As a part of their final capstone project, the seniors of Jason Kalin’s WRD 390 course (Rhetoric and Public Writing) created their own pop-up museum. This museum featured the work of eight seniors who transformed their public writing research into “multimodal works [that] tell stories about Chicago.”
In this course, students are asked to “look back for the purpose of looking forward, to consider how this broad preparation to excel at rhetorical action across communities of discourse prepares one for public life as a writer” (description from DePaul WRD’s Major Requirements page).
Their projects asked their audiences to stop and reflect about their experiences in Chicago, with its physical geography, as well as with its art, its people, and its history. With many of the final pieces having interactive components, the students’ multimodal projects asked questions of the viewers while encouraging conversation.
Topics were varied and covered many different aspects of Chicago’s public and private life. Check out some of the final projects below, presented with brief excerpts from their Artist’s Statements.