Outcome 2:
Produce with a Purpose 

The “why” behind composing is so important. If we don’t know what or who we are creating for, our work will lack purpose and cohesion. There should be a guiding goal or “stake(s)”. 

 

It is easy for me to just start writing words, but a lot of times, the things I create are not clearly connected. This course helped me focus my work and boil down my compositions to a few main ideas. I had to clearly compose with a specific audience and stakes in mind. For example, for my pitch bible, instead of writing to a general broadcasting service or PBS as a whole, I chose a very specific audience: Cecilia Loving, Senior Vice President of DEI. Through choosing a very specific audience, I was able to tailor my arguments to appeal to Loving. I drew on our similarities as women of color who both advocate for inclusion. I also demonstrated this outcome in my time capsule “listicle”. I had a target audience of Gen Z parents who wanted to do a fun family activity. This audience guided what graphics I chose, songs and snacks I recommended, and more. 

 

Meeting genre conventions was most evident in the podcast and pitch bible assignments. For the podcast, Leah and I had intro and outro music. We also both introduced ourselves and had audio clips throughout. These aspects are all typical of podcasts. The audio clips are especially helpful in podcasts that analyze media that use the aural mode. The pitch bible was supposed to emulate a professional cover letter, in the form of a persuasive letter. Thus, I had a header like one would find on a cover letter. I had a formal greeting and closing, and I added my signature for another professional touch. Finally, my time capsule was supposed to be a fun and informative infographic. Consequently, I tried to cut down the amount of text and have fun graphics. 

 

Throughout this whole course, I have been pushed to think not only about creating in one mode, but in all the modes simultaneously. The best example of this was my pitch bible: I chose a cohesive rainbow theme for the cover letter. I based the theme off of Kidz Bop albums and kept in mind that children like fun, bold colors. Tied closely to the visual mode is the spatial mode. For this project, I tried to space out text and any images and leave enough margin space. (Related to outcome four, I realize I can do a better job with proximity and white space!). 

 

Another key aspect of outcome three is composing collaboratively. I effectively collaborated with my peers on numerous projects this quarter. Most noticeably were the pitch presentations and retrospective podcast. For the presentation, my group adapted my pitch bible. One aspect I really liked was having “Anti Bias ABCs” albums for certain genres. We made a cohesive and aesthetically pleasing presentation and were able to effectively engage our audience. We all used the power of the linguistic and gestural mode while presenting, which was aided by our powerful visuals. Our skit also helped! For the podcast, I collaborated with Leah. We watched Frozen separately so we could come in with our own ideas. We then sat together and drafted the script together, updating it later on to incorporate feedback from peers. We were able to learn from each other when it came to the editing process, each trying our hand at Audacity.