Your final project in this class will be an opportunity to take what you've learned during our various workshops and expand it into a larger project. Each workshop exposes you to a tool or technology, and our exercises with those tools are opportunities to learn how to create with that tool and also how to begin imagining a longer and larger project. Your log book will be a place to record your potential ideas for final projects, and your proposal is the document in which you commit to a final project and describe that project in detail.
Project proposals are due on November 16 by 5:00pm, uploaded to your Google Drive folder. During that class period, each person will give an informal presentation, briefly describing what they plan to do for the final project. Presentations will be very short, and they are an opportunity for students to give one another feedback and ideas about the project.
The format of your project proposal is as follows:
Title
Your project should have a title. While this can change as you continue to work on the project, you should at least have a working title. Remember that a title is an opportunity to shape your own thinking about the project. A creative title can actually help transform a project, so think of the title as more than just a description of the project.
Description of Content (500-word minimum)
In this section, you'll describe what your hoping to accomplish content-wise with your project. You should answer questions such as: What idea are you trying to express, or what argument are you trying to make? What is the goal of your project? What do you want the audience to gain from reading/interacting with/listening/watching your project? What is the significance of the idea you're trying to express or the argument you are trying to make? You have wide latitude for the content of your final project, but you have to ensure that your topic is something you have researched and that it is something that fits the medium you've chosen. In both this section and the previous one ("Description of Medium") you should be keeping in mind how your medium will shape your message. This section should be 500 words minimum, but you can write more.
Description of Medium (300-word minimum)
In this section, you'll describe which tool/medium you are choosing to use for the project and why. You should answer questions such as: How do you plan to convey the content you've chosen? Why is this medium the best fit for what you want to do? What did you learn about the tool during our workshop that you will be applying in the final project? What does this tool do well? What is it built to do, and how does that help you with your project? What are the tool's limitations, and how will that affect the way you use it? This section should be 300-words minimum, but you can write more.
Work Plan
This section is where you will lay out your plan for completing your project. Your proposal is due November 16, and your project is due December 5 prior to the start of class (on December 5 and 7, students will deliver presentations about their projects). In between the submission of your proposal and the submission of your project, you will have four in-class workshops during which you can work on your project and your final presentation, but you'll also need to complete work outside of class in order to complete everything.
This section needs to describe how you plan to get from November 16 to December 5. It should answer questions such as: What deadlines are you setting for yourself? What are the major and minor tasks you need to complete? When do you hope to have a rough draft or prototype of your project completed? How do you plan to seek feedback on your project from Prof. Brown and/or your classmates?
You can present this work plan however you'd like (as a list of dates and tasks, as a calendar, or any other format that best works for you), but it needs to make clear how you've broken the project into smaller steps, set deadlines for yourself, and made a plan for how you'll complete the project.
