150 English
Assignment Three: Analyzing an Artifact: ISU Art, Building, or
Landscape (700 words, Chapters 8 and 9 The Call to Write)
Paper Copies Due in Class:
13 October Rough Draft (but email me your Peer Response)
18 October Final Draft with Reflection
Please use the following: LastName_FirstName_3.1, when you email me your Peer
Response drafts in Microsoft Word format. Documents in other formats are not
acceptable. Late submissions will be docked one letter grade per day. (Please refer
to Course Policies.) Rough draft with Peer Response carries 15% of the assignment.
Reflection also carries 15% of the assignment. Missing one will result in one-step
grade reduction, and missing both will result in one letter grade reduction.
In his book The Campus as a Work of Art, Thomas
Gaines lists Iowa State University as one of the most
beautiful campuses in the nation and says this about
a well-
designed and attractive campus in general:
the college campus has an ambience all its own . . . it
is a place we want to go to, to be in, identify with;
there is a there there (x).
Iowa State Campus, 1893
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~isu150/history/campusimage.html
William Sturner, in an article in The Journal of Higher EducationEnvironmental
Code: Creating a Sense of Place on the College Campus (1971) connects the
physical campus, the purpose of the campus, and the students and faculty who live
and work there:
The design and construction of the physical aspects of the university should
complement and strengthen the mission of the university to stimulate students
in the effective use of learning opportunities. The physical environment should
facilitate the process by which men and women seek to understand themselves
and others through experiential and vicarious encounters with the extensions
of man and nature. (Sturner, 99)
Accordingly, in this project, you are combining the dual purposes of reporting and
commenting in a particular way: to produce an analysis of a place within or an
artifact on the ISU campus that also reflects your own relationship to this
place and the meaning you attach to it. Your purpose is to find out all that you can
about one facet of this new place of which you are now an inhabitant (one portion of
campus with distinctive landscape features, one building, one work of art) and to
analyze how and why the campus designers, architects, landscape architects, or
artists chose to plan and create that particular feature as they did. This kind of
project is called place-
based analysis, and this assignment allows you to go beyond
1
fact-
based analysis to some commentary (interpretation) as well. This assignments
purpose is to explore and explain how your chosen campus building, portion of the
campus landscape, or campus artifact was created and placed, as well as how it has
come to have meaning for you.
Getting Started
No doubt you have already noticed a building, a small portion of campus (a
courtyard or a scenic walkway between two buildings), or one of Iowa States many
pieces of public art. However, in the natural rush to get settled and adjust to college
life, you have not had time to really contemplate and learn about the natural,
architectural, and artistic features of this amazing campus. As you walk on campus
on your daily treks to classes, let your gaze broaden out and then focus in on large
and small features of this place that is the Iowa State University campus.
Walk from the Campanile to the Fountain of the Fours Seasons to Lake LaVerne, to
the Grant Wood murals in the library to a comfortable bench on campus, which
gives you a restful view of a building, piece of art, or pleasing portion of landscape.
Look at the figures on top of the Molecular Biology building and the intricate,
meaningful messages built into its interior floors and walls. Perhaps you are
attracted to the archways of Lagomarcino courtyard or you may have stood at the
base of the huge stone staircases leading to Beardshear, Catt, or Curtiss Halls and
seen the impressive faades and entrances to those buildings. You may have noticed
how the new and original parts of the Parks Library are designed to fit together.
Inside the library, you may enjoy the reading room with its ornate fireplace.
The new addition to the Memorial Union has a huge zodiac-
like piece of art on the
floor of the south entrance with poetry from an English professor! The park-
like
central campus is a carefully designed landscape. The architecture of Memorial
Union, Beardshear, Curtiss, and Catt Halls is impressive and reveals more details the
longer you look at it and read about it. This campus has a large collection of Grant
Wood murals and Christian Peterson sculptures. The Farm House is a museum now,
but what did it used to be? Beardshear Hall has a dome, stained glass, and a
fascinating staircase. The many campus plantings of trees, flowers, and shrubs are
an integral part of the place that is Iowa State University.
To choose a focus for this place-
based analysis, keep your eyes wide open on your
walks around campus; also, visit these three websites, and others from the ISU
website, to get ideas about something you have not seen or more information on
something you have already noticed:
http://www.museums.iastate.edu/
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~isu150/history/campus.html
http://www.lib.iastate.edu/spcl/exhibits/150/TreesofCentralCampus.pdf
http://www.mu.iastate.edu/
Set aside some time to just walk on campus and, importantly, to sit and lookto
take it in and to get a sense of what Gaines called the there of this campus. Take
notes about what you see. Then re-
visit the websites to get more information, and
2
go back to your place to look again. While your reactions and thoughts will
certainly be emotional and personal on some level, the overall goal of the paper is to
analyze this landscape or an object within it, so think about and take notes on the
elements that make up this part of the ISU landscape, what it means to you, in its
specific setting, and to Iowa State as an educational institution with its particular
history. How does this feature fit the design of and add meaning to the place that is
the Iowa State University campus?
Planning and Drafting
As you take notes about the campus artifact or place youre focusing on , also think
about the following:
something about it that grew on you, or
something about the piece that attracted your attention immediately, or
something about it that you didnt notice at first or that came to mean something
different to you the more you looked at it and thought about it,
something particularly fitting about its placement in the campus landscape,
or something that you find puzzling but interesting.
Finally, on your walks, dont take just notes; take a photo or two to include in your
paper, so your readers know specifically what you are looking at, analyzing, and
commenting on. Include at least one image of the object or place. Integrate the
image within your text rather than placing it at the beginning or end. Label the
picture, and then refer to the picture when you first describe it and, if appropriate,
elsewhere in your paper.
Keep these basics in mind about effective analytical and interpretive writing: it
describes the subject and its parts in sufficient detail that the later analysis makes
sense; it examines how the parts of the subject interact with each other; it uses some
research (although your personal response has a place here, as indicated above); it
uses a logical and easy-
to-
follow organization; it offers an interesting insight on the
topic; the conclusion summarizes the whole (Chapters 8 and 9 CW).
Documentation
Correctly identify and quote or paraphrase outside material that you use in your
essay. For instance, if you use information from the ISU Museums website, indicate
the source of the information within your sentence and in a parenthetical citation at
the end of the sentence. You also need to acknowledge the source of any images you
use. While you do not need a formal Works Cited page for this essay, you do need to
document within the text. Here is an example:
On June 6, 1998, at the rededication of The Fountain of the Four Seasons, then-
ISU
President Martin Jischke commented on the significance of this piece of art for the
Iowa State University campus and students educational experience:
This fountain represents why President Hughes brought Christian Petersen
to this campus and why we continue to use the arts today not only to make
3
this campus more beautiful and enjoyable but to enhance the education of
students who come here to study. This fountain is a wonderful
representation of a way of life and culture through artistic expressiona
way of life and culture that are different from the one that most of us know
but one that is an essential part of the history of this state and nation. And as
such, it is one of Iowa State's earliest expressions of multiculturalism.
(http://www.museums.iastate.edu/AOCFactSheetsPDF/fourseasons.pdf)
Evaluation Criteria
At a minimum, your paper needs to satisfy these criteria. However, the grade is
based not just on whether a feature is present or not, but on how well it has been
integrated into your paper. Also see your ISUComm Foundation Courses Student
Guide, 2010 2011 about evaluation of individual projects.
Context
The lead paragraph introduces the audience to the place or feature (e.g., building, artwork)
and reveals the interesting focus that emerged in your analysis and commentary.
Substance
The paper shows relevant insights about this part of the ISU landscape and is not simply a
collection of descriptive facts about the place.
The paper contains carefully chosen, specific information about the place, its history, its
campus context and is developed with sufficient detail.
Organization
The paper is organized clearly around the key points made about the place or feature, its
history, and its campus context. Specifically, you introduce your thesis about the place or
feature in the first paragraph and dont just present a name and location.
The paper is appropriately organized into paragraphs and uses transitions to link one idea to
the next.
Style
If the paper includes either direct quotations or paraphrases from the ISU websites or other
sources, you provide in-
text citation (no need for Works Cited in this paper).
Problems with grammar and mechanics do not detract from the paper.
Delivery
Page layout makes the paper easy to read. You followed the formatting instructions.
4