Specimen cards

One card a week, on one creature from that week's list, applying that week's rule. Twelve cards, written as the semester runs and submitted together.

Due: 24 May 2027 · Weight: 20%

The brief#

Each week, take one creature from that week’s list and write the card that week’s rule would have you write.

A specimen card is short by design. One creature, one record, one rule, about half a page. The card is not the point. The point is that by week 12 there are twelve of them, written under twelve different rules, and the differences between them carry the argument the rest of your work stands on.

The 山海经 (Shānhǎijīng, the Classic of Mountains and Seas) does not reward one careful reading of one passage. It rewards the same passage read again under a rule that did not apply the first time. 狌狌 (xīngxīng) appears in week 1 as the first beast on the first mountain, and again in week 8 as a name with three bodies behind it. A card written in week 1 and a card written in week 8 on the same creature should not resemble one another. If they do, one of the two weeks did not land.

Each week’s page states its rule. The card applies that rule to one creature from that week’s list and reports the result, including the result where the rule does not hold. A card concluding that the rule failed is worth as much as one concluding that it held, provided it names the part of the record that made it fail.

What you submit#

This is a running submission. You write one card a week across the twelve teaching weeks and hand the set in once, on the date above. Do not write them in the last fortnight. A marker can tell, because twelve cards written in one sitting all sort by the same rule regardless of the week each one claims.

Each card carries, in this order: the creature’s name in Chinese with pinyin; the week and its rule; the citation; what the record supplies for the fields that rule cares about; and what it does not supply. The last part is not optional. It is the habit this course exists to form.

A citation names the 卷, and for the five 山經 chapters the 次 section and the mountain or water the record is filed under. Where you cannot find the line in the edition, say so and mark the card unverified. An unverified card that says so loses nothing. A card that supplies a plausible line to close the gap loses everything, and the policies page says why.

How it is marked#

The criteria below weight fit-to-rule above completeness. Twelve competent cards that all read the same way score below twelve that each show the week they were written in.