For my project, I decided to translate my argument from my paper into a media project. I wanted to do so in a way that would be parallel with the structure and flow of my paper. In both my paper and video, I introduce the idea of the immigrant paradox and then explain my reasoning for why its true that immigrant children can and will likely outperform (in terms of education) their native classmates. I argue that strong familial ties are what makes immigrant children so successful, and then offer three sub-claims about how strong familial ties accomplishes that. The three reasons are: 1. Instills a sense of passion for education, 2. Provides a sense of community (and hence support system), and 3. Helps the child gain a second language and values system.

Since my paper is targeted towards children of immigrant parents, so too is my video, however the medium is now entirely different! I chose immigrant children as my audience because they are the ones that relate most to what I was sharing in my paper (and now video). Because the two mediums vary, I had to approach each of them in different ways so that I could keep my audience (still) hooked.  With the paper, I was able to describe, at length, some of my opinions and explain my sources. However, with the video, I had to bear in mind that my audience would not be satisfied or entertained by the idea of reading many words on a screen. As such, I’ve had to “simplify” my argument a bit and also use relevant pictures that pertained to what I was speaking about. I chose to record my voice in the background– to make it more personal– and so that I could “walk through” my audience through my rational. The pictures helped keep my audience visually entertained and engaged to continue listening to what I was talking about. So, for example, if I was speaking about Education, I chose to present a stack of books because I knew that it would trigger a connection with the audience and help them better understand or visualize my ideas.

In order to do all this, I used iMovie. Once I decided on what I wanted to present (in terms of dialogue and pictures), I then put them all in sequence in the iMovie app, and then I had to record myself explaining each section. All throughout, I had to make sure that the pictures would be presented at the same moment that I mentioned it in my speech!

Because I was limited in time (the video couldn’t be longer than 3 minutes), there was only so much I could include in the video. As such, a lot of research and support was lost in the making of this video. But I find that this is sometimes true of the most successful videos (like with commercials). Sometimes its better to focus on a small thing than to tackle too many details at once, because too much logos or ethos can be too overwhelming. In a way, I sort of view this media project as an introduction for someone who may potentially be interested in reading more about what I have to say about the whole subject. Having said that, I feel confident that my video is ready for public viewership, just so long as they know that my argument isn’t as simple as I make it out to be in the video!

As for your feedback, there was concern about the pixelated pictures. Prior to watching it on the full screen in class, I was unaware that this was an issue! Originally I had used both Flickr and Google to help me find pictures, but once I realized that there was a pixel issue, I tried clicked on the original source of where the picture came from, hoping that this would fix the blurry issue my video was having, but it hasn’t made a difference. I’m not quite the tech person, so I wasn’t really sure how to go about this problem, but I hope it doesn’t detract from my audience’s understanding of my video’s overall message.

This project was interesting because it channeled a different area of our creativities. It helped me understand that papers and articles are not the only way to persuade an audience, but even music, graphics, and a few words can convince a whole audience as well—a true skill in and of itself!!