Introduction to Finality

Work to have done: Submit final-for-now website, with source files, and reflection

Plan for the Day:

0. Mental health check

1. Creative writing as a tool for critical thinking (15-20 min)
2. Final Portfolio Preview and Consolidation Unit Goals (10-15 min)
3. Generative Writing: What skills to practice? (15 min)
4. Roles and Reflection (15 min)
5. EXT: Studio time / generating project pitches

0. Mental health check.

Pitt’s been working on resources and workshops, some of which are described at https://www.studentaffairs.pitt.edu/cc/workshopsandmore/. Unfortunately, not all of those are fully activated yet, but I do see that there are free virtual workshops coming up on “calming your thoughts,” “building resilience,” and “understanding and managing anxiety”; that last one has a session tomorrow at 2pm. For each, you just need to register to get the Zoom link.

You can also call the University Counseling Center at 412-648-7930 at any time to speak directly with a clinician, or UPMC’s resolve Crisis Services hotline at 1-888-7-YOU-CAN (888-796-8226) if you just need someone to talk to, 24/7.

1. Creative writing as a tool for critical thinking (15-20 min)

Congratulations on reaching the end of the web unit! I know some of you are planning on continuing to revise as we move into our last two weeks of class, but many of you have already finished, and I’ve been enjoying the reflections as they’ve come in so far.

Wherever you are in terms of finalizing, I’d like you to take a few minutes to think about the process of composing this way, and of learning to compose this way. And I’d like you to get loose and have a little fun with that thinking, so I’ll ask you to use metaphor (or, more specifically, simile): to read your learning, or your composing, as something else entirely.

To wit:

Generate comparisons (3-5 min)

Take 3-5 minutes to think in writing through the questions above.

Use comparisons as leverage (5-10 min)

Now I’m going to ask you to share in your small groups, working to answer a third question:

I won’t collect this, but I will ask for some volunteers to share in a few minutes… and I suggest that you return to these when writing your end-of-semester reflection, so take notes.

EXT: If you’re waiting for the rest of us, consider: what personal skillsets do you feel like you now possess, that you might offer to a team of digital media composers?

Share and enjoy (5-10 min)

Any volunteers? Any insights? Any questions?

We can take notes in the shared google doc: bit.ly/cdm2023spring-notes

2. Final Portfolio Preview and Consolidation Unit Goals (10-15 min)

The final portfolio for the course is due in just three weeks (¡…!), on Tuesday, April 25th. (That’s our exam slot, which nominally runs from 10:00-11:50am, but I’ll treat submissions as on-time through the end of the day.)

Portfolio contents

As we have for each individual unit, for the final portfolio I’m asking you to zoom out and write reflectively about the course and your work in it, crystalizing what you’ve learned – and how you will go on learning – about composing digital media.

As with previous reflections, I encourage you to include these screenshots and thumbnails wherever they make the most sense, rather than feeling like they need to be segregated from the rest of your thoughts.

Consolidation / integration unit

Rather than draw out your reflection for as long as possible, I’m hoping you’ll be able to use these last two weeks to help digest and apply what you’ve learned over the last 12 weeks. As I put it in the schedule,

In this final unit I’ll ask you to build on what you’ve already made: a revision, an extension, or a combination, of the modes and media you used in earlier units.

The unit goals, then, are:

1. to integrate and consolidate the skills you’ve practiced across the semester
2. to assess your own skills as a digital media composer, to find ways you in particular might best contribute to a collaborative digital project (perhaps in the future)

Above all, the point is to get more practice. I don’t believe that “practice makes perfect” – perfection is not for this world – but I do believe that practice makes habitual, more automatic, less labored. Practice builds muscle memory. It frees up your mind for the next thing.

That’s what I mean when I say “integration.” You don’t have to incorporate all the modes into your final project; you just have to decide what you want more practice in. And then you have to put the practice in. Make sense?

What might that look like?

On the most straightforward level, this could literally be a revision of one of your existing projects. Were there stretch goals or aspirations that you think you didn’t quite figure out how to achieve? Did you write in a reflection about what you might do with more time? Well, now you have a little more time! We might call this a baseline option for this unit, though of course excellent work is still worth rewarding, and you can update the credit you receive for those earlier units.

Another, more ambitious option would be to make a second project in the vein of one you’ve already done: another sound-editing project, another visual argument, another website. You’ll have less time than you did originally, but you should also be higher on the learning curve. In this same vein, you could try an alternate program for the same genres: e.g. AdobeSuite parallels like Audition (for Audacity) and Photoshop (for GIMP) – or vice versa, if you started with Adobe. See what happens when you dive in again, and reflect on the differences!

A third, also aspirational, option is to build a new project that builds on what you know to make something different: e.g. you could try next-level tools like Inkscape for vector graphics (the Adobe parallel is Illustrator) or see what you can and can’t do with free versions of website builders like WordPress or Wix; compose a short audio documentary or an interview-based podcast; combine narrative with audio and image (you might look into Twine[1]), which can be styled with CSS; etc. And any of these might be a collaboration that represents all its members.

Generative writing: what skills to practice?

(This exercise adapted from Sondra Perl’s Guidelines for Composing)

Take a breath. Close your eyes. Put down your pen, or take your hands off your keyboard. Find a way to be present to yourself, wherever you are, and know that whatever you write for the next set of questions will not be collected: it’s for you alone.

1. Start by making a list: What’s on my mind? what have I been meaning to do lately? When you feel yourself answering, begin to write.

2. Set that list aside – it’ll wait for you until you’ve finished here – and ask yourself again: What skills have I been building in this class? What do I feel I’ve leveled up on, or that I’m on the verge of leveling up on? What am I on the edge of accomplishing? As before, just make a list, like an inventory: don’t delve too much into any one item.

3. Now ask yourself: Is there anything I’ve been trying to do in this class, but haven’t yet done? Any aspirational goals I meant to achieve, but just ran out of time for? Did any of the ideas above sound both fun and achievable, a way to make these last couple of weeks more celebratory than stressful? Again, take a quick survey; you’ll have time later to expand.

4. Take one more moment to consider: Is there anything I’m forgetting, that could go on this list? If you came to this exercise with a project already in mind, make sure to add that to your list.

Take a moment now to read back over your lists. Is there something that stands out, that says, me, pick me? Choose one thing to work with, at least for today, and mark it in some way. Then copy it into a clean page.

With that chosen subject, write again:

1. What terms or images come to mind when you think of this subject? … Think about categories of words: actions vs things. Descriptors (adjectives).
2. Is there anything you’re forgetting to add to your list? A line from a song? A color?
3. Who else might be interested in this? Who, that is, could be your audience?

See if you can summon up the whole of this idea, like it’s right here in the room with you. Where does it live? Is it above you? Inside you? In the palm of your hand? Just sit with your idea for a moment, feeling where you connect to it. You can return to this feeling of connection later, as a guide to what’s most essential, and what’s most exciting.

Roles and Reflection (15 min)

The core goals of the unit are, again:

1. to integrate and consolidate the skills you’ve practiced across the semester
2. to assess your own skills as a digital media composer, to find ways you in particular might best contribute to a collaborative digital project (perhaps in the future)

That first generative loop writing took you through the skills and projects you might engage with, i.e. that first unit goal; now I want to spend some time thinking about the second.

Consider the following roles:

EXT: Studio

As time allows, you can either get started on revisions (including website finalizing) or start thinking more concretely about another project you might start:

• What are the parts of the project?
• What assets will you need to find?
• What do you already know how to do, and what will you need to learn (or outsource to someone who already knows)?
• Would some tasks be easier to delegate to or split with a partner?
• You don’t have to write this one down publicly, but consider it on your own: if you answered yes to the last question, who might you ask to partner with you?

If we run out of time for these questions, work on it for homework; we’ll start next class with project pitches, and have a marketplace of ideas to see if we have some natural groups starting to form.

Homework for next time

• Preparing for the final portfolio:
  1. Read Paul Ford’s short “Letter of Recommendation: Bug Fixes” from The New York Times Magazine (June 11, 2019). (Pitt Library link)
  2. Ford writes, “I read the change logs, and I think: Humans can do things.” Read back through your own change logs, i.e. the commit histories of your projects; skim through the lesson plans; maybe even review your studio goals and exit notes. What things have you done this semester?
• Preparing one final project or revision:
  • By the end of next class, you should decide (together, if working on a team) what would constitute a minimum deliverable project for the consolidation/integration unit, and what series of stretch goals you’ll try for beyond that minimum.
    1. To get there, work through the questions from the EXT above, and write a brief project pitch on the shared Google doc