What is this course?
Business Writing is a course that will equip you to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences. The course expands on skills that you learned in ENGL 1030: research, analysis, rhetorical situations, fallacies, and multimodal communication. As with ENGL 1030, you will use visual, digital, written, and oral/sonic rhetoric to persuade your audience. In the case of Business Writing, your audience may be a future employer, viewers of a webpage, potential employees, or a number of other audiences. Business Writing is vital to effective communication, so you will find this course to be practice, hands-on, and focused on digital and web-based writing. The course is project-based and is entirely self-paced. Although there are weekly deadlines, you can choose the pace that works best for your schedule. For example, you can choose to work on certain days of the week or to turn in all your assignments early. You set the pace, but there are weekly deadlines as well.
What will I learn?
- How to present yourself and your ideas professionally across media
- How to write an email to a variety of audiences and for various purposes
- How to write with clarity and conciseness
- How to create a website and use social media to propose an idea
- How to communicate verbally, textually, visually, and digitally
What materials do I need?
Natalie Canavor. Business Writing Today: A Practical Guide. 2nd edition. SAGE Publications, 2015.
Technologies: Computer with internet connectivity, Canvas, Google Docs, Adobe Spark Page, Adobe Spark Post, Adobe Spark Video
What do I need to do?
Semester Project – Nonprofit Organization
This course is project-driven and centers around applying theoretical knowledge from the textbook to the production of three remediated digital artifacts in a subject matter area of your own choosing. Deadlines for delivery of each artifact are noted below. All visual assets, artwork, and text must be original and created by you.
You will a (fictional) non-profit organization geared toward a social justice issue of some kind. You will be responsible for creating the following (graded) deliverables: (1) a Google Doc Journal (2) a Website (3) a Video Fundraising Pitch in which you seek financial support through a fundraising event/idea (4) a Social Media Campaign.
Your semester portfolio consists of the following deliverables:
1) Google Doc Journal
This will include writing prompts and/or email prompts. Requirement: Minimum 2500 words. Counts for 25% of your grade.
2) Website
Create a website using Adobe Spark Page that gives a mission statement, displays job advertisements, advertises fundraising information, and shows the past, present, or future work of your org in some way. Requirement: 500 words and a minimum of 15 visual assets (images/videos). Counts of 25% of your grade.
3) Video Fundraising Pitch
Create a video using Adobe Spark Video for a fundraising idea for your nonprofit. Requirement: 3 minutes and with voiceover, background music (comes preloaded on Spark Video but you can add your own), and minimum of 18 visual assets. Counts as 25% of your grade.
4) Social Media Campaign
Following this video pitch, you will design a photo-based Social Media Campaign using Adobe Spark Post that outlines the details of the fundraising idea to get your audience interested/involved. Requirement: For the Social Media Campaign, 15 original photos enhanced with text and visual effects. Create a hashtag that will appear with each post and maintain continuity between all posts.
