Due Dates
April 15: First draft, script, or storyboard due
April 22: Finished Argument Remix Due
About this assignment
What you are asked to do for this assignment is craft a persuasive message designed for a public audience. You have already made this argument in an academic context, but now will be making choices about style, voice, design and structure to share a similar message with a wider audience.
The skills you can demonstrate with this assignment provide practical applications of the power of writing and research. All the work we do to study problems that exist in the world around us is meaningless if it’s kept to yourself or stuck within the narrow space of our classroom. But we also want to be effectively persuasive, and demonstrate writing that appeals rhetorically to a clearly identified audience.
What you need to do
To simplify things in the time of Covid-19, I will provide three possible options for your remix.
Option 1: Video Essay
A video essay is a scripted video, a visual representation of a written essay. A video that is improvised or extemporaneous speech is not considered a video essay. Below, I provide some examples of video essays, but given the limitations we have in terms of time, technology, and expertise, I expect you will make production choices that work for you. You might voice over a Prezi, for example, or use animation tools or a series of still images.
Elien, of the YouTube channel, Tube Reporter, lays out five characteristics of this visual genre in her video What is a video essay? Five criteria explained.
Characteristics of a video essay:
- Words
- Eloquence
- From a single perspective
- Well-reasoned
- A personal point of view
Here are a few example video essays.
- Why Do We Tolerate Poverty? by T1J
- The Dark Sides of Flex Culture by tiffanyferg
- WOKE BRANDS by hbomberguy
- Cause and Effect: the unexpected origins of terrible things by Adam Westbrook
Option 2: Web Article
You may choose to reach an audience through a written medium rather than a visual one. If you choose a web article for this project, you should pick a particular website or online magazine that covers topics like the one you are writing about. You can analyze other articles within that website to craft your message in a voice and structure appropriate for the audience that reads that publication.
Here are some common characteristics of web articles:
- A writing style and tone appropriate for the context (publication, purpose, and target audience)
- Inclusion of visual rhetoric, such as photographs, charts, or other visual elements that contribute to the message and are integrated meaningfully with helpful captions
- Clean layout and use of space, color, and framing to provide a clear aesthetic that avoids clutter.
- Sources referenced through hyperlinked citations
If you create a web article for this project, you may create a website yourself, use a blogging platform like Medium, or create a Word or Google doc with the design principles and genre conventions appropriate for your target publication.
Option 3: Online Petition or Fundraiser
If you really want to follow through on this, and try to do something that can reach an audience and make a difference, you might create an online petition through change.org, petition the White House, or start a fundraiser through gofundme.
This web article by Tracey Anne Duncan, How to Start an Online Petition That’ll Actually Make a Difference,provides some advice for starting an online petition. Another helpful resource is change.org’s Create Your Petition guide, which provides these guidelines.
If you choose to go the fundraising route, here are some Fundraising Tips by gofundme.