“American Gothic Literature for Students” Project Charter

Project Name: American Gothic Literature for Students

Project Owner: Madison Cramer

Project Summary: I intend to create an interactive, multi-page website for high school students to use during their study of American Gothic literature. Students will be able to learn about the Gothic genre with an emphasis on mid- to late-nineteenth-century authors. The website will incorporate not only canonical authors, but also lesser-known authors of a variety of identities in order to better understand a more wholistic perspective of American Gothic literature.

Deliverables: My project will consist of a number of inter-linked pages, so I need to create brief but informative pages about specific authors and works, which will include links to other useful sources as well as full texts of relevant works. In addition I will create a home page, a page about the project and methodology, a bibliography, an index of authors and works, a page about characteristics of Gothic literature, and a variety of pages about recurring themes. I may also include a timeline (or several timelines) documenting the publication of certain influential works. Where helpful, I hope to include images and sound files that help contextualize authors and works within their historical and literary tradition.

Timeline: By the end of week one, I read secondary sources about Gothic as a genre and specifically how American Gothic evolved from its European predecessors. I also read The Castle of Otranto (the first Gothic novel) to identify the character, setting, and plot devices that would become tropes for the genre. By the end of week two, I will have created two pages about canonical authors and annotated at least three of their works with Gothic elements. By the end of week three I will have completed a wireframe of the interconnection among pages and the layout of those pages. I will also have a site with a landing page and a digital version of the pages I created to that point. In terms of my research, I will have created two pages about female authors and annotated their works. Since non-canonical authors will have works that are more difficult to access, I am not establishing a goal number of works to have annotated, but rather will choose a sample relative to the number of their works that are available. By the end of week four I will have created pages for an Asian-American author and a Latinx author, which I will upload to the site. In this week I will also create work pages for works I have annotated in the previous weeks. By the end of week five I will have created pages for two African-American authors, which I will upload to the site. I will also create and upload theme pages that indicate themes evident across all or many identities. During this week I will also upload a timeline either as its own page or as part of another page. By the end of week six I will have added links out to author biographies, full texts, and other relevant sources. I will also create an author index and upload any pages not included in the previous weeks. By the end of week seven I will trouble-shoot links within the site to make sure it is easy to navigate across pages. By the end of week eight I will be able to give a clear presentation about my project in its present state.

End of Life/Future Plans: I hope to continue adding to this website through my semester student teaching (Fall, 2018). Following my graduation, I would like to move the project to another server so I can continue to add authors, research, and resources.