Student composer Alyson D’Amato was assigned to create an informative text—that is, a text that teaches readers about a topic. D’Amato began thinking about what she needed to do by reviewing the assignment for the project.
assignment for an informative project
Think about the ways in which information is provided in our culture. Your assignment is to take a subject that’s familiar to you and to compose a multimodal project that informs or instructs your audience or explains something to them. You can create a slide show presentation, a Web site, a brief video, or something else. Engage your audience, make your purpose clear, deliver your information, and provide enough examples so that your audience comes away with a good grasp of the topic.
From the assignment, D’Amato knew she needed to create an informative, explanatory piece. She knew that she was expected to produce a multimodal project. Her instructor invited students to choose a topic they were interested in.
When D’Amato received the assignment, she analyzed her purpose. Her initial notes looked something like this:
D’Amato’s instructor provided the initial, formal purpose for the project: to create an informative piece. D’Amato decided that she had to do some additional prewriting to help her determine why the topic mattered to her.
My purpose: Create something about brewing your own tea and teaching people how to do so. I love tea and make my own teas—I want to teach other people that making tea means more than dunking a tea bag in a mug!
It’s fine to start out fairly broad, but before you begin drafting and creating, you’ll want to have a strong sense of what you want and need to accomplish with your multimodal composition. D’Amato’s notes provide a good model for how you might start thinking about your purpose.