Introduction for Instructors

This series of assignments is designed to form the final semester project in an upper-division writing course, taking 2-3 weeks of class to complete. Students begin with an informal project proposal, then create an original data visualization for use in the project, then draft and workshop the text to accompany the visualization. The final deliverable may assume numerous forms, including op/ed, white paper, or multimedia project.

Note: this sequence forms the culminating assignment in a semester-long course dedicated to data advocacy. It assumes all students have had significant scaffolding and practice in finding and analyzing datasets, making quantitative arguments, visualizing data, and workshopping each other’s writing. The data visualization portion has been uploaded as a separate assignment sequence on this website (link forthcoming), and the process of workshopping and revising the document is not addressed here.

Student samples created in response to this assignment can be found in the Student Showcase on this website: (links forthcoming)

The student-facing instructions for the assignments are as follows:

Assignment 1: Write a Plan A and Plan B for Your Individual Data Advocacy Project

Each of you will complete an individual project in data advocacy this semester, with a publishable deliverable. All projects will contain an original data visualization of some kind, which we will draft and workshop separately from the rest of the project. You can choose the topic you are going to write about. Each of your two proposed plans should

Explain the position you plan to take on the topic/issue/problem;
Explain the data or dataset you plan to use and how it can help your argument;
Explain the genre in which you plan to create;
Explain how or where your project could be published or delivered to the target audience.

Ideally, you would already have access to the data you wish to use, but I am open to proposals that would involve scraping data from the web or obtaining it from other sources, if that seems feasible in the time available.

When it comes to genre and outlet, here are a few options for you:

If you are advocating on a national issue, maybe you would want to write an opinion article for a national publication that accepts submissions, such as Medium or Slate.
If you are advocating on a local issue, maybe an opinion article or letter to the editor to the Daily Camera or another local venue might be a good choice.
If you are trying to change the minds of policymakers and want to take a more technical approach, perhaps you would want to write a white paper or a recommendation report.
Rather than a written argument with a data visualization incorporated, you might want to design a powerful data visualization with some written explanation – i.e. the viz could be the focus and the text could be peripheral.
I am open to proposals for more multimedia-based projects along the lines of videos, podcasts, or content for social media.

I recommend against proposing “a website” because in my experience, websites tend to be ignored unless they are backed by sustained and organized campaigns. If you want to bounce ideas around this week, just shoot me an email or drop by office hours. I look forward to reading your proposals!

Assignment 2: Drafting the Individual Project

It’s time to build an argument around the data visualization you have drafted. This first complete draft will have the following components:

A cover page

Everybody’s final project should start with a separate cover page. Your classmates and I are the audience for this cover page; assume that the audience of your project will never see it. On the cover page for me and your classmates, write your name and a brief explanation of the following:

Explain the position you plan to take on the topic/issue/problem;
Explain the audience you are targeting and the effect you want to have on them;
Explain the genre in which you plan to create;
Explain how or where your project could be published or delivered to the target audience.

You already wrote most of the above in your Plan A / Plan B assignment, so if your project hasn’t changed since then, you can reuse text from that assignment if it applies. If your final project is not in document form (such as an interactive viz or an infographic image), then please upload the cover page as a separate document. It’s important for me and your peer reviewers to know what you are trying to create and what effect you want it to have – otherwise we can’t give you effective feedback.

A complete draft of your argument, including the revised visualization

This is a first draft, so it doesn’t have to be perfect, but I do want it to include all the key pieces of your argument, including your original data visualization, revised in accordance with the feedback you received. Please credit all sources of data and other research you have gathered, both in the visualization and wherever else your project uses research. Credit sources in a manner appropriate to the genre you have chosen. The number of words in the final project may vary. If in doubt about length, formatting, how to credit sources, etc., seek out examples of the genre and look to them as models. I am not asking you for a formal genre analysis in this project, but the success of your deliverables will hinge in part on how well you have grasped the conventions of your chosen genre. If you run into questions, shoot me an email.

Student samples

Multiple samples of student work generated from this assignment can be found in the Student Showcase on this website.