Week 9: Presentations (Iteration 2: Processed)
October 20, 2025
Work to turn in
- A file you'll use as the multimodal prop for your 5-minute presentation (e.g. PowerPoint, Google Slides, Prezi, slides.js, etc)
- A link to your public-facing project-in-progress (website, GH repo, google sheet, etc)
Plan for the day:
- Framing: Intro to workshop + peer review plan (~9:00-9:15)
- Presentations: first half
- presentation 1 (~9:15-9:40)
- presentation 2 (~9:40-10:05)
- presentation 3 (~10:05-10:30)
- Break (10 minutes)
- Presentations: second half
- presentation 4 (~10:45-11:05)
- presentation 5 (~11:05-11:30)
- A scheduling question
- EXT: Work on peer letters
- Homework for next time:
- peer review letters
- reading about digital accessibility
Framing: Intro to workshop + peer review plan
Welcome back to our guest mentors! And welcome, everyone, to the second day of presentations! Today is brought to you by “processing,” meaning I’m especially interested in how you’ve been working with digital affordances to do or see things you wouldn’t be able to without computers.
I’m excited to hear how it’s been going, and especially for you all to hear how it’s been going for everyone else.
Peer review guidelines
Like last time, you’ll each write back to two of your classmates. Remember, I’m NOT asking you to evaluate the success or significance of the project; rather, I’m asking you to help synthesize some formative feedback, oriented toward next steps, assuming that everything is still a work in progress.
For the in-class conversation, we’re going to draw each other out to find the way forward: we’ll ask questions and echo back key elements of your project with a …? to help you say more, to make explicit what might have been implicit. We might suggest tools, tutorials, or scholarship we think would be useful to bring in.
During all these rounds of questions and suggestions, let’s trust that everyone is working to support one another, never to shut anyone down, and let’s all listen and speak with that goal in mind.
Presentation order and peer-review partners
| This person | Presenting in slot | Reviewed *by* | And also by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yanni | 1 | Rose | John |
| Namrata | 2 | John | Scylla |
| Amrita | 3 | Scylla | Yuqing |
| Yixuan | 4 | Yuqing | Tunga |
| Li | 5 | Tunga | Rose |
| Tunga | n/a | Namrata | Amrita |
| Rose | n/a | Amrita | Yixuan |
| John | n/a | Yixuan | Li |
| Scylla | n/a | Li | Yanni |
| Yuqing | n/a | Yanni | Namrata |
Presentations: first half
- Yanni
- Namrata
- Amrita
Each presentation should last five minutes, and I’ll help you keep track of time. We should then have about 15 minutes for Q&A.
Break (10 minutes)
We should hit the break at around 10:20 today.
Presentations: second half
- Yixuan
- Li
A scheduling question
Our final class meeting is currently scheduled for Monday, December 8. That’s during finals week at both Pitt and CMU, when undergraduate classes don’t meet. There are two complications, which I hope the late timing will help alleviate:
- I will be returning from yet another trip to New York, with a family celebration that extends through Sunday afternoon.
- Our plan for that day calls for final presentations, and I would love for everyone to be able to share.
So my question for you: do you have the flexibility to meet on Tuesday or even Wednesday that week instead of Monday?
If we don’t have time to figure it out today, I can email everyone.
EXT: Writing
If by some luck we have extra time at the end of class, let’s use it to begin your peer review letters.
Homework for next time
Peer review
There’s feedback for your classmates, assuming we didn’t get to it in class, and there’s a new topic for next week: access + accessibility.
Your writing assignments, now sorted by writer rather than recipient
| This person | will write to | and also to |
|---|---|---|
| Amrita | John | Rose |
| John | Amrita | Namrata |
| Li | Yuqing | Scylla |
| Namrata | Rose | Tunga |
| Rose | Namrata | Yanni |
| Scylla | Yixuan | Amrita |
| Tunga | Yanni | Li |
| Yanni | Tunga | Yuqing |
| Yixuan | Scylla | John |
| Yuqing | Li | Yixuan |
- You've seen the presentation (though you may want to revisit it); now have a look through the public-facing version of the project. What do you notice? What do you wonder? What does it make you think of?
- Be a genuine and generous audience. To help your partner see their work through your eyes, summarize back to them what you see them doing, trying to do, or almost doing. (That last is often a good place for the author to lean into.)
- Make connections and ask questions: this may include questions or clarifications about the process; comparisons with your own projects or others you've seen; tools, materials, or scholarship you think would be useful to bring in; and so on.
Above all, be yourselves. Being generous doesn’t mean only singing praises, though by all means do so when it feels genuine! You can be generously critical, as long as you’re critically generous at the same time. Demonstrate your care and investment in each other’s success, knowing that there’s still more to do to get there. Together.
For next week: Access + Accountability
In addition to the peer review notes, in prep for week 10 please read / watch the following.
- Eisenberg, David. “Digital Accessibility: What It Is and Why It Matters.” Perkins School for the Blind, 17 May 2021, https://www.perkins.org/digital-accessibility-makes-the-world-a-better-place/.
- Selections from the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI):
- WebAIM (Web Accessibility in Mind). “Alternative Text.” 19 Oct. 2021, https://webaim.org/techniques/alttext/.
- Yergeau, M. Remi, Elizabeth Brewer, Stephanie L. Kerschbaum, Sushil Oswal, Margaret Price, Michael J. Salvo, Cynthia L. Selfe, and Franny Howes. “Multimodality in Motion: Disability and Kairotic Spaces.” Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy, vol. 18, no. 1, Aug. 2013, https://kairos.technorhetoric.net/18.1/coverweb/yergeau-et-al/index.html.
-
Autistic Self Advocacy Network. “ASAN Says No Generative AI in Plain Language.” 29 July 2025, https://autisticadvocacy.org/2025/07/asan-says-no-generative-ai-in-plain-language/.
- EXTs for eager readers:
- W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), “Stories of Web Users”
- D’Ignazio, Catherine, and Lauren F. Klein. Data Feminism, MIT Press, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central.