On Deck:

1. Review Winning (and Losing) Practice Instruction Sets 
2. Share instructions discuss potential collaborations.   Students should have their planning guides in front of them and should feel free to ask related questions about their own instructions in a 10 minute discussion period.
3. Instruction Set Draft Workshop (Detailed below)

Due Next Class:

1. Finished First Draft of Project 2 on WikiHow
1.  Bring one image or graphic (or as many as you like) and be ready for a brief workshop on graphics and ethics

 A Note on Genre in Relation to Winning and Losing Practice Instructions: 

According to writing studies scholar Carolyn Miller, genres can be seen as “typified rhetorical actions” that respond to recurring situations and become instantiated in groups’ behaviors (151). Or, to put it in more straightforward terms, genres are customary forms of writing for engaging in the work of a community, whether that means putting together a newsletter for a student organization, writing a letter of recommendation for a friend at work, or composing some other sort of conventional document for a group you are in. In order to participate most fully as a writer in a given community, it is helpful to understand what the expected genres entail and to understand the very concept of genre as a relationship between writing and social action (i.e. how putting words on a page or screen in a certain way helps to get things done in that community.) Thus, in your classes, rather than focusing only on the form and content of a piece of writing, (as we would when discussing movie genres), we also focus on how a piece of writing functions within a community and how it helps its members to achieve the goals, objectives, and actions of that community.

The Drafts promoting efficient (or hilarious-hypothetical) actions:

1. W1 honorable mentions and Winner:
1. Swedish Meatballs  (great 'warning/disclaimer' and did you answer a question with a question?  nice.)
2. Great Design, images and improved table instructions  (though I don't know which screws to use...)
3. Alien imagery and film references make this set amazing -- though I think we're now being sued by Time Warner 
4. Edging out "How to become a Jedi" was "How to make a dinosaur" (WIN!)-- and it really came down to better page design, editing, and more thorough supporting sections 
2. W2 honorable mentions and Winner:
1. Nice draft with simple steps and a good use of the superstructure, but you probably drew attention of the FBI to our course, as did our group choosing to inform the world how to 'meth-head' (even though they included a disclaimer and a 'p.s.')
2. Competing dinosaur entries are well done, but cancel each other out with a few formatting flaws and grammar errors here, and a few too many convoluted steps here 
3. And the winner is, edging out two dinosaurs, is a haunting by Samara,  
3. W3 honorable mentions and Winner:
1. Very Nice draft with a clever play on the steps and a good use of the superstructure, is 'how to use the light-saber for good' 
2. Hilarious rendition of 'how to become Alien' with smart and concise sections (though a mismatch between the number of steps in the image and in text) 
3. Clearly understanding the central genre conventions of key sections of the instruction SUPERSTRUCTURE, and exploiting them with hilarity: Pat, Franklin and Calvin's dinosaur (WIN!)

Chapter 14: Creating Reader-Centered Graphics

overview. Chapter 14 makes the case for and offers strategies for including reader-centered graphics in on-the-job communications. Graphics can be used to increase a communication’s usefulness and persuasiveness. The judicious and ethical use of graphics requires that graphics be integrated into the text, easy to understand and use, and appropriate to an international audience.

Chapter 16: Designing Reader-Centered Pages and Documents

overview. Chapter 16 puts forth the argument that visual design (the page, the document, the screen) has a substantial impact on the usability and persuasiveness of workplace communications. Among the topics discussed in this chapter are the design elements of a page, basic design principles, how to establish hierarchy and focus, the role of repetition in unifying communications visually, and testing visual design.

Workshop learning goals:

1. Begin to understand the importance of usable and ethical instructions.  Remember that you have an ethical responsibility for the effects of a communication you are writing. This understanding is crucial to successful review by your peers, other users and eventually by the WikiHow community.   
2. Prepare a Draft of usable instructions.

First Draft Workshop: TheWikiHow Entry

1.  Go to "Create Article" WikiHow 

1. Review the following prompt on Choosing your Title Carefully
2. Ensure that it clearly states what it will help your readers do -- and hit "submit"

2. When available, review the protocols for "Multiple Methods" and "Multiple Parts" by clicking the question marks (?) 

1. consider whether or not you will want or need headings for methods or parts 
2. remember this is a first draft you can change later 

3. Familiarize yourself with some "Editing Basics" and the protocol for entering steps and sub-steps

1. note that you may not need to use these protocols in every template

4.  Read the WikiHow Writer's Guide on writing "Steps" 

5. Review Suggestions from our Text about drafting steps

6.  Enter each Main Step from your Planning Guide into the "Steps" section

1. include drafts of bulleted sub-steps as necessary
2. include a note where you will need a visual
3. include warnings
4. leave notes for yourself about potential problems readers may have (to delete later) 

7. Review Anderson's discussion of the Introduction section (p. 573), this summary, and this one from WikiHow's tutorial

1. Draft your Introduction so that it answers the "questions reader's asks"
2. Apply the suitable strategies from WikiHow's tutorial

8. Review Anderson's Superstructure graphic (p.574), and WikiHow's superstructure or "Standard Order of Sections" 

1. Add remaining appropriate sections to your first draft 
2. Write a draft of remaining components

9. Consider what images or graphics you will use and whether you will license them

1. Read the entry on creative commons licensing and decide whether or not you will license your images
2. Read an entry on using free graphics programs if you need to use something other than photos, or, say, 'paint' or 'word') 

10. Save your progress and post a link to your entry on your roster page before you leave today