Final Project: The Schism Map
A visual map of the movement's splinters, plus a written analysis connecting at least three groups back to the course's framework
Due: 28 May 2027 · Weight: 60%
The brief#
Build a visual map of the Latter Day Saint movement’s splinters — founder, founding date, and the succession event each one traces back to — and write an analysis connecting at least three of them to this course’s four-part framework.
The map is the artefact a reader looks at first: a family tree, a timeline, a diagram, whatever shape best shows how one succession crisis produced this many separate churches. The analysis is what turns the map from a chart into an argument — pick three groups whose comparison teaches something the map alone can’t, the way week 9’s lab compared what different branches kept and discarded.
Scope note: eight groups in real depth beats fifteen in name only. The semester covered roughly a dozen; a map that traces a few further branches you’ve researched yourself is welcome, but isn’t required for full marks.
What you submit#
The map, in whatever format renders clearly (image, PDF, or a linked interactive page), and the written analysis as a separate document or a clearly marked section of the same one. Cite sources for any claim in the analysis the way Assignment 1 required.
This one is marked holistically: there’s no criterion table, because what makes a map like this work is largely a matter of judgement — does it hold together as a single readable artefact, and does the analysis add insight the map by itself doesn’t already show.
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.
- submitted by the deadline, as a visual map plus a written analysis of 800–1200 words
- the map covers at least eight distinct splinter groups from across the semester, with founding dates and the succession event each one traces back to
- the written analysis explicitly connects at least three groups back to vacuum, claim, pivot and response
- it stands on its own, without you there to explain it
How it is marked
The Schism Map is judged as a whole against the brief, with particular attention to whether the map and its analysis stand alone — legible and persuasive to a reader who wasn't in the room for the semester's lectures — and whether the written analysis actually uses the four-part framework rather than just narrating a family tree.