Project Descriptions

Contents

Process Work:

All projects other than the blog project will have process work associated with them. This process work may include drafts and in-class presentations. Due dates for process work will be posted to the course calendar and discussed in class prior to these deadlines.

Project 1: Blog

I have posted a detailed document outlining the project and general guidelines for professional blogging to Dropbox. I’ve divided you up into two groups. In the prompt for each week, I will identify which group will be posting and which group will be commenting that week. You will post and comment as individuals, but your group assignment will determine whether you are posting or commenting in any given week.

Audience and deliverables: Throughout the semester you will maintain individual commentary and reflections about technical communication with our class as audience. In the weeks when you are in the posting group, you will create a post in response to the prompt for that week. In the weeks when you are in the commenting group, you will offer substantive comments to at least two of the posts created by your peers. This blog is for our class and interested readers; it is also available to the public.

Extra credit: The blog responses are the only way you can earn extra credit in this course. You can earn more credit by offering comments beyond the two that are required in those weeks when you’re in the commenting group, or by commenting on your peers’ posts–in addition to writing your own post–in those weeks when you are in the posting group.

Flexibility: Many, though not all, of the prompts ask you to create a post that directly relates to issues and best practices connected with the project on which you’re working. Some of your posts may be included in your portfolio as indicative of your thinking about important issues and practices.

12 post prompt categories and related reading: Each week, I will post the prompt to which you will be responding to our class blog. The prompt will include required and recommended reading to further your understanding of the prompt topic.

  • Post 1. Week 1 — Blogs
  • Post 2. Week 2 — Resumes and Ethics
  • Post 3. Week 3 — Professional presence
  • Post 4. Week 4 — Audiences and literacy
  • Post 5. Week 5 — Project and working group selection
  • Post 6. Week 6 — Plain language
  •  Post 7. Week 7 — Audience resistance
  • Post 8. Week 8 — PowerPoint
  • Post 9. Week 10 — Communication overload
  • Post 10. Week 11 — Technical communication definitions
  • Post 11. Week 13 — TBD
  • Post 12. Week 15 — TBD

Project 2: Online Professional Profile

Audience and deliverables: This individual project will provide an opportunity to create a digital professional presence for yourself. The project asks you to design four distinct deliverables: resume, professional biography, at least one social media profile, and a website.

Flexibility: Your professional goals and personal preference will influence the design and format of your resume, the tone and content of your professional biography, your choice of social media, and the design and layout of your website. Over the course of the project, we will discuss how to identify and analyze the rhetorical circumstances that should influence your design and composition choices, and you will learn strategies for crafting rhetorically effective artifacts in response to those circumstances.

In-process training: Some of you will prepare a professional development or training module for the class about a relevant topic to aid project development and incorporate suggestions from the course reading. See COURSE OVERVIEW.

Professional Development Profile Deliverables:

  • Resume, in formats suitable for printing and online display.
  • Professional biography, in two versions–abbreviated and extended
  • At least one complete social media profile
  • Individual professional website, displaying or linking to each of the preceding artifacts
  • Reflection memo with process narrative

Project reflection (for you and the instructor): You will need to maintain an individual work log during the project. This work log will be the basis for your post-project reflection (and an appendix in your reflection memo). See COURSE OVERVIEW.

Project duration:

  • 3 September through 1 October

Project 3: Professional Development/Training Modules

Audience and deliverables: For this project, you will take on the role of instructor and create a professional development or training module to teach your peers about a specific rhetorical concept or communication design strategy. Models for the sort of work product you will be aiming for include TEDTalks, Lynda.com tutorials, and the how-to articles on Lifehacker.com.

Flexibility: The specific artifacts you create will be variable, depending upon your decisions about what will best communicate the relevant information to your intended audience. For example, you may decide that a webtext comprising text and images, and linking to multiple representative examples, might be more helpful than a slide presentation with notes and voiceover for teaching your peers how to use color effectively in document design.

Professional Development/Training Module Deliverables:

  • Presentation and draft of module
  • Final revised module
  • Reflection memo with process narrative

Project reflection (for you and the instructor): You will need to maintain an individual work log during the project. This work log will be the basis for your post-project reflection (and an appendix in your reflection memo). See COURSE OVERVIEW.

Project duration:

  • Ongoing project, sign up or remind yourself of when your presentation is due here.
  • All revised modules and project reflections due 19 November

Project 4: Service Learning

Audience and deliverables: For this collaborative and individual project, you will work in teams with a non-profit organization to complete a packet of high-quality communication deliverables designed for an authentic rhetorical situation. We will be working with two clients, Moving in the Spirit, “a nationally-recognized youth development program that uses the art of dance to positively transform the lives of children and teens in Atlanta, Georgia,” and the Whitefoord Community Program, a “centralized community resource that connects diverse children and families to quality healthcare and education services.” Each team will be working on a different set of issues and deliverables for one of these clients.

Flexibility: The specific artifacts you create will be variable, depending upon your clients’ needs and intended audience. For example, one team may be working to update an annual report, another may be designing a series of public service announcement videos, and yet another may be designing brochures and other artifacts related to a fundraising campaign.
In-process training: Some of you will prepare a professional development module for the class about a relevant topic to aid project development and incorporate suggestions from the course reading. See COURSE OVERVIEW.

Service Learning Deliverables (solicited):

  • COLLABORATIVE: Signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the client, outlining scope of work, schedule for deliverables, and expectations of the parties.
  • COLLABORATIVE: Oral client “pitch” presentation of ideas and proposed designs
  • Professionally designed packet
    • COLLABORATIVE: Framing and navigational documents
      • Cover letter to appropriate audience, with commentary about choices and rationales
      • Table of contents (hyperlinked)
    • Deliverables
      • COLLABORATIVE and INDIVIDUAL: Deliverables will vary depending on client and rhetorical situation.
    • Appendices
      • Resume of each team-member
      • Copy of original MoU
  • COLLABORATIVE: Oral presentations of final drafts to peers and client
  • INDIVIDUAL: Reflection memo with process narrative

Project reflection (for you and the instructor, not for the client): You will need to maintain an individual work log during the project. This work log will be the basis for your post-project reflection (and an appendix in your reflection memo). See COURSE OVERVIEW.

Project Duration:

  • 29 September through 1 December
  • Final packets due 19 November
  • Reflections due 1 December

Project 5: Portfolio

Audience and Deliverables: This project involves the compilation of a professional portfolio. Each of you, working individually, will create a digital, web-based, public portfolio to showcase your work in this class.

Because this project is intended to help you either create or polish a professional portfolio that can be used outside the context of this course, the portfolio you create will be a hybrid academic/professional portfolio that will accomplish the following goals:

  • Demonstrate through examples of multimodal technical communication and written reflection a knowledge of rhetorical terms and concepts and an ability to apply these terms and concepts in your own technical communication process;
  • Demonstrate individual intellectual growth, significant accomplishments, and important contributions in this course;
  • Demonstrate the technological competencies you have employed and developed over the course of the semester;
  • Offer a big-picture narrative of the course, its themes, its goals, and its final learning outcomes;
  • Offer a well-organized, well-designed, and engaging user experience

The audiences for the portfolio will simultaneously be me–as the evaluator of your progress and learning in the course this semester and of your revised artifacts, the intended audience(s) for the artifacts you are revising and including in the portfolio, and potential employers or other outside evaluators interested in learning about your qualifications and experience.

You have two options for hosting your portfolio website. First, if you already have a professional or personal website that is hosted by an external provider (i.e., not Georgia State), you may use that website as a platform for your portfolio for this class. Second, you may register and host a new domain at a very low cost ($25/year) with the non-profit, educational hosting provider Reclaim Hosting (www.reclaimhosting.com).

Required Deliverables: The portfolio should accomplish the pedagogical goal of engaging you in meta-cognitive reflection regarding your learning over the course of the semester. For that reason, you will select three deliverables to revise and reflect upon. Each artifact selected for revision and inclusion in the portfolio should be introduced by a short (150-250 words) process narrative that includes discussion of the following things:

  • the process for creating the original draft,
  • what you learned through peer review, my evaluation, and client feedback (if applicable) and
  • how you revised the artifact in response to feedback and using knowledge and skills gained over the course of the semester

In your selection of artifacts for your portfolio, please follow these guidelines:

  • Two of the three artifacts you select for revision and inclusion in your portfolio must be examples of your individual work. These can be drawn from the deliverables you created for Projects 1, 2, and 3: resume, a page from your website, a blog post, your professional development/training module, your professional development/training module presentation, your professional biography, your social media profile, etc.
  • One of the artifacts must be one of the collaboratively-authored deliverables from Project 4: client brochure, cover letter, memorandum of understanding, annual report, template and instructions, etc.

You may include more than three artifacts in your portfolio, but you must choose at least three to revise and reflect upon. You draw material for your process narratives from the reflections that you’ve written for Projects 2, 3, and 4.

Further, the goals outlined above include demonstrating your intellectual growth, significant accomplishments, and important contributions in this course. To that end, the portfolio must include a cover letter or introductory reflective essay (500-750 words) that describes what you have learned and how you have improved your technical communication processes over the course of the semester, using the three individual deliverables and your revision of them as supporting evidence.

Optional Deliverables: In class on 1 December, after going over the project goals and required deliverables, we will generate a list of contents that would be necessary and useful in achieving the goals outlined in the “Audience and Deliverables” section of this project description.

Project duration:

  • Semester-long project
  • Final Portfolios due 15 December, by 9:00 am

Useful Resources:

 

Dr. Robin Wharton | 25 Park Place #2434 | Office Hours: M/W 9:30 to 10:30, T/Th 2:30 to 3:30