Multi-Genre Public Awareness Campaign

I would like to create my essay about driving under the influence.

Description: Following your analysis of the rhetorical strategies of a text or texts, for this assignment, you will move from rhetorical analysis to production—that is, to demonstrating and implementing your own rhetorical strategies. You will make your own strategic rhetorical choices as you imagine, design, compose, and share your own multi-genre public awareness campaign, drawing on at least one textual genre and one visual or multimodal genre.

Purpose: Your purpose is to demonstrate rhetorical flexibility and an awareness of how to address a problem or issue across two different genres, media, and modes (textual and visual/multimodal). In keeping with the English 101 goals, this assignment will ask you to both 1) analyze multiple texts and contexts for their different purposes, audiences, subjects, and genres and 2) analyze, frame, and respond to differences (including differences of purpose, audience, genre, and conventions) in writing tasks by varying content, structure, and language in ways appropriate to the rhetorical context.

As our textbook notes, “To create a public awareness campaign, first you need to adequately articulate a public problem that needs to be solved.” Once you define a problem, you will develop campaign materials to address the problem by intervening, raising awareness, or motivating public action.

Audience: For this project, you will identify the topic, the genres, and the audience or audiences for your project, and a description or “campaign brief” will be turned in with the drafts and final version of the assignment.

Campaign Brief and Campaign Kit: You will write a campaign brief that spells out the problem, audience, goals, message, and methods for evaluating your campaign (see questions 1-5, p. 141-42 BR). You will also develop a campaign kit that describes in detail the specific campaign materials (2 different types of texts, one textual and one visual/multimodal) and rhetorical actions that will be part of your campaign.

Campaign materials: You will write about the same issue/problem but in two different genres that you will choose, one of which will be a text-based genre (an op ed, a public letter or newsletter, a press release, a fact sheet, a petition, etc.) and the other of which will be a visual or multimodal text (a flier or poster, a Facebook page, a website, a photo essay, a short video, a blog, an ad, a public service announcement, etc.). See the lists on p. 143-44 of Becoming Rhetorical for more information.

Process:

You should participate fully in in-class invention exercises to:

1) discover a topic that matters to you, and to formulate a rhetorical problem;

2) define your audience and identify stakeholders in a rhetorical problem;

3) create a public awareness campaign to draw attention to the problem or to motivate action

4) write a campaign brief defining the problem, audience, goals, message

5) create a campaign kit and campaign materials consisting of at least one textual genre and one visual or multimodal genre that will help you advocate for your issue and reach the stakeholders/audiences you identified

6) develop your campaign materials;

7) identify the rhetorical choices that will make your text most effective based on your rhetorical situations;

8) work with peers to identify, use, and communicate best practices for revision;

9) write a Reflection Essay that explains your rhetorical choices (see below).

Criteria For Evaluation:

• Clear focus on an issue and clearly defined position/thesis

• Solid development of the position, with appropriate background information and with claims that are well-supported with good reasons and evidence (examples, illustrations, etc.)

• Demonstration of effective use of rhetorical strategies (use of appeals to logos, pathos, and ethos; effective style and format, use of visuals; effective tone and language)

• Effective use of appropriate format, genres, and modes of communication (and deployment of rhetorical strategies that define these genres/modes) to advocate for a position