Assignment 3: The Badly Behaved Book

The capstone: an original picture-book work in which rule-breaking supports the story rather than decorating it. Resolved does not mean polished — a photographed paper prototype can be a finished answer to this brief if it reads as a complete, coherent experience.

The brief#

Make a picture book that deliberately breaks one or more of its own rules, and revise it after watching someone read it.

Format is open — physical book, digital work, photographed prototype, collage, illustrated prototype, or an unusual structure are all acceptable. Combining more than one form of misbehaviour is allowed, but only where the combination earns its place; adding techniques to lengthen a checklist counts against the work, not for it.

What you submit#

The finished work, in whatever format you have made it, plus a Reader Note of 400 words maximum explaining the intended reader experience, what happened during testing, what changed, and why the final work breaks the rules it breaks.

The spec

The brief poses the problem and leaves room for a response. The spec is the fixed part: what a marker checks. Some lines can be checked mechanically; the rest call for judgement.

• an original, resolved experimental picture-book work, in any suitable format
• at least one documented cycle of prototype, reader test, and revision
• if more than one convention is broken, they support each other rather than padding a checklist
• a Reader Note of 400 words maximum covering intended experience, what happened in testing, what changed, and why the final work misbehaves

How it is marked

Judged as a coherent reading experience rather than a checklist — whether the chosen misbehaviours support each other, whether a genuine cycle of prototype, reader test, and revision is evident, and whether the Reader Note explains what changed and why.