Final project: Story portfolio

Due by 3:00 PM on Thursday, December 21, 2017

Stories are how we translate core, essential content to different forms for specific audiences. Throughout this course, you have become an expert in doing this. Now you get to show off your shiny new skills.

For your final project, you will create a collection of stories for an academic research article that you’ve already selected. Here’s what you need to do and make. Pay attention—there are a lot of moving parts.

Big Idea

1. Write a one-paragraph summary of your article and its main findings
2. Condense the Big Idea of your research paper into a single sentence, following Duarte’s instructions in chapter 4

Outline for a 60-minute talk

1. Identify the (1) main audience, (2) audience segments, and (3) the benefits and risks for each of the segments for a hypothetical 60-minute talk
2. Using Word, write a detailed outline for the talk. You can include a skeleton PowerPoint presentation with figures, images, and other graphic elements.
3. Write a description of your outline, explaining the following:
   • Who is your audience, what are its segments, and what are the benefits and risks for each of those segments?
   • How do you establish what is? How do you envision what could be? What kind of narrative contrast do you use to get there?
   • What evidence and facts will you present, and when?
   • How is the structure of the talk connected to your audience segmentation analysis?
   • How does the presentation guide your audience on a journey to change and accept your big idea?
   • What rhetorical devices or graphical elements will you use to create STAR moments?

10-minute presentation

1. Identify the (1) main audience, (2) audience segments, and (3) the benefits and risks for each of the segments for an actual 10-minute talk
2. Using Word, write a brief outline for the talk.
3. Using PowerPoint, create a well-designed presentation to tell your story to your audience
4. During the final exam for the class, present the presentation to the class
5. Write a description of your presentation, explaining the following:
   • Who is your audience, what are its segments, and what are the benefits and risks for each of those segments?
   • How do you establish what is? How do you envision what could be? What kind of narrative contrast do you use to get there?
   • What evidence and facts do you present, and when?
   • How is the structure and design of the presentation connected to your audience segmentation analysis?
   • How does the presentation guide your audience on a journey to change and accept your big idea?
   • What rhetorical devices or graphical elements will you use to create STAR moments?
   • How did you apply the principles of CRAP to your presentation?

2-page policy brief

1. Identify the (1) main audience, (2) audience segments, and (3) the benefits and risks for each of the segments for a 2-page policy brief
2. Using Word, write the text for the brief
3. Using Excel or R, create at least two figures (bar charts, scatterplots, maps, etc.) based on the data in the research article.
4. Using Illustrator, enhance the figures by highlighting trends, adding annotations, helpful captions, etc. Ensure that you follow the best practices you learned from Nussbaumber Knaflic’s Storytelling with Data (review chapter 8).
5. Place the Word file and the PDFs you enhanced with Illustrator into InDesign and create a well-designed brief (similar to what you did in Project 1).
6. Write a description of your brief, explaining the following:
   • Who is your audience, what are its segments, and what are the benefits and risks for each of those segments?
   • How do you establish what is? How do you envision what could be? What kind of narrative contrast do you use to get there?
   • What evidence and facts do you present, and when?
   • How is the structure and design of the brief connected to your audience segmentation analysis?
   • How does the brief guide your audience on a journey to change and accept your big idea?
   • What rhetorical devices or graphical elements will you use to create STAR moments?
   • How did you apply the principles of CRAP to your brief?

800-word op-ed

1. Identify the (1) main audience, (2) audience segments, and (3) the benefits and risks for each of the segments for an 800-word op-ed that could hypothetically be published in an actual newspaper (either Utah-based, such as the Salt Lake Tribune or Deseret News, or national, such as the Washington Post or New York Times)
2. Using Word, write the text for the op-ed
3. Write a description of your op-ed, explaining the following:
   • Who is your audience, what are its segments, and what are the benefits and risks for each of those segments?
   • How do you establish what is? How do you envision what could be? What kind of narrative contrast do you use to get there?
   • What evidence and facts do you present, and when?
   • How is the structure of the op-ed connected to your audience segmentation analysis?
   • How does the op-ed guide your audience on a journey to change and accept your big idea?
   • What rhetorical devices or graphical elements will you use to create STAR moments?

400-word blog post

1. Identify the (1) main audience, (2) audience segments, and (3) the benefits and risks for each of the segments for a 400-word blog post that could hypothetically be published by a blog that specializes in the subject matter of your article
2. Using Word, write the text for the blog post
3. Write a description of your blog post, explaining the following:
   • Who is your audience, what are its segments, and what are the benefits and risks for each of those segments?
   • How do you establish what is? How do you envision what could be? What kind of narrative contrast do you use to get there?
   • What evidence and facts do you present, and when?
   • How is the structure of the blog post connected to your audience segmentation analysis?
   • How does the blog post guide your audience on a journey to change and accept your big idea?
   • What rhetorical devices or graphical elements will you use to create STAR moments?

3-tweet thread

1. Identify the (1) main audience, (2) audience segments, and (3) the benefits and risks for each of the segments for a thread of three tweets
2. Write the text for the tweets. Nowadays, tweets have a 280-character limit. Tweets can include up to four pictures and one link without penalizing your character count, so you might want to take advantage of images or screenshots. Follow @JohnHolbein1 for good examples of how to potentially do this.
3. Write a description of your tweets, explaining the following:
   • Who is your audience, what are its segments, and what are the benefits and risks for each of those segments?
   • How do you establish what is? How do you envision what could be? What kind of narrative contrast do you use to get there?
   • What evidence and facts do you present, and when?
   • How is the structure of the thread of tweets connected to your audience segmentation analysis?
   • How does the thread of tweets guide your audience on a journey to change and accept your big idea?
   • What rhetorical devices or graphical elements will you use to create STAR moments?
4. If you have a Twitter account, post the thread. To create a thread, reply to the previous tweet.That is, post the first tweet, reply to it, post the second tweet in the reply, reply to that, and post the third tweet in the reply to the second. If you actually post your thread, I want to see it—reply one more time and tag me (@andrewheiss) in the fourth tweet.
   
   

A single tweet

1. Identify the (1) main audience, (2) audience segments, and (3) the benefits and risks for each of the segments for a single tweet.
2. Write the text for the tweet. Again, nowadays, tweets have a 280-character limit.
3. Write a description of your tweet, explaining the following:
   • Who is your audience, what are its segments, and what are the benefits and risks for each of those segments?
   • How do you establish what is? How do you envision what could be? What kind of narrative contrast do you use to get there?
   • What evidence and facts do you present, and when?
   • How is the structure of the tweet connected to your audience segmentation analysis?
   • How does the tweet guide your audience on a journey to change and accept your big idea?
   • What rhetorical devices or graphical elements will you use to create STAR moments?
4. If you have a Twitter account, post the tweet.If you actually post your tweet, I want to see it—reply to it and tag me (@andrewheiss) in the second tweet.
   
   

Complete portfolio

Once you’ve created all these different story forms, compile them into a single PDF (using InDesign will likely be the easiest way to do this). Please look at this example of a final portfolio to see how you might structure your project.

Final deliverables

⊕

In the end, I need the following outputs from you:

• A single PDF of your complete portfolio, uploaded to Learning Suite by 3:00 PM on Thursday, December 21.
• A 10-minute in-person presentation, completed between 3:00–6:00 PM on Thursday, December 21. You should plan on attending the whole exam period to watch everyone else’s presentations.

No late work will be accepted for this project since it counts as your final exam.

Each element of the portfolio will be graded on how well you tell a story that is appropriate to its given audience, and (where applicable), how well you apply the principles of CRAP and data visualization. I will use this rubric to grade the final project.

⊕

I am happy to give feedback and help along the way—just not at, like, 2 PM on the day it’s due. Please don’t hesitate to come and get help!

And that’s it. You’re done! Go out into the world now and tell powerful, persuasive, and truthful stories.