The capstone. Design, and if you can arrange it run, a new crit-style activity that catches overthinking somewhere the course hasn't already looked
Due: 7 May 2027 · Weight: 35%
The brief#
Design the crit this course didn’t have time to run.
Pick a flavour of overthinking the semester’s crits did not cover. Money, relationships, work decisions, a hobby, something specific to your own life. Then design an activity for it in the same shape, with a provocation, something people do together, and a discussion with no scripted answer.
If you borrow a mechanism from the course, say which and say what you changed. An honest adaptation of the sandwich to a different ordinary task is a stronger submission than an original idea that would not survive contact with a room.
The crit day#
The capstone is presented at the week 9 crit. That crit opens the way the course has opened every class since week 3, except this time everyone eats together, in silence, for the first twenty minutes. No phones, no slides up, no talking. Bring lunch or we will feed you badly.
It is the sandwich crit at full scale, and deliberately the last thing the course does before you present. Twenty quiet minutes with an undemanding task is, on the evidence in the empty slot, roughly the condition under which people’s thinking finishes itself. Whether it helps your presentation is an experiment with a sample size of one class, and we will ask you afterwards.
The pass rule applies. Eat elsewhere and come back at twenty past if you would rather.
What you submit#
The brief itself, written as a crit page (see any of this course’s own crits for the shape), plus the reflection or prediction named above. If you ran it on a friend group, a class, anyone willing, say what actually happened. If you did not, be honest that it is a prediction and say what you would watch for.
The spec
The brief poses the problem and leaves room for a response. The spec is the fixed part, the bit a marker checks. Some lines can be checked mechanically. The rest call for judgement.
- a written brief for a new activity, in the shape a crit page in this course follows, covering what people bring, what happens, what's discussed afterwards
- a stated account of what it's meant to catch or teach, and why the crit format, rather than being told, is the right way to do it
- a reflection on how it went if you ran it, or your best prediction of where it would snag if you didn't
How it is marked
Judged on whether the activity would actually produce the discussion it is aiming for, not on production values or novelty for its own sake. A close variant of a crit from this course, honestly adapted to a new context, can score as well as something wholly original.