2. • As your fall/winter project
for Slaughterhouse Five,
you will make a
compilation album (a CD
with 10-12 tracks) that
reflects your analysis of,
understanding of, and
reaction to the ideas in
Slaughterhouse Five.
3. • You should consider each track as a
message about the work. Taken as a
whole, the CD should communicate “an
image of life [or the book] that is beautiful
and surprising and deep.”
4. • The album should have unity and flow (the
songs should make sense together and
the progression of songs should create
drama).
• Challenge yourself to think beyond plot
based connections between the music
and the novel to connections related to
theme, mood, and tone. You may use any
and all genres of music- from rock to rap,
classical to reggae.
5. • Additionally, you will design a cover for
your album and write liner notes that
articulate the significance of each song.
You have freedom in choosing the format
of your liner notes
• you may write your liner notes as one
complete essay that communicates your
overall vision for the album, or you may
address each track on the album with a
separate paragraph.
6. • This assignment asks you to experiment
with style and voice in writing your liner
notes; they should not be written as a
formal essay, nor should they be a simple
report of the connections you see between
the book and the music.
7. • It would be beneficial to seek out other
examples (if you have access to vinyl
records, you should be able to find liner
notes there) to familiarize yourself with the
genre.
• You may use poetry, imagistic language,
an informal tone, and other writing
techniques that you don’t get to use when
writing a formal essay.
8. • However, what you write will need to
clearly communicate the connection you
perceive between the music you have
selected and Slaughterhouse Five and
freedom from formal constraints is not an
excuse to do sloppy work
• words should still be carefully chosen,
spelled correctly, punctuated
appropriately, and so on.
9. • For your final product, you will submit to
me a CD with a cover, track list, and your
liner notes with a complete bibliography.
• You may use the online CD/DVD creator
(http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/cd
dvd/)to make your CD cover and liner
notes or other image editing/layout
software.
• You may also illustrate by hand.
10. • If you include quotations from
Slaughterhouse Five in your liner notes
(which I strongly suggest), please include
page numbers.
• If you refer to ideas or phrasing from a
source other than the book or the songs
you are writing about, you will need to
correctly attribute those and include them
in your works cited page.
11. • Finally, this project falls within the bounds
of fair use copyright law as long as the
songs you include on your compilation CD
were legally obtained (purchased from an
online music store or imported from a CD
you purchased).
12. • A rundown of tasks included in this project:
• One compact disk with 10-12 songs on it, each
reflecting a mood, theme, character or plotline
from Slaughterhouse Five
• One track list
• One set of liner notes detailing you choices of
songs (each song) on your CD and how they are
connected to the book
• One CD cover either designed on computer or
illustrated by hand which reflects the contents of
the CD and the project itself.
• One works cited page
13. Examples of Notes:
• Example One “The Trapeze Swinger” by Iron & Wine
• Similarities between this song and Vonnegut’s
description of Tralfamadorain literature are abundant.
There is no story being told, and no logical progression
from one part to the next; each begins with “please,
remember me”—consider this the set of stars that
separates the alien “telegrams”—and each proceeds in a
different direction. Some are anecdotal, some abstract;
they describe events past, present, and future, and the
concept of time becomes immaterial. They appeal to
one’s emotions at various levels of sophistication, and
each has a rather vaguely-defined but definitely present
theme. I can’t describe it any better than by using
Vonnegut’s words: “an image of life that is beautiful and
surprising and deep” (112).
14. Examples of Notes:
Example Two “Sidewalk Flight” by Yann Tiersen
• “There was an old typewriter in the rumpus
room. It was a beast” (33). From this typewriter,
Billy writes to comfort many people with his
revelation on the “truth about time.” As “Sidewalk
Flight” by Yann Tiersen begins with the click-
clack of an old typewriter, Billy starts his memo.
As Billy time travels to more and more places—
Tralfamador, Dersden, the local YMCA pool—
new melodies are gradually added to the typing,
Billy’s typing. The bright, chipper xylophone
suggests a happy instant, perhaps a sun-
drenched afternoon at the Tralfamadore zoo,
while the accordion’s lament tells of another,
cheerless space in time.
