Delivery Scaffold and Workshop (30-45 min)
The theme of the day is delivery. Your final draft of your proposal will drill down on the specifics for your plan of delivering the various rhetorical objects (two of which you will have completed as your final campaign pieces) developed for your campaign.
Take about 10 minutes or so, and respond to these questions on a blank piece of paper or on your computers:
Think about what you have developed and some other possible pieces you might compose. What are all the possible ways you might make these accessible to the people you want to see them? Be as specific as possible. Since you wrote your proposal, what has changed? How will your campaign pieces fit together? How will they be delivered? Over what timeframe? Over what media? In what space? By what method? What is the context? Why will it be effective when delivered this way? What is your campaign’s goal(s)? How will the documents themselves and the way you use them help you reach those goals?
Let’s try to operationalize these questions by throwing them at a case in point. I picked the water crisis campaign because it had several documents that seemed to have a foundation for relating to one another. How might they be delivered do you think? As you read the documents, have delivery in mind. Go back to the questions above to help guide feedback you’ll have. Finally, as always, feel free to offer some general feedback to the writer on possible revisions to any of the campaign pieces.
I printed the brochure because I think they are hard to read online.
The website can be found here:
https://americanwatermovement.wordpress.com/
The flyer can be found here:
https://daniellibertz.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Campaign-2-2-of-2.docx
Rhetorical Velocity and Delivery (30-45 min)
I thought we’d try the activity that Ridolfo and DeVoss offered at the end of their article. Then, we will discuss the blog posts.
Here’s an adapted version:
-Go here and select a press release (from within last 7 days).
-Pull a phrase out and search. Be sure to put the phrase in quotation marks so the search engine will only look for the words in the phrase in that order.
-Select at least 2, but hopefully you can find more than that.
-Compare what you’ve found with original. Types of documents? Similar or different purposes? For similar or different audiences? Were there authors on the press release? On the new documents? What can we learn about how press release was designed and how it was taken up? Was there a connection between the two at all? In other words, how can we think about how the press release authors may have composed their document for re-composition?
One of you writes:
“How can I make something with the idea of recomposition in mind? To me, I believe that the genre has a lot to do with this concern. A long-written document (white paper, lab report, essay, etc.) may be used as a reference for someone else’s work; however, it is unlikely that another person will try to re-purpose the piece. I think that graphics and music are the most common pieces that are likely to be recomposed. In addition, shorter pieces (blog, editorial, press release, etc.) provide an opportunity to be recomposed if they evoke a strong emotional response in the viewer. Something boring will not be recirculated.”
My question: How is rhetorical velocity of text objects (like press releases) different from rhetorical velocity of memes, videos, and other modes of expression? What about different kinds of media? Is there rhetorical velocity to speech? To a pamphlet passed out at a fundraiser?
A few posts talk about plagiarism and originality. Here are a couple examples:
“Furthermore, to compose with recomposition in mind does not mean to compose something with plagiarism in mind. A work that is used to create something else should actually create something else. I don’t like the idea of people taking credit for my words, but I don’t mind them mimicking my format or reforming my words. People are creative enough to do their own work which is original. I don’t mind pushing people in the right direction.”
“One important thing I took away from the reading states, “Remix is how we as humans live and everyone within our society engages in this act of creativity.” This is an interesting point that suggests that essentially everything we are doing has already been done; we are only remixing it. To some extent, this is true. All of our work, especially as students, that we are doing is based on research that other people have already conducted.”
What is original? Why does this matter?
How does this fit with problems of fair use, copyright, public domain, the creative commons? Does this not conflict with “remix” and rhetorical velocity?
Break (15 min)
Social Media and Delivery (20-30 min)
What other social media platforms can you use? What advice would you give similar to what is shared here? What might you add to the advice about sharing? The advice here gives some pointers on using LinkedIn, what about other platforms, other things to take advantage of in one medium vs. another?
-What is best to write in an accompanying post? How will you share it? When? Read the below from the same website to inform your initial thoughts. Spend 5-10 minutes thinking about what text you might use to accompany a post sharing one of your campaign pieces.
Finally, here is the link from where I got this from. It comes from the realm of marketing which is related to what we are doing, but not necessarily the same thing. Is what I did, by capturing the screengrabs, rhetorical velocity? What else could I have done? Was there a way to rewrite this stuff and integrate it into my lesson plan? How? Finally, was there something about this article that might provide evidence that they were “composing for re-composition”? Is it fair use (http://lifehacker.com/193343/ask-the-law-geek–is-publishing-screenshots-fair-use)? Should I worry about copyright?
Reminder for final drafts: PUBLIC DOMAIN, CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE. See WFP Resources page for more.
Delivery Plan Activity (20-30 min)
Return to your initial sketch that you made at the beginning of class. Look at the questions that prompted your sketch. What revisions might you make after having more time to think about delivery, rhetorical velocity, and social media concerns? Do you have print objects? How might they be delivered and how could you encourage circulation?
Take some time to open up your proposal draft from 5/24 and start to map out how you will articulate your delivery plan for your campaign pieces. Be sure to return to the syllabus for what is expected (the “questions to consider” under the “Review and Campaign Proposal” are really helpful to think through). I’ll come around and answer questions as needed.
Revision Plan (30 min)
I’m going to pass out something to help you get started on thinking about the revision of your campaign pieces. I want you to take chances in revising. To alleviate some concerns, I consider ALL of your drafts when I will holistically evaluate your work at the end of the term. Sometimes, in revision, things can get worse and not better (especially during a constrained timeframe like the one we have). Don’t worry about that too much. If it ends up that your first draft did some things better than your second draft, I consider that along with the things that you did better in your second draft compared to your first. I want you to try to re-imagine your campaign pieces when you revise them. This handout can help get you started…and you should be started on revising anyways. Especially since the end of the term is rapidly approaching!
Collaborative Writing (if time; 20 min)
Each collaborative writing group from last time will look at another group’s document and pick out all the moments where it felt “different”. For example: Different types of word choice, sentence types, imagery that comes up, tone (e.g., comical, casual, more formal, earnest and urgent), point of view (first, second, third person), paragraphing approaches (one kind of idea across several paragraphs, one idea per paragraph), do the parts all match toward a larger whole or does it feel disjointed at places (i.e., the logic of the organization is a little off in parts when considering your view of the overall aim of the piece). Then, thinking about voice, which one “wins out” and how would you revise to make sure it does?
Admin (5-15 min)
Blog post, algorithms and agency. What happens when decisions are made beyond your control as a reader and a writer?
Bring in accessible copy of something you are working on to share with a peer for feedback.