ENG 401B.1001 Assignments and Guidelines F 23 Macauley (corrected 9/19/23)

Four general rules apply here:

1. If you turn something in as required, you get credit for that work. This applies to work included in the contract as well as your addendum.
2. You should choose the work you will be most engaged in and do that work to your best ability.
3. Try something new/different—this is as safe a space for risk-taking with your academic work as you will find!
4. Shape your work to your audience, which is at least initially your classmates.

Ask for help—that’s what I’m here for.

You will do at least one paper this semester, at least one presentation, and at least one digital composition. All of them will be advanced nonfiction. You get to choose the medium you use for each assignment. There are obvious options for each of the assignments below, but YOU get to decide which you do in which form. You can play it safe, take a little chance, or set your chickens free! Remember the course grading contract and the freedoms it affords you.

Framing: Intro 9/5, wksp 9/12, due 9/21

As we make our way through the first weeks of the semester, you will be faced with a variety of perspectives on housing and homelessness, and the role that nonfiction writing might play in responding to them. The idea of the “Framing” paper is to capture your early perspectives and views, so you can use them as a foundation for later work in the course. There are three questions this expository essay should answer:

• What have you thought of, specifically, when you have thought about housing and homelessness?
• What of our early readings, speakers, and/or discussions have added to or disrupted those early views?
• Where do your interests lie when thinking about ways that you might use nonfiction writing to respond to
• these issues?

Don’t overthink this. This is a 3-page essay about what your thinking is, includes, reflects, and/or predicts for your nonfiction writing interacting with these issues. You’re not expected to ‘know’ here, just to think and write about possibilities.

Addendum: Intro 8/29, wksp9/12, due 9/26

An addendum is an addition to an existing contract. In our case, if you want a grade higher than B, you will propose through this addendum the work you want to do to get that higher grade. This work will be in addition to our course grading contract, which is laid out on pp. 2-3 of our syllabus. No one is required to write an addendum, and not everyone will, but many students do. Both writing one and not writing one are perfectly acceptable options; it all depends on what grade you want and how much you want to ensure that grade. If you do decide to write an addendum, it should answer the following questions:

• What grade do you want for the class?
• What is the topic/focus of your addendum work?
• Why have you selected this?
• What will the final product be (size, shape, format, platform, sources, etc.)?
• What work will be turned in and when (No later than the final exam period)?

This is not an essay; it is a proposal, so use headings to separate the required information and be as specific, concise, and concrete as you can. We can adjust later, if necessary, but the goal here is to be as thorough as you can be right now.

Pitch Deck: Intro 9/26, wksp 10/3, due 10/10

The final project for this course will be a digital composition that becomes a record or representation of your collaborative project. You will write a proposal for that project, and you will present that proposal to the class. You will pitch the proposal here. You will have three slides and five minutes to pitch your project idea, on which you will get feedback. The idea here is to provide support for what you are planning so as to avoid unnecessary bumps in the road and ensure that the project will work.

Proposal: Intro 9/26, wksp 10/24, due 10/31

Based on your pitch and the feedback you will receive on your pitch, you will write up a formal proposal. This proposal will include the following information.

• What is the topic/focus of your proposal?
• Why have you selected this?
• What will you do? What will the project actually create/do/enact?
• How many people will you need for your project and what roles will you need to fill on your team?
• What is a rough schedule for your collaborative project and digital composition?
• How will you use the digital composition to represent this collaborative work?
• What will the final product be (size, shape, format, platform, sources, etc.)?

This is not an essay; it is a proposal, so use headings to separate the required information and be as specific, concise, and concrete as you can. The goal here is to be as thorough as you can be right now.

Proposal presentation: Intro 9/26, wksp 10/24, due 10/31

When you develop your collaborative project proposal, you will need to get others to join your project. This presentation is where you do that. The only purpose here is to get applications from your classmates, so you can do your proposed project together. So, think about what your audience will want to know and what will be persuasive for them. This is a recruiting presentation, and not much else. You will have three minutes, and a visual (PowerPoint, Prezi, video, etc.) is highly recommended.

Progress Report: Intro 11/14, wksp 11/28, due 11/30

This is a very brief (1-2 pages) discussion of your plans for the collaborative project, how those plans are working out, and what challenges and/or successes you are anticipating. There need not be a lot of planning or designing here—just a very straightforward description of plans, progress, problems, and/or promise. Don’t overthink it.

Digital Composition: Intro 9/26, wksp 12/7 & 12, due at the final exam

This is the culminating project of the semester. The idea is to create something that would be viewed online, a resource that provides insight into the collaborative project you and your team have been working on this semester. This could be something you plan to come back to for yourself. It can become something you provide for others with similar interests. You can use this as an example of your work to accompany future applications of several kinds. The parameters are below; what is really desired here is something honest and useful that provides real insight into your project. These compositions must be self-contained, designed to be viewed in your absence, and they should not go longer than 10 minutes. Check with your prof about ideas and options as they vary from one student, medium, and topic to another.

• Digital compositions must be self-contained, meaning that they should be designed for a remote audience with whom you will not be able to communicate directly. EX: In a normal class, a PowerPoint to accompany your spoken presentation would be fine. In this class, your digital projects must assume that you won’t be there when people look at that digital composition.
• Try some things that you might not have done before but be reasonable in terms of the learning curve for new tools.
• Make the most of the medium you choose—visually, audibly, textually—and think of your audience, which is primarily yourself, your classmates, and potentially community partners.
• These digital compositions are seldom over 8-10 minutes, depending on the subject matter.
• Take a look at projects in the Journal for Undergraduate Multimedia Projects (JUMP+) for examples of projects that other students have made: https://jumpplus.net/.