Overview
Your final project will be an Information and Advocacy (I&A) campaign composed in groups. You will resume researching the topic you chose for the Web 2.0 Research project and design a campaign that will allow others to inform people and encourage them to take some form of action on the issue. The purpose of the campaign is to provide others with materials they can use to inform others on the issue and start of movement in their communities. For example, if a local CSU environmental group wanted to persuade students to recycle more, they might go to the web to look for materials they can use that are provided by other environmental organizations.
In order to move people to action, your campaign must be informative and persuasive in nature. The actions for which you are advocating could be anything from signing a petition to attending a rally, protest, or other event, to changing a behavior or an attitude, or to performing an action. Your audience must be specific. For example, you might prepare materials for high school teachers to use in the classroom or that community groups might use to persuade voters that they should raise taxes or fees to pay for free municipal wireless, a community technology center, etc.
For examples of information and advocacy campaigns, see the “Project Resources” section below.
Project components
- Each group will submit a campaign design plan and a set of storyboards for the planned website. (see below for details)
- Each group will design a website to provide groups with information, lesson plans, event ideas, and other materials they can use in their local campaigns. (see below for details)
- In addition to the information and ideas on the website, each group will produce at least three texts that groups can distribute to the target audience (see below for more details):
- a print document such as a poster, brochure, flyer, etc.
- an audio piece
- a third distributable item of your choosing. Possibilities include t-shirts, buttons, stickers, videos, an additional print item.
- Finally, each group will turn in a project analysis paper at the end of the project. (see below for details)
Project Stages
At two points in the project, Thursday, 12/2 and Thursday 12/9, each group member will turn in a Group Evaluation form (see Project Resources section for the form). The purpose of this form is for you to evaluate your contributions to the project along with the contributions of each of your group members. Only I will see these forms. The purpose is to provide me with a means for evaluating the collaborative efforts of each group and to assist in solving group problems should that be necessary. You will turn in completed forms at the end of class on the assigned days.
Design Plans
Due: at the end of class, Tuesday, November 9
During class your group will compose your design plan (see below). Next you will write up four or five research questions. You will revisit the research you completed in Unit 1 and decide what additional information your group needs to gather in order to effectively make your argument. For example, if part of your argument is that teenagers spend too much time online and that it is detrimental to their long-term academic success, you may determine that you need to know more about how much time teenagers spend online each day. So your research question might be: how much time does the average U.S. teenager spend online and are their particular subgroups of teenagers that spend more time online than others? Is there research that supports our claim that the amount of time teenagers spend online has a negative effect on their academic success? Each group member will take a research question and find additional sources that will answer that question. You will discuss your research questions in the reflective analysis.
Your design plan should be at least 2 pages, double-spaced, and include:
- A statement of purpose (including: purpose, audience, context). In your discussion of purpose, explain why it is important for the target audience to learn more about the issue and to take the action you are advocating. Explain who your target audience is and why. Finally, consider the context in which you will be presenting your argument. For example, if your topic is net neutrality, you will have to take into consideration the most recent legislative developments including the change in the makeup of congress after this election and determine what information and opinions your target audience already has on the issue. In short, you will need to know what your audience already knows and thinks about your topic and take that into consideration when designing your campaign.
- An analysis of the mediums and arrangements for your website and distribution materials and how they will work together to address your audience, purpose, and context. Be as detailed as possible. Think about possible logos, slogans, and color palettes as well as how you will organize the textual part of your message.
- A work plan with project goals and due dates. Please indicate what each group member will contribute to each of the required components of the project.
Storyboards
Due: at the end of class Thursday, November 11
Use the storyboard template below to design your website storyboards in the same manner as you did for your personal website. Remember that your storyboards must be in color and clearly list all of the text and other files (images, audio, video, etc) that will be included on each page.
Final Project and Project Analysis
Due: Thursday, December 9
The website should be uploaded to the domain created for your group. The site should include at least 5 pages, and a visual design executed using an external CSS stylesheet. The site should use a visually consistent, rhetorically sound design (remember your CRAP principles and Patricia Sullivan’s explanation of safe versus experimental visual rhetoric), exhibit multimodality in its design, cite sources in a consistent manner modeled on APA style (but adapted for the web as is appropriate for your site), and provide information in support of an argument that leads your audience to a clearly defined action.
The distribution materials must address all members of your target audience and work independently or in conjunction with other parts of the campaign to inform and persuade. You must turn in physical copies of your distributable materials as well as have them available for download on your website.
The project analysis (hard copy) is a four-page, double-spaced document that details the process the group went through to create the website distribution materials and a rhetorical analysis of how effective the final texts are. A rhetorical analysis critiques how effectively the texts address purpose, audience, context through their choice of medium(s) and arrangement(s). When discussing your website and distribution materials, make sure to discuss the rhetorical reasoning behind your visual designs as well as an analysis of the textual information presented; make sure to discuss the CRAP principles, image choices, and use of color. See the sound argument project page and the sound analysis page for a reminder on how to analyze your audio piece. Remember to also discuss your research questions and use of sources.
Project Resources
I&A Campaign Examples
Students for Concealed Carry
Dove Body Image Campaign
Higher Education Funding
Project Paperwork
Storyboards (PDF)
Group Evaluation form (Word)
APA Style & Annotated Bibliography Help
APA Style from the Purdue OWL: This is a detailed 12-section explaination of the basics of APA style.
UIUC Writers’ Workshop APA guide: This site provides examples of how to format various types of sources in APA style when writing a bibliography or citing sources within the text of a research paper.
Writing Center at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill: This handout provides important information about when you need to cite sources in a research paper in order to avoid plagiarizing.
