Today's Topic: Spatial Texts: Interactive Fiction 2.0

Andrew Plotkin, “Shade”: http://www.eblong.com/zarf/zplet/shade.html;
HTML assignment due. It's now due Friday, March 5, by 11:59 PM.

Hint: In the dark about Shade?Take a look at the to-do list on the table. It'll tell you what you need to do next.

Project Assignment: HTML Assignment

For this assignment, you will utilize the Web authoring skills you have learned in class to produce a cybertextual visualization of one of the following texts:

• Edgar Allan Poe, "The Tell-Tale Heart"
• Edgar Allan Poe, "The Cask of Amontillado"
• Samuel Clemons [Mark Twain], "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County"
• Kate Chopin, "The Storm"

"Visualizing" the work will entail adding HTML markup to the electronic text to create a visual environment that transforms the plain, linear text into an ergodic cybertext.

This does not mean writing critical commentary. Rather, you will each need to think about how the electronic space you are creating functions as a kind of performance of the original text, simultaneously complicating and communicating its core themes.

Use the links above as the "source code" for an electronic text of whichever work you choose (copy and paste words, sentences, and paragraphs into your HTML files). You must represent the entire text in the space of your project. But the text need not all be on the same page, or accessible in a linear fashion; for example, you may wish to use one of the link structures described in Marie-Laure Ryan's essay to disperse the original text across a number of different nodes.

Grades will be based the intellectual and imaginative qualities of the cybertext you create. If you have advanced Web design skills (Flash, Javascript, etc.) you are welcome to make use of them, but everyone is capable of earning an "A" using only the HTML I have taught in class and what's provided in the two MITH tutorials; flashy effects for their own sake will not be well rewarded. Like the still-life in classical painting, sometimes simple is best.

The project should be built in your WAM account. It should include a title page with your name, email address, and a short introduction that briefly articulates the concept behind your cybertext. Mail me the link to turn it in.

Due: Wednesday, March 3 Friday, March 5, 11:59 PM