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, instructs, or explains something to your audience. 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 document. 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:
explain something, provide information
include pictures and words
teach people about something new or unknown
start with what I know and care about
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!
— capture audience’s attention
— teach them to do something that might be new to them
— explain using text and use photos to illustrate the text
— use pictures to keep people’s attention
— use pictures people can relate to (not too artistic or unrecognizable or anything)
— use language people will understand—like the newspaper
— explain terms that might be unfamiliar
— explain why it’s important to me
— explain why it might be important to others—answer the “So what?” question!
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.
D'Amato's notes on her Web site project
Related topics:
Identifying your audience’s needs and perspectives
Connecting with your audience
Recognizing an unintended audience