| Due Dates: | Requirements: |
| Working draft: February 22, 2000 Final draft: February 29, 2000 |
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Write a review of an art exhibit, performance, literary or musical work, architectural piece, TV series or film. In fulfilling this task, consider who is in your audience and why they are reading your review. Include those details that will be useful to them as they decide whether or not to see the subject in question. Remember also that they probably do not want to know every last detail (particularly the ending, if it is a movie-i.e. "The Crying Game is a movie about a man who falls in love with a woman who turns out to be a man").
Be sure to make the subject as clear as possible at the outset. Explain what kind of artwork it is and how we might categorize it. It might be a good idea to identify its position in a particular artistic movement or genre. Further on, consider what kind of person will want to see this artwork and for which reasons. As in the case of your artform analysis, specific examples will be very helpful. Focus on a few individual works within the exhibit, a few individual rooms in the building in question, a few key scenes in the play or movie, or a few songs from the CD, and elaborate on them in detail. Refer to works by exact titles or to performers by name if possible.
When evaluating the artwork, avoid writing "I thought" or "It seemed to me," because these phrases are redundant in the context of the review. Your readers already know that these are your thoughts about the artwork and not somebody else's.
Consider your audience carefully when writing this review. Remember what Sylvan Barnett says about how much you must explain to your audience (i.e. Leonardo da Vinci, a famous Italian painter). If you are reviewing an artwork that comes from a genre of medium with which you are very, very familiar, then you will probably need to explain some of your terminology and spell out some ideas that will be obvious to you.
Any artwork for which you could have written a journal entry is an acceptable topic for this assignment.