Sample Assignments | Visual-Spatial Public Argument
Critical Observations of the Everyday: A Visual-Spatial Public Argument
As a final project for this course, students are asked to create a visual-spatial public argument that draws upon their spontaneous composing log entries. Students present this project at the University of Arizona Writing Program's Visual-Spatial Showcase held at the end of each spring semester. Their goal for this assignment is to show that larger social issues can be located in everyday places and spaces, using evidence from their log entries as well as from any outside research they've done on the issue.
To complete this project, students are advised to carefully review their log entries in order to identify some of the larger social issues they noticed in their "critical observations of the everyday." Students are asked to incorporate both visual and spatial elements into their projects, but projects can be created using whatever medium they choose. For instance, students might recreate a scene from one of their observations, or they might put together a series of photographs of one of the places in their logs. Or they might even create a map that shows connections between course readings on a given issue and observations from their logs. Students are encouraged to be as creative as they want to be and to incorporate any of the composing technologies that they are comfortable using. The project should, however, make an argument about an issue; whether this argument is implicit or explicit is up to the student.
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