First, make sure you have read Chapter 6, “Designing Illustrations,” in The Essentials of Technical Communication and then consider the following questions.
What kinds of documents will you create as a professional in your field? Which of these kinds of documents will need to include illustrations? What kinds of illustrations will you need for these documents? In what contexts have you noticed the most helpful illustrations? The most distracting?
Compare Frost’s “The Road not Taken” and Thomas’ “Do not Go Gentle into that Good Night” and discuss the extent to which each poet is able to convey thoughts subtler and more profound than an initial reading of his poem might suggest.
Monuments and Memorials
Here are some of the questions you may wish to answer about the monument. What is the purpose of the monument? How does it make its claim? What rhetorical strategies are in play to make that argument? What are its strengths and weaknesses, its most appealing and most unattractive elements?
What is being contested here? Who is empowered by it, and who is disempowered? What story is it telling us about history?
What does the world look like from your point of view?
Describe where you are and the colors, shapes, and interesting views you can see. Imagine what you would be able to smell, hear, and/or taste and describe those things.
How do you relate to the people, creatures, or objects around you?
Describe your emotions. What does it feel like to be you?
The Harlem renaissance ( what it was, where it was and who was involved):Discuss?
Write an argumentative essay in which you state and defend a claim about whether it is ethical to target uninformed consumers.
Literacy and Mobility
How can transnationalism, English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), and translingualism help us understand the new cultural networks that are taking shape in the context of international migration? What are the possibilities for literacy and language to help forge new relationships across linguistic and cultural differences?
Take a look at the video “Similarities Between Spanish and Arabic,” produced by Annenberg Media, a student-run news organization at the University of Southern California:
What do you notice about how the two students react to each other as they discover the underlying similarities between Arabic and Spanish? What’s the role of English in this video? Would you say this video is for Arabic speakers, Spanish speakers, English speakers, or some combination of all three?
How can the similarities between these languages be explained by the historical migration or mobility of the Moors? What does this example suggest about how mobility and migration shape language, identity, and culture?
DURING THE MOVIE:
Who are the 5 most important characters in the film? Also list the names 5 of the actors playing these characters.
What is this story about? Be very detailed!
What group of people would like this movie (demographics)?
Did you like this movie? Why or why not?
What rating would you give this movie?
What spoilers might ruin the movie for viewers if you told them about it?
All movies teach a lesson (theme/moral). What did you learn from this one?
What title would you give your review (and can you think of a pun that might work for it)?
Discuss the overall argument(s) your text makes, how it conveys that purpose/argument, initial reactions to genre conventions employed (what makes it “dystopian” or “speculative fiction” ? What does it have in common with either “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” or “The Ones Who Stay and Fight?”) and then close read one passage or scene. The blog post should be one 750-1000 word article.
What sub assemblies and components does the technology contain and how do they work? One approach you can consider taking here is to choose some elemental particle that the technology works with and describe how it is processed by the technology. Using the engine as an example, you could consider describing how a drop of fuel enters the engine, gets mixed with air, results in combustion, whose gases then expand, etc. This should be the most substantial portion of your final presentation.
What enabling technologies were/are required to make this new technology possible? One thing you’re bound to find is that modern scientists “stand on the shoulders of giants”- their work is based on the work of the scientists that came before them. What relevant discoveries were needed to make this new technology possible?
What is the future of this technology? What advancements are scientists trying to come up with and what will we want them to do?
