Daily Message for Nov. 22

Good Day, 

I trust that you all had a good weekend. This will be my only office post this week; I'll start with some notes on Module 8 and then move on to Module 9.

Module 8 drafting and review

Unless you've worked out an alternative schedule within your group, you should be posting something from your Web Site Analysis Project by the end of the day today (and getting feedback returned by Wednesday.)

I want to remind you that posting at this stage of the process is important, but keep in mind that what your post does not have to be a “finished” product of any kind.  In fact, you may be more comfortable posting an outline or a series of statements that you want to expand on or a series of questions that you hope to answer.  You may just post your criteria at this point, for this is clearly the most important component of this project. 

But use the peer-review space to your own best advantage to get the feedback that you need at this point in your document production.  Be sure to prompt your peers for that kind of feedback.  Don’t assume that they know what you need, but you have all been through the whole course together, and you are all capable of giving quality feedback if only given the chance and asked the right questions.  Any perspective is a good perspective if you take the time to use it.

Some pointers for Module 9

Just a few comments on the Final Project of the semester.  

First, I think you guys have all been working so hard, and Thanksgiving break is hitting at such an awkward time, that I am going to CANCEL EXERCISE 9 and give everyone full credit for completing it. It's a fun exercise, if you'd like to do it just for giggles, I will give you a point of extra credit in the Exercises column of the gradebook.

For the Promotional Project, I’m more concerned with the quality of your design than I am with the quality of your document.  In other words, you can easily do all of the components on MS Word, or something similar, to construct your documents.  You pamphlet can be created using the table function (3x1 for a trifold).  If I can find some basic brochure templates, I'll share them over on the discussion board. (I want you to do as much original work as possible on these documents, so please don't use any template other than those I provide.) 

Again, I’m most interested in your application of the skills we’ve developed over the course of the semester.  I should be able to do an analysis of your three documents using the 9-Cell Matrix, so be sure to think about these three separate but related documents from that perspective.

Also, remember that all three documents must be promoting the same product, service, or event.  The key to success on this project is showing an understanding of how these documents work differently to deliver a message and how these documents might target different readers.  In other words, don’t think that you can just cut and paste the same thing in all three. 

Think about how a flyer works, how a sales letter works, how a pamphlet works. 

• What is the purpose of each? 
• Where might each be delivered? 
• What is the level of detail that can be used in each?
• How much text is too much?
• How many graphics should you use?  Should you use the same graphics?
• How do you “hook” the reader in each format? 
• How much time will readers spend on each document? 
• What are intra-, inter-, extra-, and supra-level decisions you have to make for each document? 
• What are the textual, spatial, and graphic decisions you have to make? 

Again, your ability to use a piece of software is not as important to me as your ability to show an in-depth understanding of document design. I encourage you to use the 9-cell matrix to plan your document before you start playing around with the design. This project is the culmination of the semester, and it’s important that you show me what you have learned.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please let me know. I'll be checking in regularly on the Web Campus board this week.

Keep up the good work with your projects, and have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Julie

Daily Message for Nov. 19

Folks,

Just a reminder that Module 7 is due today. I expect we might have increarsingly spotty participation as we start moving closer to Thanksgiving break. Don't lose track of the fact that Module 8 will be due on the Friday after we return from break.

I'll post here next on Monday, with information about Module 9 (our "final") for this class, but probably won't post here again after Monday next week.

I will check into WebCampus quite regularly over the weekend and all next week to put out brush fires, answer questions, and so forth.

Module 9 involves producing a set of promotional materials (a sales letter that is primarily text, a flyer that is mostly visual, and a brochure or pamplet that combines visuals and text) for a real organization or enterprise that is of interest to you. Thought I'd mention that now so you can be thinking about your target "client" this week. (You don't have to work with an actual client. You should choose a group or organization or event you're already involved with.) Examples: civic groups/events, school groups/events, social groups/events all make good projects. 

As always, don't be afraid to ask questions or kick around ideas over on the discussion board.

Have a good weekend!
Julie

Deadlines from here to end of the semester

Thanks to Taylor, who pointed out early this morning that we had quite an impressive logjam of deadlines piling up here at the end of this week.

In my zeal to get you free and clear of the drafting stage of Module 8 before the Thanksgiving break, I had you trying to do way too much this week. I've pushed back the due dates for Exercise 8 and Module 8 peer review to give you all a little more space to concentrate on wrapping up Module 7 this week.

Peer review deadlines for Module 8 are my suggestions; teams might want to negotiate different schedules for reviewing drafts that better suit team members' holiday schedules.

Here's a rundown on deadlines from here through the end of finals week:

• Friday, Nov. 19 - Module 7 Instructions Analysis and Reflection
• Sunday, Nov. 21 -- Exercise 8
• Monday, Nov. 22 -- Submit Module 8 draft for peer review (recommended deadline)
• Wednesday, Nov. 24 -- Return Module 8 peer response (recommended deadline)
• Friday, Dec. 3 -- Module 8 Web Site Analysis and reflection; Exercise 9
• Friday, Dec. 10 -- Module 9 Promotional Materials (i.e. your "final" for this class) due no later than 5 p.m. No late work accepted.

That's it. That is all we have left to do.

As I alluded to earlier, Module 9 functions as your final exam for this class. You DO have to complete the exercise associated with this module before the end of the semester, but how you approach the rest of the module will be up to you. The module will be set up pretty much like every other module. It will have supplemental readings and samples you can refer to if you like, but none of the readings are "required." You are absolutely welcome to continue discussing and peer reviewing with people from class, but there is no compulsory peer review.

I anticipate that I'll have this module up and available for you on Friday so that people who want to get a jump on it can do so.

Daily Message Nov. 17

Good Day,

As you are all aware, your group-written Instructions Analysis is due by 11:59 pm. Friday.  In addition, each team needs to submit a single reflection for the entire group OR each member of your team must submit an individually-written. Make sure there is crystal clear understanding on your team about how you're doing the reflection. Grade penalties come into play if everyone on your team doesn't follow the same game plan

If you have a team that has had difficulties with this project owing to lack of contribution from a team member, please address that in your reflection. While this is a team-based assignment, grades will be assessed individually. In your reflection, please do your best to honestly assess the contributions/roles played by each member of your team. You cannot receive full credit if you do not participate fully in the planning, drafting, revising, and editing of this report.

Your team should be well down the road to pulling together, revising, and polishing up the final draft. If you have not already received section drafts from every person in the group and assembled them into a draft, then you are quite far behind.  If you have been remiss to this point, you better get a move on. 

You'll have to do more than just paste your individual drafts together. Revising and editing will take some hard work. The report should sound like it comes from one voice, one perspective.  This is not easy, so you’ll need to address language and tone throughout AFTER you have agreed on the higher-order concerns.

Module 8

As things are winding down on Module 7, they'll be ramping up on the Web Site Analysis for Module 8.  The most important feature of this assignment is the set of criteria that you use to evaluate the web site.  

Be sure to take your time developing a strong set of criteria.  In your report, you will want to define each criterion and justify its use.  Let me repeat that: Define each criterion and justify its use.  Do I need to say it again?  If you don’t have a strong set of criteria for analyzing web sites, then this project will suffer.   

At this point in the semester, you have done all of the reading and understand page and visual design.  You need to show your understanding by articulating criteria necessary for evaluating texts.  A web site is just your vehicle.  Once again, the web site you choose really doesn’t matter, your discussion and use of criteria for evaluating the web site is the key to success on this project.

If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know.

Have a great day!

Julie

Daily Message, Nov. 15

Good Morning,

Dr. Staggers is ill and will be unable to respond to discussion posts or email today.

Continue making progress on your group projects for Module 7, and take a look at Module 8 if you haven't already done so.

Dr. S.

Daily Message Nov. 12

Good Day,

Module 6 enhanced resumes and reflections are due today, but as I mentioned on the discussion board last night, I'm inclined to be fairly lax on this deadline. I'm delighted to see so many people seem to have really gotten on board with this assignment. If you haven't quite worked out the technical kinks and you need a bit more time, you can turn this assignment in up until 11:59 p.m . Sunday without a late penalty. (I'm not going to go back into the system and change the settings on the assignment dropbox, though. Just trust that I'll disregard the "late" flag on the assignment if it comes in any time on Saturday or Sunday.) 

Don't forget to do the reflection for this module. Use the PROMPTS in the reflection section of the module overview.

Members of your team should be contributing your individual chunks of the first draft of your instructions analysis for Module 7 right about now, too. If your team has not settled on a set of instructions, had a preliminary discussion about your strategy for analyzing the document, assigned portions of the analysis to individual team members and started to analyze/draft, you are falling seriously behind.

Module 8 is ready and available for you to access through the course home page. I've pushed the deadline for Exercise 8 (originally Sunday night) back to next Friday. Get this exercise done, turned in, and out of your way sooner rather than later so you can concentrate on the website analysis, which should be fun.

As always, if you have questions or concerns, post them at the discussion board and we'll get them tended to ASAP. Thanks to all of you have been such frequent participants and helpers on the discussion board this semester. You make our online learning community a better place!

That's all from my side. Have a fabulous weekend.

Julie

Daily Message Nov. 10

Good Day,

It looks like people are mostly busy and relatively trouble-free today. No email, and just one question on the discussion board. Thus, I have just two quick notes for you today.

First, as people are getting more experimental with their resumes, they are getting frustrated with some of the limitations of MS-Word. If you're having trouble getting things to "line-up" in Word, take a look at the responses to Tara's question from last night on the discussion board. Remember that you have more options for controlling/organizing space in Word than you might be familiar with.  There's a column feature that lets you create columns on your page; you can draw space for text or images on the page using the Text Box feature and other Word drawing tools; you can use the table feature to create an invisible grid over your entire page (make a table, then choose "none" for borders). For details on how to work with any of these features, check out Word help. You can also use a page layout program like MS-Publisher (or the free, open source Scribus) or move from Word to Powerpoint and use the drawing/text block tools there.

Second, if you're like me, your finished product for this assignment might tend to fall a little short of what you were aiming for. Something just would align. You couldn't get a color just right. You're not happy with a particular graphic, but it was the best you could find. That means your reflection will be MORE important for this assignment. Use the prompts in the Reflection section of the module, but also feel free here to discuss problems/solutions and things you'd change next time around.

As always, shout out loud on the discussion board if you have questions.

Enjoy the sunshine.

Julie

Daily Message Nov. 8

Good Day,
We're in work mode in earnest this week. Module 8 will be available on Friday, but until then Modules 6 and 7 should keep everyone plenty busy.

Module 6
Your enhanced resumes and reflections for Module 6 are due by Friday. The biggest weakness I saw across the board with the drafts I reviewed was that people were going far enough in terms of "re-envisioning" the resume. Most drafts that I looked at were very attractively packaged but still very much in the vein of a resume that you really could send out for a (creative type) job. You might find it helpful to stop thinking of the resume as a job-seeking document that you're going to send off to some employer, and instead think about the ways your resume could be re-envisioned as a starting point for a document that represents  the "real you."

Melissa quite kindly agreed to share her draft, and I've posted it over on the discussion board. Remember, resumes are due by Friday.

Module 7
Your team should already have settled on a set of instructions and agreed on a strategy for developing your analysis. There are a variety of ways to do this, but the key is to define the sections for the document and be absolutely clear about who is responsible for what. On the project page I've given you sections that should be in the report, but you can add sections if you believe that they would be helpful. You might look at the samples in the Reading section for ideas about how to construct the report and what other sections might be appropriate.

You can divide the sections of the analysis among group members or each person can do an analysis and write up a draft to share. Then you can combine the drafts. Just be sure to discuss how you plan to put the work together so that everyone in your group is clear about the process.

To stay on track with this project, each person’s contribution should be delivered to the group by this Friday (Nov. 12). Of course, as a group you can agree to push the due date for the drafts back, but I would recommend that you get drafts to each other no later than next Monday The final draft for submission, along with your individual or group reflection is due next Friday (Nov. 19).

As a reminder, here are the sections that I recommend you use in your report:

1. Introduction
   
2. Summarize the rhetorical situation
   Describe in detail the instructions and the target demographic. This, of course, will include a discussion of the rhetorical situation (writer, reader, text, and context).
   
3. Describe the visual language
   Describe the visual language in detail--everything from typefaces to the size and shape of the pages to the kinds of graphics used.
   
4. Discuss the rhetorical impact of the document's visual language
   Analyze how the visual language responds (or doesn't respond) to the rhetorical situation. Use the six cognates as the basis for your discussion.
   
5. Assess the role of visual conventions
   Describe the degree to which the visual elements do (or do not) follow visual conventions for instructions and the impact that these conventions have on the visual rhetoric.
   
6. Overall assessment of the instructions
   Provide an overall assessment of the instructions and make any recommendations appropriate.
   
7. Conclusion
   If you count the Introduction and Conclusion as one, then in most groups each member should be responsible for two sections. As I said yesterday, you really should have a detailed conversation about style, content, tone, and format before each person begins drafting.

This memo should be no more than 5 pages (and probably no less than 2 pages). Be sure to follow good memo format (including an introduction and conclusion), and don't forget to offer an open avenue for communication.

As always, let me know if you have questions or need some advice when it comes to solving problems.

Otherwise, have a great week!

Julie

Daily Message Nov. 5

Good Day,

I have some quick updates and housekeeping issues today, and then I'll talk about collaboration strategies for the group project.

Daily Message for Nov. 1

Good Morning,

This week, you have two projects to focus on but ---- good news -- no new quizzes, readings, or exercises.