| Assignment | Written | Oral | Visual | Electronic |
| 1. Summary | Identify an author’s main ideas and recast them in your own words. Recapitulate others’ ideas accurately and with respect. Enter into another writer’s point of view. Use proper MLA citation for the text you summarize. Remain objective. | With a partner who has read but not summarized the essay you are working with, discuss how you chose the main ideas and made diction and emphasis decisions. Check to see if your partner feels your summary is accurate and neutral. | Use appropriate MLA document formatting. Refer to Everyday Writer, p. 457. | Bring an electronic draft of your summary to lab class for work. If required, submit the essay electronically for grading. |
| 2. Textual Rhetorical Analysis | Identify and analyze the rhetorical strategies an author uses to achieve his/her purpose in a text. Select three or four distinct strategies, explain how and why the author uses them, and use examples from the text. Use proper MLA citation for the written text you analyze. Analyze, don’t summarize. Remain objective. | With a partner who has read but not analyzed the essay you are working with, discuss why the strategies you selected are important to the achievement of the author’s purpose. | Use appropriate MLA document formatting. Refer to Everyday Writer, p. 457. | Bring an electronic draft of your textual rhetorical analysis to lab class for work. If required, submit the essay electronically for grading. |
| 3. Visual Rhetorical Analysis | Identify and analyze the visual rhetorical strategies an artist or designer uses to achieve his/her purpose in a visual “text.” Select three or four distinct strategies, explain how and why the artist or designer uses them to achieve the text’s purpose, and use specific examples. Use proper MLA citation for the visual text you analyze. Analyze, don’t simply describe. Remain objective. | With a partner who has not analyzed the visual “text” you are working with, discuss why the strategies you selected are important to the achievement of the artist’s/designer’s purpose. Model analysis through informal presentations to class. | Integrate supporting photographs into analysis essay. Use proper techniques for positioning, sizing, and labeling your images. Refer to Everyday Writer, p. 228. | Bring an electronic draft of your analysis to lab class for work. If required, submit the essay electronically for grading. Use online campus materials to support your analysis but cite sources and do not plagiarize. |
| 4. Argument and Persuasion/Documented Research | Develop your own arguments by supporting your ideas with sources. Use summary, paraphrase, direct quotation appropriately and use standard documentation. This project may be an argument, or it may be a mediated argument in which you look for the roots of disagreement about an issue as well as areas in which various sides may be able to agree. | Share your work with your classmates through an informal presentation. | Support the oral presentation with a poster or slides, using effective design techniques. | Do some of your research using online sources, cited correctly. Create the poster and/or slides using appropriate software. |
| 5. ISUComm ePortfolio | Create an electronic portfolio that shows your growth. In addition to thoroughly revising one paper/project, trace your semester’s multimodal communication work. Discuss your growth, changes, successes, and challenges, as well as your goals for improvement during your ISU academic career. Include reflections for pieces in your portfolio, according to your instructor’s directions. | You will have a planning conference with your instructor about the pieces to include in your portfolio. Come to this conference with your portfolio planning worksheet and some ideas already generated. | Carefully and thoughtfully present your semester’s work in a “showcase” form. Organize it, label the artifacts, and make connections among the pieces clear. | Carefully follow your instructor’s directions and test your final product (ISUComm ePortfolio) to be sure it functions properly. Submit it to your instructor in the requested digital format. |