Digital

Communications Packet
Description & Grading Rubric

WRTG 3040: Writing on/in Business and Society, D. Singer

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Description & Purpose

By the start of class on Friday, November 21, 2014, please submit, through the
Discussion Forum in D2L, a concerted set of digital compositions designed to
work TOGETHER in order a) to get a targeted audience in the post-opportunity-
bargain employment economy to think and feel something specific about you (that,
for example, you are probably a competent, reliable, good-to-work-with person who
would be a good fit for his/her field/profession/organization) and b) to get that
audience to do something specific in response (like bring you in for an interview).

Youll begin by setting up the ARGUMENT that youre going to try to make
persuasive to that AUDIENCE using a range of texts youll post online.

Then, youll do a bit of RESEARCH and ANALYSIS to understand the
rhetorical situation and genres involved (which will include Websites,
Emails, Social Media Profiles, and YouTube Professional/Business-Videos).

Then, youll work up a DRAFT of these documents designed specifically to
work together in making your argument to your audience, WORKSHOP them
with your colleagues and REVISE, and then SUBMIT them with a careful
analysis of the ways digital texts you produced actually demonstrate your
growth and developing transfer-ability.

Our purpose is two-fold: first, to test your ability to use what youre learning about
genre, rhetoric, and transfer to help you succeed in the DIGITALLY ENHANCED post-
opportunity-bargain employment economy, and, second, to help you develop both a
set of products you can immediately use to succeed in that economy and a process
you can use anytime you want to use digital technologies to effectively persuade and
communicate with targeted audiences.

Ultimately, what you will LEARN in this unit is:

1) How to TRANSFER business writing skills and knowledge from page-based
composing (as in the Job Application Packet) to digital composing) as a method by
which to:

FURTHER develop and practice Rhetorically-Informed Critical Thinking Skills
and Strategies

FURTHER develop and utilize a Practical Knowledge of The Rhetorical

Situation in Context
FURTHER develop a Practical Knowledge of Sophisticated and Varied Writing
Processes

2) How to USE all that learning to develop and execute a MULTI-document,
MULTI-modal, MULTI-genre plan for persuading a target audience in the
business community through a collection of web-based texts youve developed to
work in together to make that audience think and feel something specific about you
as a professional in the post-opportunity-bargain employment economy.

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Grading

(We will assess your work using the following rubric)

Excellent (90+%)

1) By Reading/Analyzing the Digital Communications Packet texts youve provided, I can see
that you appear to have successfully developed and executed a complex and cohesive multi-
modal, multi-genre, multi-text plan to persuade a targeted audience in the post-
opportunity-bargain employment economy to do and think something specific after looking you
up online.

2) AND, by Reading/Analyzing your Digital Communications Packet texts & Analysis of how
that material actually demonstrates your Growth and developing Transfer-Abilities, I can
see that your materials appear to consciously demonstrate observable growth in ALL
THREE of the following areasyou have accomplished nearly all of the items in those
categories (details for each category are listed on the following pages):

Rhetorically-Informed Critical Thinking Skills and Strategies

Practical Knowledge of the Rhetorical Situation(s) and the Genre(s)

Practical Knowledge of Sophisticated and Varied Writing Processes

Effective and Satisfactory (75+%)

1) By Reading/Analyzing the Digital Communications Packet texts youve provided, I can see
that you appear to have at least somewhat successfully developed and executed a complex
and cohesive, multi-modal, multi-genre, multi-text plan to persuade a targeted audience
in the post-opportunity-bargain employment economy to do and think something specific after
looking you up online, though further revision is recommended.

2) AND, by Reading/Analyzing your Digital Communications Packet texts & Analysis of your
Growth and developing Transfer-Abilities, I can see that your materials appear to
consciously demonstrate observable growth in AT LEAST TWO of the areas listed above
(even if you only accomplish two of the items in each category).

Not Quite There, Yet (50+%)

1) By Reading/Analyzing the Digital Communications Packet texts youve provided, I can
see that you appear to have not yet successfully developed and executed a complex and
cohesive, multi-modal, multi-genre, multi-text plan to persuade a targeted audience in the
post-opportunity-bargain employment economy to do and think something specific after
looking you up online, though further revision would definitely be required.

2) AND/OR, by Reading/Analyzing your Digital Communications Packet texts & Analysis of
your Growth and developing Transfer-Abilities, I can see that your materials appear to
consciously demonstrate observable growth in NO MORE THAN ONE of the areas listed
above (or that you do not yet appear to have accomplished several of the items across the three
categories).

Details

(What We Are SPECIFICALLY Looking For In Each Area)

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GREEN and *** designates an item I MUST SEE in your Analysis of Demonstrated
Growth and Transfer-Ability in order to be able to observe it and give you credit.
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1) Rhetorically-Informed Critical Thinking Skills and Strategies

You appear to have effectively established a coherent professional ethos for

yourself online that is clearly and obviously relevant to your field/profession/a
particular type of job you want to have (thereby demonstrating your ability to
analyze issues, problems, or opportunities relevant to your field or profession)

***You appear to have selected appropriate sources through which to a) research

the technologies of digital communications and b) to gather appropriate material to
post on your social media profiles and elsewhere (thereby demonstrating your ability
to evaluate information sources for relevance, validity, and credibility)

You appear to have made ONE reasonably focused and persuasive argument
using your website, email, social media profiles, and video that is COHESIVE (all
these documents work together to make your ONE overall argument clear and
persuasive)and that, within these documents, you effectively employ an
organizational pattern that makes the argument appear consistent and logical by
foregrounding action-claims, following action-claims with clear and effective
examples/context, and then making it clear how the examples/context provided
actually show the action-claims to be true (thereby demonstrating your ability to
frame issues, to utilize evidence and sound reasoning, and to employ rhetorical
strategies to produce a coherent and persuasive argument).


2) Practical Knowledge of Rhetorical Situation(s) and Genre(s)

You appear to have effectively utilized non-verbal/visual/auditory rhetoric (as

document design, for example) in all your materials to a) cue your intended
audience to see the documents in the target genre and b) direct the attention of your
audience to the information he/she would find most important and c) make you
target audience actually think and feel a certain way about you (thereby
demonstrating your ability to analyze the professional and, as appropriate, societal
context of issues, problems, or opportunities; to understand writing and other forms
of communications as collaborative dialogues between authors and others; and to
understand how constraints such as time, resources, professional protocols,
conflicting obligations, or political pressures influence any rhetorical situation).

***You appear to have effectively analyzed the rhetorical situation youre in as a

person composing digital materials to be found online by targeted audiences in the
post-opportunity-bargain employment economy who my be looking you up to
decide whether or not to interview youand you have used that analysis to figure
out what to include in and exclude from all your digital materials (like specific
words and phrases, images, sound, etc.) based on what your target audience likely
values and is likely looking for in an applicant for a specific type of job or internship
opportunity at a specific type of company (thereby demonstrating your ability to
analyze the values, perspectives, and expectations of specific audiences, and to use
field-specific language appropriate for other professionals that, where appropriate,
remains intelligible to a non-expert audience).

You appear to have effectively analyzed the genres and modes involved in
producing a basic professional presence for yourself online (Personal-Professional
Websites, Emails, FB/LinkdIn Profiles, and Professional Intro Videos) and you have
successfully USED that analysis to produce documents that effectively manage the
conventions of those genres and modes so that these documents are clearly designed
to WORK TOGETHER to get a targeted audience to think something specific about you
and to do something specific after looking you up online (thereby demonstrating your
ability to base rhetorical strategies on an advanced understanding of audience and a
highly focused purpose, and to shape rhetorical strategies from an advanced
understanding of elements of genre, persuasion, voice, and style).

3) Practical Knowledge of Sophisticated and Varied Writing Processes

***You appear to have successfully drafted your Digital Communications materials

based on some initial reading/research about the genres and rhetorical situations at
hand, to have successfully workshopped your materials and those of your
colleagues, and to have successfully revised and edited your materials using the
information gathered from your workshop experience and any additional resources
you selected to read/view (thereby demonstrating your ability to understand
writing as an ongoing, recursive process that requires multiple drafts, as well as
various strategies for developing, revising, and editing texts, and to develop skill in
critiquing works in progress, whether your own work or that of your colleagues).

You appear to have successfully produced finalized materials that are clear,
generally free of linguistic and typographical errors that would harm your
professional ethos, and conciseunderstanding the difference between writing
that is concise and writing that is simply short (thereby demonstrating your
ability to convey meaning through concise, precise, highly readable language and
understand options for shaping meaning through syntax and diction, and to use
standard grammar and mechanics and develop the habit of proofreading).

You appear to have successfully managed the electronic submission of files to

your target audience by submitting your website and video as working LINKS, your
email(s) and screenshots of your FB/LinkdIn profiles, and Analysis in PDF-format in
order to a) preserve your document design and b) enable your target audience to
open and view the document easily, almost regardless of the type of computer and/or
software that audience owns, and that you have saved the file(s) with a rhetorically
appropriate and effective file name that clearly anticipates your target audiences
experience of likely having many files to deal with, several of which will be simply and
inappropriately saved as analysis or profiles or the like (thereby demonstrating
your ability to effectively use information technologies in communication).