The "Found" Project Writing Assignment

The “Found” Writing Assignment

Purpose:
The purpose of this sequenced writing assignment is three fold: To help students learn the conventions of Audience and Purpose in written discourse, To help students use inference in analysis of written discourse and to help students effectively integrate sources and personal opinion in written discourse.

Step 1 Theoretical Framework

a. Read: Lauren B. Resnick’s article “Literacy In School and Out.”

b. After reading Resnick’s article, write a one page journal entry in which you both summarize
Resnick’s article and respond with your own opinion.

Note: Pay special attention to the categories of writing that Resnick discusses as well as the
characteristics of each category.

Step 2 Research

a. During the next week, log onto foundmagazine.com each day a observe the “find of the day.”
As you observe the ‘find of the day,” look for both literal information and information gain
through making inferences from the text. Pleas pay special attention to the rhetorical
conventions of Audience and Purpose.

b. Each day that you observe the “finds of the day,” please write a one page journal entry
detailing your observations. (We will discuss the entries in-class each day)

Step 3 The Paper

a. Now that you have read and formed a theoretical framework and done research, pick your
favorite “find of the day” from the past week.

b. Using your favorite find, write a 2-3 page analysis of the find, please include the following
areas of interest in you paper:

1. A brief Summary of the find (this may mean a verbatim quote of the find’s contents)

2. A discussion of the audience and purpose of the find
(using both inference and literal information)

3. Relate the find to Resnick’s categories of writing, making sure to cite both your find
and Resnick as support for your argument.

4. Please make sure to include your personal reactions and observations.

The Final Cut

Here is the final video! There are still some things that I would tweak if I could but I feel pleased with the way this version turned out. Enjoy...

Found VII

Music, music, music, finally and Oops, I forgot the credits...

Found VI

I thought I was done, but I still wanted some music.

Found V

I thought I was done, until I found one slide that I had forgotten to place a white boarder around. But for all intents and purposes this is the final draft. In the last two versions of the video I had one thing...see if you can find out what it is?

Found IV

At some point between the third and fourth version, I downloaded and began to use Picasa photo editing software. This version reflects a lot of my "playing" with the new technology. I added backgrounds and a lot of color to the video. This is also the first appearance of a new logo I made for my fictitious production company. This video also shows the "poster" image I mad for the "Found" Project. I ended up redoing all the board images because the were all different sizes...

Found III

For my third attempt, I decided to try a couple different things: First, I played around with transitions between some of the frames (which I didn't keep). I also added still images of individual cards and superimposed titles over the cards. I took this version to class and received a lot of feedback, especially about the still images at the end of the movie. So once again I went back to the drawing board. But I will point out that the same set of images on the boards is used through out the remaining reiencarnations.

Found II

Round two...I decided that I could use my existing images and just do a patch job, umm I don't think it worked as well as I had hoped. I used photoshop to superimpose a Jpeg image over my blurry NCOW images. I thought it made the images too jumpy, so I ended up re-taking all the pictures.

Found I

The original plan for this video was to use all video footage. My plan was to take short videos of the "found" board each day and then splice them all together in movie maker. This idea faded away fairly quickly and I decided to use stop animation. I borrowed my wife's Canon camera and went to work. These pictures really show how much of an amateur photographer I am. Can you see the giant glare on all the poster cards in the middle of each board?

The Grad Students Demonstrate the "Found" Board

There are two lessons that I have learned from this project:

1) You always have more footage than you will actually use in any production.

2) Everyone loves to ham-it-up in front of the camera.

Keeping the lessons in mind, here is what happens when grad students attempt to demonstrate the uses of the "Found" board. I hope you will enjoy it!