Thematic Anthology
YOUR TASK: Create a “virtual anthology” of short texts on a theme of interest or importance to you. A virtual anthology is not a “real” anthology (i.e., it will not exist except in the imaginations of you and your readers) in that you do not have to include the actual texts selected for it. You will include only a table of contents of the various texts, an acknowledgements page listing the bibliographic information of each text, and an introduction to the collection. This virtual anthology will demonstrate not only the kinds of texts you enjoy and a theme you consider important, but will also, in the introduction you will write, allow you to explain the various strategies and practices you use to read the texts.
Day 1: Choosing Your Focus
1. Anthologies are created on an endless variety of themes—childhood, things not talked about, work, nature, and so on. Thematic anthologies can include works of various genres and forms. Anthologies can also be made to showcase authors from particular cultures—western Canadian, eastern Canadian, Australian, Aboriginal, African-American, etc. or the settings of those cultures. These could also include a variety of genres. Or, anthologies can demonstrate the variations within genres—haiku, long poems, postcard stories, fantasy fiction, adventure stories, detective stories, and on and on.
2. Think about texts your have read in the past. What themes tend to interest you? What forms or genres are you most drawn to? What cultural traditions interest you?
4. Choose one of the themes, genres, traditions, or other selection principles as the focus of your virtual anthology. It should be one in with which you are familiar, in which you are interested, and for which you can find sufficient material.
Now, read through the anthologies we have in class to see if you can find texts (short stories, poems, articles) that fit your theme. You may also choose to research online at home. You must have 3-5 texts in your anthology.
Day 2: Arranging your Table of Contents
The anthologies you examined may have used a variety of ways of organizing the selections—alphabetically by author, chronologically, thematically according to genre. You may choose any of these ways to arrange your selections.
1. Review the selections you have chosen, and experiment with different arrangements. Which arrangement would a reader find most helpful or most engaging? Which arrangement highlights the texts most effectively?
2. Create a title page and title your anthology. You may want to use a phrase from one of the works that is representative of the collection, or you may think of a catchy title that describes your selection. List yourself as the editor.
3. Once you have decided on your arrangement, create a table of contents page, writing the title of each piece, the author, and the page number on which it would be found.
4. Create your alphabetical acknowledgments page(s). We will use the MLA style for citation:
Author Last name, First name. "Title of Short Work." Title of Anthology. Ed. Editor's Name(s). Place of Publication: Publisher, Year. Page Range of Entry. Medium of Publication.
Here’s an example:
Gray, Thomas Alan. "One Day Winner." Frontier: A Collection of New Canadian Short Stories. Ed. Rachelle McCallum. Maple Ridge, BC: Polar Expressions, 2008. 36-37. Print.
Day 3-4: Introductory Essay
One convention or rule in the making of anthologies is to include an introduction or at least a short preface. Here the editor(s) of the anthology explains some of the process of selection and arrangement, and what the purpose of the anthology is, i.e., why it was created and what the reader can gain from it. Such an introduction may also offer suggestions on how the reader can read the collection—all at once or a bit at a time, in the order given or in an order depending on the reader’s mood or interests, and so on.
1. Read the introductions and prefaces of the anthologies you have examined to get a sense of what can be written and what tone is appropriate.
2. Draft an introductory essay to your virtual anthology, in which you do the following:
· Explain your selection process and principles (why you chose the texts you did).
· Explain the theme that connects the texts in order for readers to appreciate the selections.
· Explain your arrangement of the texts. (why they are in that order)
· Explain what these texts mean to you or do for you as a reader and what you hope they will mean to or do for the reader. “Sell” the collection to the reader by generating excitement and enthusiasm.
3. Once you have completed a draft, look at it carefully with an eye to where improvements can be made. You may want to share it with your response partner. Revise it carefully, making improvements in your language, ideas, and organization where possible.
4. Once you have a revised draft that you feel says what you want to say, edit it to be sure it conveys what you want it to say to a reader. Again, your response partner’s feedback is very useful here.
5. The final stage in the basic writing process is to proofread carefully your edited draft. Check to be sure that you have followed the conventions of spelling, grammar and usage, and punctuation and capitalization.
Title page, listing yourself as editor (5 marks)
Table of Contents (10 marks)
Acknowledgments page(s) (10 marks)
Essay Draft with writing variables and Peer Editing (5 marks)
Introductory Essay (final copy) (20 marks)
TOTAL 50 marks