Rhetorical Reflection

For the second part of the project, you’ll write a 1000-word text in which you reflect on and evaluate the rhetorical and other choices you made in developing your multimedia project. Your reflection will address questions like:

• How and why did you decide on your particular topic for your multimedia piece? How does it connect to your earlier work in our course?
• What is the purpose of your multimedia piece?
• Who is your audience for your multimedia piece? How and why did you decide on this audience?
• How did you decide on your genre and medium for your multimedia piece?
• In what specific ways did you tailor your multimedia piece to your audience?
• What design or other challenges did you face, and how did you address them?
• How effective do you think your multimedia piece is?
• What new things did you learn about your topic or concept in the process of re-imagining or re-mixing your earlier work?

Audience
The audience for your rhetorical reflection should be your teacher and classmates.

Format, Media, and Design
For your rhetorical reflection, the format, media, and design are also up to you. Maybe you’ll write a traditional essay in MLA format. Maybe you’ll write in the form of a letter to your classmates. Maybe you’ll write in the form of a blog post. Or something else!

Evidence / Documentation
You are not required to use sources in your rhetorical reflection, but if you do use them, you’ll need to document them.

A few other things to keep in mind:

• The rhetorical reflection is the place where you’ll give your readers (teacher and classmates) the context for your multimedia piece. Tell us why you wanted to create it, how it connects to other things you’ve written or researched in this course, how it connects to your own experience and interests.
• The rhetorical reflection is also the place where you’ll explain why and how you made the rhetorical decisions you made for your multimedia piece. Tell us why you chose things like: design elements (font, images, etc.), sound and music (if applicable), use of language, length of the piece, the types of support or evidence you used, etc.
• Think about how you might want to structure your reflection. Do you want to use a chronological organization, following the step-by-step completion of your project? Do you want to discuss each point of your rhetorical situation (purpose, audience, genre, etc.)? Something else?
• Think about format, media, and design. There are lots of possibilities here, as the assignment prompt suggests above!