Illuminating Manuscripts: Words, Images, and AI

This assignment, by Amy Anderson, is from the TextGenEd: Continuing Experiments collection on the WAC Clearinghouse website.

The summary from the site explains:

Inspired by the interplay between words and images in medieval illuminated manuscripts, this assignment invites undergraduate students to work with an image-generating LLM to create their own illuminated manuscript of a passage from a course reading. By generating images that comment on and subvert the course reading, students are asked to explore the inventional relationship between words and images in both LLM prompts and multimodal compositions. Although the assignment was designed for a Medieval Women’s Culture course, it could be adapted to any rhetoric or composition course that considers multimodality.

Key Features of This Assignment

Multimodal Composition
Students explore new ways of expressing ideas through integrated media, using AI to combine text and images.
Visual Interpretation of Text
AI-generated images provide unique visual representations of written concepts, prompting deeper engagement with descriptive and analytical writing.
Creative Experimentation
Students use AI tools as a means of exploring creative possibilities, including innovation in both textual and visual storytelling.