure to do the Thesis readings carefully enough to apply them to the in-class exercise.

In the first part of class, we will do hands-on work in the Book Lab with the techniques involved in illuminated manuscript production. In the second part, we will meet with Amanda Pearce from the Center for Careers, Life, and Service to talk about exploratory advising.

• Film: Helvetica (2007), directed by Gary Hustwit

By 9:00 the night before class, enter into your Classwork Document at least 150 words about some aspect of typeface design that you had not considered before watching the film.

Bring to class a printout of two separate letters, each about an inch high. You will be carving these letters into the surface of a potato. We will use the Grinnell Guide to Carving Type from Potatoes. (also in the packet of course readings).

I will be away for professional service today. You will attend (as a required class meeting, with attendance taken) the group Tutorial Plus session on process-based tasks and writing at 9:00 in the HSSC multipurpose room (A1231). You do not have any other assignment for today.

FALL BREAK

• Adam Smyth, Chapter 4, "Typography: John Baskerville and Sarah Eaves," from The Book-Makers: A History of the Book in Eighteen Lives (packet of course readings)
• Ellen Lupton, from Thinking with Type (packet of course readings)
• Animated short by Ben Barrett-Forrest: The History of Typography
  • Optional bonus reading: Elle Cordova's magnificent series of videos about Fonts Hanging Out
  • More optional bonus reading: Frankenfont posters at the Rhode Island School of Design

By 9:00 the night before class, enter into your Classwork Document at least 150 words about at least three moments of historical change in typography that would help you identify the period in which a given book was published.

In class, we will visit Special Collections and see the history of typography in action, then we will do a close examination of a single letter across many typefaces.

By 9:00 the night before class, post to your Classwork Document at least 100 words about EACH of two prototypes for your illumination project. One prototype should be an idea for an illuminated letter, and one should be for a Book of Hours page.

We will spend the first part of class workshopping your prototypes and the second half in a working session getting started on your books.

ILLUMINATION PROJECT DUE by email attachment by 9:00 the night before class.

In class, we will do a workshop session on the written components of the project, with special attention to theses, transitions, and quotations.

ILLUMINATION PROJECT: FINAL VERSION DUE by email attachment by 9:00 Wednesday night.

In place of a regular class meeting today, we will have individual conferences for registration advising.

• Molly McCarthy, "Redeeming the Almanac: Learning to Appreciate the iPhone of Early America"
• Lalita Kaplish (editor), "Modern Encounters With a Medieval Almanac," Wellcome Collection

By 9:00 the night before class, enter into your Classwork Document at least 150 words building on the ways in which the readings connect older forms of publishing to contemporary media. How do you see the functions or design of older books or almanacs continuing (in a transformed way) today?

We will meet in Special Collections for a session on almanacs through history.

• Keith Houston, Part One of The Book, chapters 3 and 4 (course textbook)
• Barrett Klein, "Products: Paper," from The Insect Epiphany (packet of course readings)
• From the University of Iowa's Center for the Book: Chancery Papermaking (2013)
  • Optional bonus content: Paper Making by Hand at Hayle Mill, England (1976)

By 9:00 the night before class, enter into your Classwork Document at least 150 words starting with a specific moment in one of the readings and how it leads to something you're curious to experience when we make paper in class today.

Take to the internet and do some exploring of "paste papers" on your own. Find out what paste papers are and how they have been used historically. Then find images of paste papers and see what you like. By 9:00 the night before class, enter into your Classwork Document at least 150 words describing two or three paste paper patterns that you have found and want to try to imitate or adapt in class. We will meet in the Book Lab and make paste papers!

I will also bring some samples of zines for you to see in class, in preparation for your assignment for Thursday while I'm away.

• Margarete Miller, "What’s a zine and how do I make one?" (11-minute video)
• Truly CA, "But I Love the Zine" (17-minute video)
• The University of Illinois Libraries' Collection of Online Zine Resources (see the assignment below for how to use this)

I will be away at a professional conference today, so you can use our class time for this assignment if you wish to. Therefore, the deadline is different from the usual one: by 10:00 on Thursday morning, post in your classwork document two sections of at least 150 words each. First, explain what you have found especially interesting in the two videos for class, especially any ideas that you have found helpful for thinking about zines you might create. Second, describe a zine you might actually create. You can choose any topic you want to, but you might think about documenting some aspect of your Grinnell experience so far, some part of culture you want to describe to people who aren't familiar with it, or some piece of advice or guidance that would be useful to a reader. You can make the zine if you're inspired to do so, but the assignment is simply to describe your plan.

• Amaranth Borsuk, Chapter 3, "The Book As Idea," from The Book (packet of course readings)

By 9:00 the night before class, enter into your Classwork Document at least 150 words describing one artist's book from the reading that especially impressed you and how you could imagine another artist's book project (done by yourself or by someone else) being inspired by the one that you chose.

THANKSGIVING BREAK

Prototype workshop! By 9:00 the night before class, enter into your Classwork Document three descriptions of a final project you might pursue, of at least 100 words each. Give one prototype for each of the three categories of the final project: a Book of Hours, an almanac, or an artist's book. In class, we will workshop your ideas and then have time for you to work on your plans for one of them in the Book Lab.

Today's class will be a Book Lab work session for your projects. By 9:00 the night before class, enter into your Classwork Document at least 150 words describing the current state of your project and your specific goals for using our two hours of class time to make progress on it in advance of our presentations next week.

Festival of Project Presentations, part one!

Festival of Project Presentations, part two! (And last day of class. Sad emoji.)

FINAL PROJECT DUE by email attachment at noon.