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Consolidation Unit Pitch Market and Studio

Work to have done: Submit final-for-now website, with source files, and reflection; read Paul Ford on the pleasures of reading git commit histories; begin preparing for your final portfolio and a consolidation project to include in it

Plan for the day:

  1. About those final reflections
  2. Have an idea
  3. Review, respond, recruit
  4. Tasks and roles
  5. Studio time

About those final reflections

My original notes say to talk about this next week, but since folks were asking about it last class, and since you need to figure out how to budget time for it, let’s get into it now.

The final reflection can be written informally, like the others. The goal is less a restatement of what you’ve already written than an opportunity to think synthetically, across units and into the future. The reflection will have two main components, or really aspects, which you can move back and forth between:

  1. The first is an articulation of your learning in the class, focused more on transferable skills than individual tools.

  2. The second is an incorporation of the specific projects in your portfolio, calling attention to features of these multimodal texts that you hope will illustrate, clarify, or provide evidence for the claims you make about your learning.

These two aspects should work together, binding the abstract to the concrete and vice versa.

The questions below are meant to help you develop your thoughts toward that first aspect, in part through consideration of the second. While you need not answer these questions separately, or in strict order, I do hope you will endeavor to answer them all.

Guiding questions for the end-of-term reflection

  1. What advice or ideas have been most helpful to your thinking about composing, about digital environments or tools, about mediation? In other words, what do you most want to remember for future digital composition?

    These may come from comments on your own projects, discussions of your classmates' work, office hour or class-time conversations, or assigned readings.

  2. When you look back at the unit goals and overall course outcomes, where do you feel you’ve been most successful? The most challenged? If something’s held you back, how might you get around that barrier? (Or would you change the goal for yourself?)

    Note that this is another way of asking a common end-of-term question: what do you see as the strengths of the work you've done for this course, and what are the areas in which you feel you’ve most improved?

    Make specific references to projects or revisions.

  3. What, if anything, surprised you during the course? Now that you’ve seen how it all pans out, are there any suggestions you’d make for a revision in the course structure or assignments? (I update my syllabi every time, so your feedback is truly welcome!)

  4. Moving forward, what are your plans for continuing to develop your digital media skills? Will you continue working on any of these projects, in other classes or outside class?

NB: If at any point you’re tempted to say "all of it" (or “none,” though I hope that’s not true), that’s a fine start, but then prioritize: name something specific and concrete, even if it's just one example, so it's written somewhere you’ll be able to find it later.

What questions, comments, or concerns do you have about this now?

Think for yourself

If you haven't yet done so, please add a brief consolidation/integration brainstorm to the google doc, in the space I showed you at the end of last class; it could be as short as 1-3 sentences. What would you like to work on with your remaining time in CDM?

Take just five minutes here; you’ll have more time to flesh it out over the rest of today’s class.

EXT: If you’ve already posted, read below about Tasks and Roles, and start brainstorming toward those.

Think with others

Now that you’ve spent some time discovering your thoughts about this final unit for yourself, it’s time to share with others – and, possibly, to recruit or join up with some like-minded co-travelers.

Still in the shared google doc, read through the project brainstorms from your classmates.

Add polite clarifying questions using the Comments feature – or offer your services, if you'd like to form a team!

We’ll spend a while looping around and back in the margins or aloud.

When we’re reaching a stable point, I’ll ask you to record your team memberships (including solo teams), also in the google doc.

Planning: tasks and roles

With your team (which may have one member, or more), get to planning. You’ll need to have…

  1. a brief overview of your baseline project goals, which may be revised from an initial pitch
  2. a list of smaller tasks you’ll need to accomplish to achieve those goals
  3. proposed roles for each of your team members, if you have a team of two or more
    • Last class I’d floated these possible roles: project manager, visual designer, experience designer, programmer, researcher, copy writer. Feel free to start there or adjust as needed.
    • You may also decide it would help to read through this excerpt from Writer/Designer, on ways to facilitate group collaboration.
  4. a link to some space where you’ll develop the project: most likely an existing GitHub repository or a new one.

Optionally, you can add

  1. more aspirational stretch goals beyond those above.

Please post these plans to the google doc by the end of today's class.

EXT: Studio time

When you’re ready to move on, I’ll get out of your way. :¬)

Set goals for today

As is our custom, please write down your goals for in-class time at the beginning of your work session, and expect to come back at the end with an update. Of the tasks you’ve chosen, which can you achieve in class today? If none, how will you use class time to set yourself up for success moving forward?

I’ll float around, as usual.

Remember your resources

Don’t forget that there are some pre-compiled Resources that might be useful…

And please let me know if you find any more to share!

Exit note

Five minutes before the end of class, please loop back to the google doc and make an updated plan: what do you want to have finished for Tuesday?

Homework for next time

  • Continue with whatever work you set out for yourself to consolidate, integrate, and ideally deepen your learning this semester.
  • Post a preview – a beginning – to the repo you linked to in today’s class.
    • If you’re revising, this means you should push at least one new commit.
    • I’m going by project, not person, so teams should divide the labor appropriately… and hold each other to the agreements you’ve made.
  • EXT: If you haven’t yet done so, and you have more time now that it’s the weekend, please do the Ford reading and commit history activity from last class.
  • Have you also considered reading back through your studio goals and reflections in the google doc? What about the lesson plans, especially advice on studio days?