Chaos Curriculum: Fall Semester Syllabus
This term I'll be learning to linocut, reading about witches, & mastering the art of cold brew!
Chaos Curriculum is a new creative project-based feature on my Substack where I share my self-guided, whim-based study in a variety of special interests. Each semester lasts roughly 3 months, and will include homework assignments, optional field trips, & a final project. Feel free to join along and share your progress, or create your own personal curriculum!
What is the Chaos Curriculum?
For a detailed breakdown of the Chaos Curriculum & creating your own personal curriculum in general, check out this post.
WELCOME TO THE CHAOS CURRICULUM FALL SEMESTER! This term’s focus is on celebrating cozy creativity and autumnal magic. If you’d like to join me, we’ll be learning to carve fun little stamps, diving into all things witchy, & brewing up some experimental cold brew creations - all while embracing curiosity, chaos, & a touch of seasonal charm!
FALL SEMESTER: September 20th through December 15th
Below, you’ll find the full details on this semester’s courses, including all learning modules, required materials, assignments, reading/watching suggestions, final projects, and more. The sections for each course should be done in order, although there is no requirement to how quickly the courses are completed. If you haven’t finished something by the end of the official term, feel free to carry it on to next semester!
Pocket Print: The Art of Mini-Linocut (LINO-101)
COURSE SUMMARY
Discover the surprisingly bold world of mini-linocut printmaking using pink erasers as your canvas. Learn carving basics, pattern design, and storytelling as you build your portfolio of small-scale projects that fit in the palm of your hand.
By the end of the course, you will have a small collection of 20 mini-stamps.
REQUIRED TOOLS
🧰 a pack of erasers
🧰 a block printing / linocutting tool kit
🧰 a stamp ink pad in your preferred color (I’m using black)
🧰 a pencil or pen to sketch designs
🧰 a sketchbook or piece of paper to test prints
READING MATERIALS
📖 Linocut: A Creative Guide to Making Beautiful Prints | Sam Marshall (2023)
📖 Linocut for Artists & Designers | Nick Morley (2016)
📖 Pink Eraser Art: The Ultimate Guide to Carving Incredible Eraser Stamps | Serena Rios McRae (2025)
VIEWING MATERIALS
🍿 How to Start Linocut Printmaking | Block Printing for Beginners (illukace | 2023)
🍿 Beginner to Pro: How to do Linocut (Part 1) (dano does things | 2024)
🍿 I CARVED my Art into ERASERS?! (Mira Byler | 2024)
COURSE SECTIONS & ASSIGNMENTS
✨ MEET THE BLADE - INTRO TO LINOCUTTING ✨
FOCUS: Tool familiarity, safety, & the basics of linocut
📝 ASSIGNMENTS:
Homework #1: Research & Education
✩ Watch & read the suggested course materials; you’re welcome to do your own research here, finding your own videos or books / articles to cover the basics
✩ Acquire all relevant tools & get to know them - practice holding them, switching out the blades for your cutter, positioning your eraser
Homework #2: Basic Shapes & Carving Introduction
✩ Carve 3 simple shapes with increasing difficulty levels: triangle, circle, star
✩ Practice inking & pressing by hand
Homework #3: Progress Check
✩ Choose a simple fruit or vegetable, & sketch the design onto your eraser
✩ Carve out your food stamp & do a test print. Later in the course, we’ll create another stamp like this to gauge how far we’ve come with our linocut progress!
✨ THE SIGNATURE STAMP ✨
FOCUS: Translating drawings into carvable designs & practical stamp usage
📝 ASSIGNMENTS:
Homework #4: Create Your Own Signature Stamp
✩ Search online or look through books to find some examples of personalized logos & monograms; create a small collection of your favorites to use as inspiration for your own
✩ Draw a few options in your sketchbook, refining until you find a design you love
✩ Transfer the drawing to your eraser - keep in mind that the image has to be mirrored for the stamp to display properly!
✩ Carve your design & test it out
✨ NATURE IN MINIATURE ✨
FOCUS: Organic lines & botanical inspiration
📝 ASSIGNMENTS:
Homework #5: Stamp Garden
✩ Field Trip - Nature Walk: Take a walk through your neighborhood, or visit a local park or garden. While there, take photos or make sketches of anything that stands out to you as a potential stamp design subject: leaves, flowers, trees, etc. You’re welcome to start working right here, or wait until you get back home to put these to use.
✩ Choose 4 different subjects from your field trip & create refined sketches for your stamps
✩ Carve 4 nature stamps of your choosing, then print them on a personal “Stamp Garden” page or section of your sketchbook
✨ PATTERN PLAY ✨
FOCUS: Repetition, tiling, & rhythm
📝 ASSIGNMENTS:
Homework #6: Motif Exploration
✩ Field Trip - Pattern Hunting: Visit local stores or businesses on a textile pattern hunt, searching for rugs, scarves, wallpaper, or anything else that may have a unique pattern or motif. Take photos and notes of what you see and like.
✩ Design & carve one stamp that can be repeated to create a pattern
✩ Cover a page in your sketchbook with the pattern made by using your new stamp
✨ TINY NARRATIVES ✨
FOCUS: Sequential design & storytelling
📝 ASSIGNMENTS:
Homework #7: Let’s Tell A Story!
✩ Think of a concept for a quick story or sequential process that can be shown easily within 4 frames. You can use comics or movie storyboards as inspiration, or take a task you perform regularly that can be shown with simplified illustrations
✩ Sketch the idea out, and work on refining it until you have 4 full mini-stamp designs
✩ Transfer your design to your erasers, & carve it out on your 4 separate stamps, frame-by-frame
✩ Test our your mini-story stamps in your sketchbook, or on a notecard
✨ FINAL PROJECTS ✨
FOCUS: Combining multiple stamps into a larger, more detailed composition
📝 PROJECT ASSIGNMENTS:
Final Project #1: Creating a Mini-Masterpiece
✩ Draw a single design across 5 different eraser stamps; the easiest way to do this is to position the stamps all together, and then sketch carefully on top of them. Ensure that the design is cohesive, with each stamp making up its own piece or ‘section’ of the finished composition
✩ Carve your designs, then use them to create the largest final piece of the course: a “mini-masterpiece”, comprised of all 5 mini-stamps
Final Project #2: Progress Check 2.0
✩ Go back to the first fruit/vegetable stamp you made in the course’s first section. This time, we’re going to do it again using the skills and experience we’ve gained throughout the course - ideally, the finished stamp will be an improvement on the first attempt!
Season of the Witch: A Guided Binge & Media Analysis - (SOTW-101)
COURSE SUMMARY
Dive into the spellbinding world of witches on screen and page. Through films, books, and historical exploration, I will analyze characters, symbols, and storytelling while examining the historical influence of real-world witch trials on modern day media.
This course leans heavily into watching & reading various media; I’ve created a personal list of things to read and watch, but you’re welcome to adjust those based on what you may have access to or own already so long as it’s within the scope of witchery!
REQUIRED TOOLS
🧰 a love of history, pop culture, & looking at things critically
🧰 access to streaming sites, youtube, or your local library
READING MATERIALS
📖 The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World | Malcolm Gaskill (2021)
📖 Witches, Sluts, Feminists: Conjuring the Sex Positive | Kristen J. Sollee (2017)
📖 Becoming Dangerous: Witchy Femmes, Queer Conjurers, and Magical Rebels | Edited by Katie West & Jasmine Elliott
📖 The Invocations | Krystal Sutherland (2023)
📖 Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery | Gerald Brom (2021)
📖 A Brief History of the Salem Witch Trials (Smithsonian Magazine | 2007)
📖 Possessed: The Salem Witch Trials (Penn Today | 2022)
📖 The Narrative of the Witch (Melody Hansen | Pretend It Exists | 2023)
VIEWING MATERIALS
🍿 What Really Happened During the Salem Witch Trials (TED-Ed | 2020)
🍿 The History of Witches (BuzzFeed Unsolved Network | 2020)
🍿 The Salem Witch Hunt | Witches: Truth Behind the Trials (National Geographic | 2024)
🍿 The VVitch (2015)
🍿 Practical Magic (1998)
🍿 The Craft (1996)
🍿 The Crucible (1996)
🍿 Suspiria (1977 or 2018)
COURSE SECTIONS & ASSIGNMENTS
✨ WITCH TRIALS & MORAL PANIC ✨
FOCUS: Salem Witch Trials & the cultural fear of witches
📝 ASSIGNMENTS:
Homework #1: The Truth of the Trials
✩ Watch the available documentaries linked above, taking notes of anything that strikes you as particularly significant
✩ Read the Penn Today & Smithsonian Magazine articles, and feel free to follow any links or other subjects that may interest you from what you’ve read
✩ Digital Field Trip - PEM’s Virtual Tour: Spend some time visiting the free Salem Witch Trials Virtual Tour exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum’s website; make sure to fully immerse yourself, and learn everything you can
✩ Digital Field Trip - Salem Town Tour: Browse the locations and history in Salem, MA via the Salem Witch Museum’s “Welcome to Salem” virtual tour
Homework #2: Puritan Panic
✩ Watch The Crucible (1996) and The VVitch (2015); while watching, compare and contrast the movies against what you’ve learned, and gauge the level of real-world accuracy.
✩ Write short reflections after watching both movies: what was inspired by the real life witch hunts, and what was embellished for the sake of Hollywood? How does each movie show fear as contagious?
Homework #3: Creative Witchery
✩ Create a digital or physical moodboard or collage of imagery you associate with “the historical witch” archetype. Analyze: how much of that imagery is from actual history vs pop culture?
✩ Create a short playlist of songs that feel haunted, paranoid, or fearful: the soundtrack of “witch panic”
✨ FEMINISM & THE OCCULT REVIVAL ✨
FOCUS: Examining the feminist reclamation of witchcraft; the rise of Wicca and occult culture
📝 ASSIGNMENTS:
Homework #4: Not All Witches
✩ Watch The Craft (1996), and write a reflection: when does witchcraft empower women, and when does it punish them?
✩ Analyze historical and pop culture depictions of the “good witch” vs “bad witch” archetypes, and write a reflection: when makes a socially acceptable witch vs one that is feared? How can those perspectives change?
✨ COVENS: THE MAGIC OF COMMUNITY ✨
FOCUS: The switch from solitary witches to covens as sources of solidarity in popular media
📝 ASSIGNMENTS:
Homework #5: The Witch Family
✩ Watch a few episodes of Charmed, or Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Take special note of the way the family members interact with one another as witches, and how this depiction impacts the previously established image
✩ Watch Practical Magic (1998), and write a reflection: what makes the coven powerful? The magic, or the sisterhood? How does one affect the other?
✨ FINAL PROJECTS ✨
FOCUS: Combining multiple stamps into a larger, more detailed composition
📝 PROJECT ASSIGNMENTS:
Final Project #1: Witches & their Archetypes
✩ Think back on all you’ve learned about media depicted witches, and focus on the different archetype categories each character would fall under. Make a list of 5 main archetypes in witchy media & give a couple examples of each, giving examples of your choices.
Final Project #2: Deep Dive Comparison
✩ Choose one historical figure accused of witchcraft, and pair them with a pop culture depiction of that character. Explore the way historical reality and the fictionalized depiction do or do not align. What’s distorted? What’s reclaimed? What lingers?
Caffeine Alchemy: Experiments in Cold Brew - (BREW-101)
COURSE SUMMARY
Explore the art and science of cold brew coffee from the comfort of your own kitchen. I will learn basic brewing techniques, experiment with syrups, spices, and milk alternatives, and study coffee origins and flavor profiles. By the end of the course, I’ll have a personal portfolio of cold brew experiments, signature drinks, and tasting notes — plus a mock-up menu for an imaginary cold-brew cafe of my very own!
REQUIRED TOOLS
🧰 freshly ground coffee beans & filtered water
🧰 a large container (pitcher, jar, etc) with a lid, & a container to strain into (depending on how quickly you work through the class, you may want a couple container options so you can have multiple batches going at once - but this is up to you!)
🧰 a fine-mesh strainer, cheesecloth, or coffee filter for straining
🧰 your own personal collection of ingredients for syrups, flavorings, sweeteners, etc - this will be specific to what you want to create through this course, so I don’t want to give a hard list of required ingredients
READING MATERIALS
📖 Cold Brew Coffee: Pilot Studies on Definition, Extraction, Consumer Preference, Chemical Characterization, & Microbiological Hazards (National Library of Medicine | 2021)
📖 A Preferred Way to Make Cold Brewed Coffee (Coffee Geek | 2024)
📖 5 Things to Know About Cold Brew Coffee (Kaldi’s Coffee | 2023)
📖 An Engineer’s Guide to Coffee from Bean to Brew (UC Davis College of Engineering | 2023)
📖 Coffee Basics: Tasting Notes (Counter Culture Coffee)
VIEWING MATERIALS
🍿 How Humanity Got Hooked on Coffee (TED-Ed | 2024)
🍿 Everything You’ve Ever Wanted to Know About Coffee (TEDx Talks | 2017)
🍿 A Beginner’s Guide to Coffee (Ethan Chlebowski | 2024)
🍿 Ultimate Guide to Buying Coffee: Origins + Tastes (Ispirate Coffee | 2023)
🍿 Cold Brew 101: Everything You Need to Know (HomeGrounds Coffee | 2022)
COURSE SECTIONS & ASSIGNMENTS
✨ COLD BREW FOUNDATIONS ✨
FOCUS: Methods, equipment, & basic brewing principles
📝 ASSIGNMENTS:
Homework #1: Initial Brew-vestigation
✩ Watch the available videos & read the articles linked above. Keep notes on what you learn regarding cold brew methodology, tools, basic principles, & coffee in general. Was there anything you already knew, or anything that was surprising in what you learned?
✩ Field Trip - I’ll Take You to the Coffee Shop: Find 3 local coffee shops that offer cold brew coffee and give them a try. If they have a signature cold brew flavor, even better! Keep a mental note of what you think of each - it’s okay if you don’t know any of the official flavor tasting terms yet!
Homework #2: Applied Brew-matics
✩ Make your first batch of cold brew using any method and try it out, adjusting as you go to your personal preferences. Take notes on flavor, strength, texture, & any adjustments needed as you narrow down your “perfect brew”.
✨ SYRUPS & SWEET EXPERIMENTS ✨
FOCUS: Flavor infusion & taste layering
📝 ASSIGNMENTS:
Homework #3: Infusion Power
✩ Choose a flavor to infuse into your next batch of cold brew coffee. Feel free to Google or browse Tiktok, IG, Youtube, etc for ideas - ideally, it’ll be something simple and affordable!
✩ In your tasting notebook, keep notes about the infusion process, any adjustments needed, and overall flavor / impact of the infusion
Homework #4: Syrup-y Sweet
✩ Choose 2 different syrup flavors to make, ensuring that at least 1 of the flavors will pair well in theory with the infusion flavor you chose in our last assignment
✩ You can browse online for different syrup recipes - again, we don’t want to overcomplicate this with anything wild or with hard to source ingredients! Go for a couple of classic flavors you’ll get a lot of mileage and use from
✩ Try the syrups with the plain cold brew as well as with your infusion cold brew, and take notes: how do the syrups impact overall flavor? Did the infusion + syrup pair as well as expected? What other flavor combinations interest you? Make a list.
Homework #5: Customization Station
✩ Experiment with different types of milk and/or creamers, keeping notes about each to compare flavor, texture, etc
✩ Try different toppings: cinnamon sugar sprinkle, flavored cold foam, different orgeats, & more! The possibilities are endless, so aim for 1-2 variations so you don’t get overwhelmed
✨ SINGLE-ORIGIN EXPLORATION: A WORLD TOUR ✨
FOCUS: Coffee origins & flavor profiles
📝 ASSIGNMENTS:
Homework #6: Regional Explorer
✩ Once you’ve nailed your perfect brew recipe, it’s time to start branching out and trying other types of coffee. Purchase beans labeled from different regions (Ethiopia, Colombia, Guatemala, etc), and explore the different flavor profiles they offer.
✩ Keep a log of what you’ve tried, and do some investigative research: keep notes on flavor, acidity, & how the beans themselves are grown and treated - things like altitude, climate, and soil type per country can have varying effects on the overall finished cold brew product you make. Figure out what you love, and what you may not!
✨ SEASONAL & SIGNATURE DRINKS ✨
FOCUS: Seasonal flavors, personal expression
📝 ASSIGNMENTS:
Homework #7: Seasonal Sips
✩ Now that we’ve tried lots of different customizations and coffees, we’ll be creating our own Signature Seasonal Cold Brew drink! Pick a seasonal flavor & create your best seasonal drink, making sure to focus on taste, presentation, & giving the drink a fun name.
✨ FINAL PROJECT ✨
FOCUS: Implementing what we’ve learned in a creative way
📝 PROJECT ASSIGNMENTS:
Final Project #1: Design Your Own Cold Brew Cafe
✩ Create a mock-up menu for an imaginary cold brew cafe, complete with: cafe name, hours, drinks, flavor notes to entice customers, & photos or art to go with each drink. You can pull inspiration from real-world menus, or search online for ideas. Think of clear branding and a fun theme, as well as applying what we’ve learned about flavor pairings and layering, seasonal drinks, coffee bean origins, etc.
✩ Note: You can fully illustrate this if you’re artistically inclined, or mock up something using a program like Canva - either way is totally fine!
Final Goals for Fall Semester
To carve a collection of 20 mini-stamps, as well as a portfolio page showing off the various designs, & a final project art piece comprised of multiple mini-stamps
Gain the ability to think critically about witches depicted in media, & learn more about the historical context via the witch trials
Learn more about my specific tastes & preferences with coffee & cold brew, and create my own signature drink that I can make regularly at home
Will you be joining me for the Fall semester? Let me know if we’ll be learning together below!
I really enjoyed reading about your syllabus - a great mix of topics!
I work in higher ed as an educational developer, and I'm really interested in how personal curriculum plans are being organized by curious learners. Do you mind if I include this post in a mini, informal analysis project I'm working on? I'm interested in studying posts about personal curricula to see what the common themes are, the process of development, and so on. All with the goal of sharing back what I learned here on Substack :)