Assignments

On this page:

  1. Short Project Assignments
    1. Process Documentation
    2. Reflection Questions
    3. Where to put your completed assignment project link 
    4. Short Project Assignments
      1. Alt-Text
      2. Plain Language
      3. Found Footage Captions
      4. Audio Description Project: At the Vending Machine or Found Footage 
  2. Readings & Other Media
    1. Reading Response Prompts
  3. Creative Practice Workshop
    1. Workshop Description
  4. Midterm Project
    1. Midterm Project Description
  5. Final Project
    1. Final Project Description 

Short project Assignments

Each short project assignment will consist of the following: process documentation, reflection questions, and the completed project. 

1. process documentation

Documentation for these projects is crucial. Photograph & write about each stage of your creation process.  Be sure to highlight & write about your decisions as you work through these assignments. We want to know what worked, and how you got to where you wanted to get, but also (and maybe more importantly) what did not work. 

Be sure to include: 

      • photos & videos of each stage of the creation process
      • explanatory text accompanying the images and videos (what are we looking at or listening to)
      • text that tells the story of how you made this 

2. Reflection Questions

Answer the following questions in your blog for each assignment. 

      • What is the theme of the work?  
      • How is that theme particularly expressed through the modality of the week? 
      • Which elements of the work are beautifully/wonderfully/perfectly expressed through the modality?
      • Which elements are lost or inexpressible through the modality of the week?
      • Who does this project exclude? Who would not be able to interact with this work? Who is this modality not accessible for?
      • Now that you’ve identified who is excluded, what is one way you could remix this piece to include another population? (You don’t have to make this part, but think about it and write about it).

3. Completed Assignment

      • Post your assignment (including the final project, documentation, and reflection questions) on your process blog. 
      • Please submit the link to your project in the relevant assignment tab in Brightspace. 

4. SHORT PROJECTS

        • Alt-Text: 
          Choose the last three images you took on your phone.  Put them into this google slide template in any order and create a comic/storyboard. Focus on the interplay between alt text and captions, and use how they interact in an interesting, expressive way.  You can tell a story, or you could make non-narrative text-poem that is more impressionistic. There’s no “right” way to do this, so have fun and experiment! 
        • Plain Language
          1. Finish our classwork translation of “A Tree Grows In Brooklyn.”
          2. Choose one of your homework assignment descriptions from another class. Rewrite it in Plain Language. (Find a tough one filled with specialized language!)
        • Found Footage Captions
          Choose a film from this folder and caption a  five-minute segment of your choosing. Use creative captions to add meaning, mix it up, comment on the original. Use kinetic typography, editing, and any other creative means to turn the original inside out! 

        • Audio Description Project: At the Vending Machine or Found Footage 
        • Audio describe (inline or extended, or both, as you see fit) your creative captions video 
          OR: 
        • Write and shoot a short scene that has audio description built in.  The scene should be some scenario that takes place at the IDM vending machines! What can happen there? Anything you can think of! Be creative!
        • Your projects should be 5 minutes long. 
      •  

ReadingS & Other MEdia: RESPONSEs

Please post your responses on your blog by 8:00am the day it is due.

Your responses should be structured as follows. If there is more than one reading/media assigned, please answer questions for each one.  

    • A brief summary (3-5 sentences) – what was it about?
    • One takeaway – a professional insight you draw from the work/text/media, and that you think will be useful to keep in mind in the near or distant future
    • Connection to a real-world example – this could be something you thought of while exploring this work, something that is similar that reminds you of something in the field, a connection to another reading/discussion from class
    • A burning question that remains with you. This question can connect with other work you’ve been assigned or creative works we’ve discussed in class. 

Midterm Project

Your midterm assignment will be to add one additional mode of accessibility to one of your short projects, fine-tune your documentation, and create a polished portfolio presentation of all of your work. This portfolio will both showcase the core skills you have learned thus far, as well as your creative experiments around accessibility.

Final Project

After the midterm, we will spend the second half of the semester working with HeartShare, a Community Partner. This will be a multi-week project that will entail working directly with HeartShare participants to creatively develop accessible materials for their program. Each of you will create one multimodal project as your final creative piece for the class. 

Creative Practice Workshop

Give a presentation to the class on your individual creative practice. What is your artistic “origin story”? What do you love about this practice? What do you hate about it? What are your thoughts & ideas thus far about how these modes of accessibility we’ve covered fit into your creative practice? Where do they diverge? Design an activity for the class that illustrates the foundational principles of your creative practice.  Perhaps it’s a 10-minute crash course on video editing? A paper-weaving activity? A 3D modeling activity? A poetry-writing workshop?