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In-Class Writing 11/10: Project 3 Brainstorming

What issues are you considering focusing on and why?
What action and communities are already addressing those issues? What platforms and forms of media do they use?
How could you build on the existing conversation through your own media?
What platforms and forms of media are you considering using, and why?

Focus on the questions here that spark, and take note of the questions you can’t answer quite yet.

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Best Practices (and things to avoid) when advocating online

Avoid wordiness (especially for certain platforms)
Draw on a lot of visual aspects, using them to catch people’s attention, use bright images and things that stand out
Use hashtags and links on posts
Avoid using language that degrades a certain group of people
Be careful when engaging with comment debates
Playing with fonts, colors, weights and configurations of letters
Build a tone through aural speaking voice to illustrate the severity of the issue you are advocating for

What if...

You start a campaign/hashtag/or slogan and someone else picks it up but starts using it in a way that you disagree with, or starts using it satirically?
Someone else takes credit for a design, text, or hashtag that you’ve created?
You make a mistake--mislabel a photo, use the wrong image, accidentally spread misinformation, or misattribute a quote?
Someone raises a critique of your campaign that you agree with, or disagree with, but respect?

Strategic Questioning

Describing the Issue, Observation Question: What resonances and points of consensus did you observe in the reading? (The “ah-ha,” “yes!,” and “oh yeah…” moments.)
Strategic Question, Consider the Obstacles: What obstacles do you see to strategic questioning in your own life, work, and advocacy? What limitations or oversights did you notice in Peavey’s description of strategic questioning?
Strategic Question, Personal Action/Consider the Consequences: How might you draw on strategic questioning in your own field or community, either in connection to the advocacy project or not? What might the result be?

A Strategic Question...

...creates motion

...creates options

...digs deeper

...avoids “why?”

...avoids “yes or no” answers

...is empowering

...asks the unaskable questions

Image source: New Directions Collaborative

Trying Out Strategic Questioning

Take some time to think of strategic questions based on your own project, drawing on the guidance from the chapter
Choose the kinds of questions (p. 99-103) that open up the most options for your own issue, but aim for a mix of descriptive and strategic questions
Write the questions in a Google Doc shared with me and your partner (one per group). In pairs, ask your partner the questions. As the other person talks, take notes in your Doc on the answers to your questions. Consider how dynamic listening might open up follow-up questions without closing off alternatives or possibilities

The Waiting Game

What does this game illustrate about the issue of immigation? Is it advocacy, informational, or a combination of both?
How does this example draw together advocacy media with our first topic in the course, audience interactivity?
From a multimodal perspective, what do you find effective about this example?
What gaps does this example leave that could be filled with other connected media?