PROJECT #2: CIVIC ENGAGEMENT PROJECT

PROJECT #2: CIVIC ENGAGEMENT PROJECT

 

Due Date: 12/6 midnight

Length: the length of the act of civic engagement is at your discretion; the explanation must be 800-1000 words

Formatting: the act of civic engagement is formatted at your discretion; the explanation should be in Times New Roman format

Grade Value: 20%

 

OVERVIEW:

In this project, you’ll identify some sort of communicative action you can take in order to try to make your community a better place to be (at the local, state-wide, or national level).  Your communicative action can take any form; for example, you might create a poster or pamphlet, as you did for the civic engagement challenge.  But you might instead write a letter to a politician or business person, craft an open letter designed to circulate via social media, write some postcards to voters (see: postcardstovoters.org), or do something else entirely.  You’ll then take that action, either individually or in conjunction with a larger social movement, thereby becoming civically engaged.  You’ll then write up an explanation of what you did.

 

REQUIREMENTS:

PART ONE: The Act

Your act of civic engagement should…

• The purpose of your letter, poster, or pamphlet, or other communicative act should be clear
• It should employ a feasible strategy for motivating change
• It should use rhetorical strategies effectively
• It should be appropriately designed for your target audience
• It should be well-written/visually well-crafted

 

PART TWO: The Explanation   

You’ll write up an explanation of how your act of civic engagement satisfies each of the 5 evaluative criteria above, drawing on the course readings/lectures.  You should copy and paste the 5 criteria above into a new document and explain each one separately [this should not take the form of an essay].

 

Grading: Refer to the next page for the rubric I will use for grading.  I recommend reading it closely prior to turning in your assignment.  Incomplete projects will be penalized based on the percentage completed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grading Rubric

 

	D-level work or below	C-level work	B-level work	A-level work
Purpose & feasibility	Your act of civic engagement is lacking in clarity of purpose/feasibility in some significant way and/or is carelessly executed.	You do some good work in your act of civic engagement, but the purpose could be clearer/more feasible and/or the project is off track in some way.	Your act of civic engagement has a clear sense of purpose, is feasible, and is thoughtfully executed, though there is some room for improvement	Your act of civic engagement has a clear and compelling purpose.  The act is highly feasible and impressively well executed.
Written Explanation: General	Offers little substantive in the way of an account of how the act of civic engagement satisfied the criteria for the assignment.	Offers an account of how the act of civic engagement satisfied the criteria for the assignment, but the account could be stronger and/or more fully developed and/or better supported by evidence.	Offers a competent account of how the act of civic engagement satisfied the criteria for the assignment, supported by good evidence.	Offers a very effective account of how the act satisfied the criteria for the assignment, supported by strong evidence.
Written Explanation: Engagement with the Readings	The explanation makes minimal, ineffective and/or no use of the ideas/concepts discussed in the readings and in class.	The explanation makes some use of the ideas/concepts discussed in the readings and in class, but it could be a good bit more effective in this regard.	The explanation competently employs ideas/concepts discussed in in the readings and in class, though there is room for improvement.	The explanation makes highly skilled use of the ideas/concepts discussed in the readings and in class
Presentation/Style	Involves excessive grammatical, punctuation, and/or mechanical errors that disrupt the message.	Involves some distracting grammatical, punctuation, and/or mechanical errors.	The discussion is generally well written, though there is room for some improvement in editing/proofreading.	The project is easy and fun to read.  It adheres to usage standards, with only minor errors.