Paper, Order, or Assignment Requirements

Imaginary Online Periodical .Your mission is to create an imaginary virtual periodical (such as an online newspaper or magazine) from a time between 1400 and 1800. You should choose a specific year (or even day) and location for your newspaper that you believe reflects an important moment in time. You can include events from around 50 years on either side of the date but the closer the better (and from beyond the locale). Together the various stories in your newspaper should form a coherent portrait of the times. You should create stories that you believe present important social political, cultural and/or religious developments of the era. You can and should mix fact and fantasy, although all of your stories should be plausible. Do your best to draw on a combination of primary and secondary sources in creating your periodical. Requirements: Your imaginary periodical should be the equivalent of at least five pages in length (1250 words) and contain at least five stories, including one lead story and an editorial, both at least 250 words long. It would be advisable to make clear the perspective of the editorial (the writer of the editorial could be a noble, a humanist, a sailor, etc.). You are also required to include one article about a painting or object. Please clear the topics with your instructor before writing this assignment! Also, write a one page discussion of how and why you chose the stories in your imaginary periodical. Recommendations: Think of giving your periodical different sections on a variety of topics, such as politics, culture (books, music, art), sports, the economy, biographies, fashion, interviews, etc. Then create stories about people, trends and events of the era, that are likely to have happened. Write it like a periodical—not an encyclopedia— with details about events that reflect larger trends. Periodicals do not read like textbooks which summarize long periods or give straight factual biographies or histories of wars, etc. In other words you should highlight a timely aspect of a person, or topic, in a way that fits into your view of the period. Please give your stories some depth, such as the context explaining why something happened and who or what it affected. This is a work of the imagination which should mix both ‘fact’ and fantasy. You should have a brief bibliography that includes at least two outside sources (one book and one article for example). You should contact me about the topics you are choosing and get help with reading suggestions by April 19th. 12 If you would like to use some primary sources beyond the course materials, I recommend the following website: https://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook.html. You can also use the websites listed in Kümin. Avoid Wikipedia! This assignment is about exercising your mind not collecting factoids! Grading Criteria for Virtual Periodical • The selection of stories, pictures and topics covered allows for a multi-faceted view of early modern Europe while retaining a sense of unity and coherence • The stories are well-informed and have depth. In other words provide context and connections for events (for example do not just state that there was a riot in a town in a certain year, but explain why it happened at that particular time and place, who participated and why, and what were the short and long term consequences) • The stories should read like a periodical (not like an encyclopedia or textbook). This means that it is not just a collection of names and dates but provides a sense of background and context, and the writing is for a general audience • The stories include original fictionalized content that is plausible for the time and place