Reimagining Project INSTRUCTIONS

This assignment is imagined as being submitted both online in the final week of the term as well as part of an in-class presentation.

Purpose

This project asks you to take your major research writing project and re-form it into something new, possibly from the field of study you’re going to major in, or some other form of your choice. This is designed as an opportunity to translate our work, seeing the ways research informs other genres of “writing,” while still considering the parts of the academic essay that remain useful in other genres.

Skills

• research: using sources in multiple ways
• application: taking writing skills and transferring them to another medium
• writing: different genres of writing and planning, making your work clear in a new form
• organization
• presentation (though I won’t be grading how confident you sound or whether you say “um” as you speak!)
• creating your project may also involve skill in audio recording, the visual arts, web design, and more, but none of these is specifically required

Knowledge

• citations
• your subject area
• our class vocabulary and method of inquiry
• audience, writing for varied audiences
• argument and organization styles

Task

Create a new form of your paper. It must still include the following elements, in some way:

• A question at issue that is shown to be at issue for a particular audience (does not need to be the same audience as your essay).
• A sense of audience (your choice who your audience is).
• A claim and a line of reasoning—the enthymeme itself does not need to show up in enthymeme format though.
• Evidence that supports that line of reasoning.
• The enthymematic assumption/an explanation of that idea and how it supports the argument.
• Citations and works cited.

What you make cannot be the same as your paper; that is, if you make a podcast or video, it needs to be substantially different from just reading your essay. You can use different evidence (visual or audio evidence, for example), different organization, other people, new examples, etc.

Possibilities (not exhaustive): podcast episode (10-ish minutes, maybe?), campaign ad or brochure, poster as in the sciences, Socratic dialogue (written out or maybe performed?), website, game.

Project Description

You will include an explanation of your project, written as a formal piece of writing, of up to one page: use this only to point out where you’re meeting the criteria. I shouldn’t need the page to understand your project, but this will help me follow along.

Format and Submission

Your project is due on Canvas before class on Monday of week 10. If your project is visual and not on a computer, you may submit photos on Canvas. Because types of projects vary widely, you may submit any format that makes sense. You must also include the one-page description, though, and that must still be an edited document with traditional formatting in .doc, .docx, or .pdf format. Canvas will allow you submit more than one thing when you turn the assignment in.

Presentation

You will present your work in class during week 10. You must tell me before your presentation day if you need any special equipment; if you’re using your computer to present, you should test its connection in our classroom prior, if you can. It goes fastest, though, if you let me project your project via my computer.

Since we won’t have time to read a whole webpage or listen to a ten-minute podcast episode, you will tell us about what you made while showing us parts of it. Your presentation must:

• tell us your topic and argument, generally, and, if you want, why you were interested in that
• tell us what kind of project you chose to create and why
• tell us how you adapted your research project into this new form (this can be where you show us what’s on your webpage/game/poster or, if you’re playing us a short clip from a video or podcast, you may need to describe the project more generally so we see where your paper evolved into this)
• tell us the biggest change or challenge of the medium you chose
• tell us what you think this new project does better (for a certain audience or in general) than a regular research paper
• tell us your favorite thing about your research, this project, and/or your topic

You will answer any questions your peers ask you. You may incorporate their questions and suggestions into your final paper and final reflection if they are useful.