For those pursuing an A in the class or those who need to make up a major assignment, you may choose one option from the list below and submit your completed assignment here as part of your Final Portfolio. There will be an optional peer review session on Apr 25 for those who’d like to submit a draft (of any size) for peer feedback.
Happy Medium:
Translate one of your Major Essays into a new medium. This can include (but is not limited to) a video essay, comic book, informational website, puppet show, epic rap battle, documentary, mockumentary, interpretive dance, ad campaign, and so on. You should spend some time studying models of your medium of choice and noting what makes a good one (and a bad one!). Consider your audience as well—who are you trying to reach, and what medium would be most effective at reaching them? Wherever possible, choose a real-world scenario to target; find a real organization to write an ad campaign for, choose an existing community to target your video essay to, etc.
(A note on Powerpoint: Powerpoint is intended as a visual accompaniment to a speech of some sort; if you’d like to write a speech to a hypothetical audience and make a powerpoint visual aid, then film yourself delivering the whole presentation, that would be great. But do not simply turn in some powerpoint slides in isolation, as I would consider that only half a project.)
The Student Becomes the Teacher:
Make a syllabus for a writing class in your field (i.e., Writing for Marketing, or Writing in Film Studies, etc.). There are a few things that are standard on most every syllabus you see: 1.) a Course Description that gives an overview of what you’ll be doing throughout the semester, 2.) Course Outcomes or Objectives which detail the skills and abilities students should have developed by the time they are finished with the class, 3.) a tentative list of Readings (or at least types of readings that you can expect to encounter), 4.) the major assignments, and 5.) an overview of the schedule (sometimes just a brief description of each Unit). Wherever possible, offer your reasons for making the choices you’ve made.
Notes from the Field:
Interview at least three scholars or professionals in your field about the role of writing in their work, then submit a report on your findings. If you’d like, you can use the email template from Workshop 4 to help you reach out to people; your “interview” also does not have to be in person, but can instead be conducted via email. Your report should collect the findings together into categories, rather than simply summarizing each interview one by one. Consider the questions you want to ask beforehand, and attempt to draw some conclusions from the answers you receive. The overall question you are seeking to answer is: How do professionals in my field think about the writing they do and the importance it holds (or does not hold) in their career as well as their daily practice?
I have shared some papers (major assignmnets essay) you have done for me in the past.
