Category: Taking It Public

Project Proposal

For my project I am going to focus on defining the difference between diversity and inclusion. The audience I plan on reaching are college students since I feel like this would be a good way to begin preparing students to go off into the workforce, and a lot of students are most likely not aware of the difference. To do this, I plan on creating a Kahoot which can be presented in a class like SEM 100 which all freshmen are required to take. I want to use Kahoot because not only does it test the knowledge of the audience, but it also serves as a learning opportunity because even if the users get a question incorrect, they will be able to see the correct answer and, the presenter (or professor) can explain it further. The sources I will be utilizing are first-hand accounts of people who have experienced the difference between a community with just diversity, and a community with inclusion through ted-talks. I will also be using scholarly articles from the SU database. As for my analysis I plan to form a connection between things the students may have seen or experienced in order to help them be able to better identify situations where a place is diverse but not inclusive and vice versa.

Thinking some more about genre

In our discussion work this week and next, I’m asking you to think about genre and what shape your final project will take. You’ve got a lot of latitude here to decide that shape, and it’s worth thinking some more about how genre connects to audience and purpose as you do so.

How genres come to be as they are

First off, while it’s useful to think of genres as different types or categories (such as we use for sorting movies or music into meaningful ‘buckets’ or groups), genres are not static. Rather, genres are adaptive and organic. The pop music of today does not sound like the pop music of the 1960s. The circumstances, expectations, and preferences have shifted, and what is popular now is different from what was popular then.

Secondly, while genres have conventions and expectations (people come to a particular genre of movies expecting them to follow certain ‘rules,’ for example), these genre conventions aren’t written in stone. Users challenge them all the time, bending these notions to come up with something new. Think about the film Get Out–it was a comedy right? or was it horror? or was it something else altogether?

When it comes to writing, I think it’s helpful to think of genres as usable responses to recurring writing situations. Need to apply for a job? A cover letter gets the job done. It’s not fancy or exciting, but it contains the elements that a hiring manager would want to know, and in a pretty usable way that lets the reader go about their work efficiently. That didn’t just happen–the genre evolved as this situation (people applying for jobs) kept happening, and people kept responding in pretty consistent ways. Over time, this type of text took on a pretty predictable form. Now, people know what to expect from it (both the writers and the readers), and that makes it a pretty functional tool.

It’s important for writers to consider their readers’ needs as they write. This is all the more true outside of a classroom setting. A teacher reader has to read students’ texts–that’s literally their job–but outside of the classroom, readers seldom have that same requirement. Instead, we make choices about what, whether, and how well we read. When we bump into texts that don’t seem to meet our needs and interests, we often just don’t read them. Or we only skim them.

So what? Who cares?

In your project proposal (due Sunday), your task is to settle upon an objective that you think matters–you’ve learned information that you really want to share with people whom you think need it, and if you’re going to accomplish that goal of information delivery, then you need to think carefully about what your reader will expect, value, and want in a text. That’s why you’ve got so much latitude to determine the genre you use, and it’s why you’ll need to think carefully about it.

As you’re settling on a genre, it’s really valuable to look for examples of that type of text that you think work really well, and then to read them closely, paying attention to things like

  • what kind of tone does this author use
  • how long is this text
  • how does the writer talk about/point to evidence
  • what role do graphics play here
  • what kinds of style and syntax does the writer employ
  • how formal is the voice
  • what level of detail does the text provide
  • what sorts of word choices does the writer make

So start poking around to look at some of your options. For next week’s readings, you’ll be looking at sample texts in a variety of different genres, but I’d like you to keep looking for models, as well, so that you can see the above considerations in action and be able to draw lessons for yourself. Next week’s discussion work will ask you to share something you’ve found, so start looking now.

Project Proposal – Zoe Miller

For my unit 3 project I am going to educate people about discrimination against people who are a part of the LGBTQ+ community by using what I learned in unit 2 creating my research portfolio. I plan to use the sources that are in my portfolio, and any other sources I stumble upon, to create a memo that can be handed out in schools, offices, public places like restaurants and stores, and anywhere else that people are interacting with others. The sources that I have to help me contain examples of discrimination in different settings, different people’s stories and experiences and how it affected them, and information about the laws that are enforced or not enforced in each state in America.

I would like to make a fairly short memo that is long enough to get all of the information across but not too long that people get bored. I know that it will need to be a few pages in order to get all of the information that I learned onto it but I would like for it to be something that if people pass by they can still get something out of it. I am going to most likely put some of the experiences statistics, and facts that I researched onto the memo to provide evidence and make myself a credible source. I will also aim to keep the writing style somewhat simple so that people of all ages can read and understand it and to allow for it to be a quick read.

I am writing for people who interact with other people, which is everyone. Most people who are not experiencing this type of discrimination, or discrimination at all, might not realize what they do not know about it. I was shocked to learn how much I did not know about it and honestly feel badly that I thought I knew the entire story about what they experience. My goal is to reach them with more information about what people who are a part of the LGBTQ+ community experience in result of discrimination and what others can do to eliminate the effects and even maybe end discrimination.

Overview of Week of 8/9

We’re moving into Unit 3 this week, with just a few weeks to go before the end of the summer term.  Read on for an explanation of where we’re headed in this final segment of the semester. 

Over the course of Unit 2, you’ve assembled a body of sources that cover a range of perspectives and ideas related to your research topic. You’ve spent some time thinking about how these texts fit together and how you fit into the subject–what you find interesting and significant about what you’re learning.

So now it’s time for you to jump into this conversation–to develop an argument based on the research you’ve compiled for an audience and purpose of your choosing. Over the next week and a half, we’ll be working through the process of selecting an appropriate audience and articulating your purpose in addressing that audience. Be sure to read through the unit 3 assignment sheet in preparation for this work.

Along the way (this week and next), we’ll be looking at some examples of different genres, considering how writers bend their texts stylistically to suit their purposes and the needs of their audiences. Towards that end, here’s what’s up this week.

Reading

Writing

  • project proposal (due Sunday, 8/15)–this will be a brief blog post in which you plot out the basics of your project, including what audience you think ought to hear about what you’ve been learning (i.e. what group would benefit from hearing the argument you plan to develop)
  • discussion posts in response to this week’s prompts (due Wednesday, with follow-up comments, as outlined in the prompt due by Monday or Tuesday at the latest):
Discussion prompts for Week of 8/9