21W. 021:  MIT, Inside, Live

Instructor: Lucy Marx

MIT Stories (Assignment #5)

This last assignment offers you an opportunity to try out something new and get creative. The key is to start with your role as a “participant-observer” at MIT and find a fresh way to present your experiences.

Some possibilities:

1. Take a compelling experience from your MIT life thus far and tell the story. See Joseph Gregg’s “Que Sera Sera,”(Angles, 2008); Jessica Fujimori’s “Yellowstone’s Footprint” (Angles, 2012); Noor Khoury’s “My Life Tuesday” (Angles, 2012).

2. Take an MIT social scene and portray it as an anthropologist might. See Michael Moffatt’s “Coming of Age in a College Dorm” (Stellar readings). Or try presenting MIT culture through the eyes of an alien observer, as Horace Miner does in “Body Ritual of the Nacirema” (Stellar readings) and Sang Huyun Choi does in “Transcript of 2011 Annual Cambridge Mouse Meeting (9/15~9/19)” (Angles, 2012).

3. Create a graphic story that depicts some aspects of your MIT experience as Alina Granville does in “Low Lights of an MIT Archie” (Angles, 2012)  and Lili Sun does in “Pottery Class” (Angles, 2012)

4. “Howl” about MIT in a poetic rant inspired by Alan Ginsburg’s “Howl,” as Mark Fayngersh does in “Owl” (Angles, 2012). Or write an Ode to MIT, as Timothy Curtis Shoyer does in “Ode to the Midnight P-Setter” (Stellar Readings).

5. Write an article or editorial for The Tech that presents your perspective on an issue that arises out of your (and/or your friends’) experiences at MIT.

6. Come up with your own idea. Just check with me if you do.