Hypothetical Situation: After graduation, you have leveraged your communication degree to become a consultant for organizations, especially focused on their messaging strategies. An organization that works on behalf of a real social movement has hired you to help them better get their message across. You have to prepare a consultant report for them, reviewing who they are, the current moment in which they are operating, their current messaging, and making recommendations for strengthening it based on everything you've learned. You will further demonstrate your expertise in this topic by citing credible sources to help them know where the information about them came from, and why you've developed the suggestions you have. (FYI, There are real companies that do this: such as Occidental Arts & Ecology Center, and Strawberry Frog, which describes itself as “the world’s first movement marketing, advertising, and design agency.”)

Actual Assignment: You are crafting a final report for members of the social movement organization that hired you as a campaign consultant. It is not an academic paper, it is an industry report. In this report, you'll need to address the background, mission, history, constituents and leadership of the social movement. You will make specific recommendations to the social movement organization about new or altered rhetorical strategies they can use to further their mission. In the report, you'll also be explaining your process of researching this issue for them and how you reached the recommendations that you did. All will be written up in a highly organized and regimented format, as if you were representing a company. In footnotes on each page you will include citations that explain where you gathered your information from, demonstrating your credibility to your client.  

All of the details of the report portion of the project are contained in the template file in the project module. The template and requirements you are using for this assignment are developed from real examples. The template is FULL of "how-to's" for effectively organizing, using headings for organization, how to insert footnotes and details for what information goes in each section.

Several example reports are generously provided by previous students. These examples offer some insight into what the assignment asks of you, but note that the assignment template has evolved and is no longer a perfect match for the organization of these examples. In other words, use the template for your report, don't try to build it based on student examples.  

**ORGANIZATIONS LISTED AS "HATE GROUPS" BY SPLC ARE NOT ELIGIBLE OPTIONS FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT**

This assignment calls on you to practice all 5 elements of your Communication CRAFT:

• Creativity: Designing rhetorical messaging examples
• Relational: You need to consider how your work affects the relationship between the organization and the audience(s) they are trying to reach.
• Analytical: You need to assess the values of the organization, the effectiveness of their current messaging strategies, how to connect with their audience, and analyze the contexts in which they are operating.
• Transformative: Social movements and the organizations working on their behalf are trying to change the world in some way, this is intended to demonstrate how you can be part of that.
• Flexible: Industry reports are common across industries, and writing for a non-academic audience is a crucial skill. If you are not yet, build a portfolio of examples for post-college jobs; this assignment would likely be a good example to include.

This assignment works toward the following course learning goals:

• Evaluate a social movement organization’s rhetorical strategy, articulate your critique for a non-academic audience, and propose recommendations to their strategies, including creating examples to demonstrate your suggestions.
• Examine and explain how rhetorical forces affect public ideas and discourse, such as through assessing the role of a social movement’s communication in creating and resisting social change.
• Explore, express, debate, and evaluate ideas and issues which matter to you personally, professionally, publicly, and ethically, for a variety of audiences.
• Draw informed conclusions that reflect an understanding of multiple (and sometimes conflicting) sources of information.
• Demonstrate ethical awareness and empathy in dealing with differences and resolving conflict

Assignment Steps

Read the Directions and the Report Template, and review the examples of reports provided.

This is what it sounds like. Write down your questions as you read them, and make notes about the ideas you have for your own project. All are included in the Project Module

Discussion Board: Topic Proposal

Initiative Post:

In 2-3 well-organized paragraphs, lay out the foundation of your project idea by:

1. naming and providing basic background on the organization you are hypothetically consulting for and the social movement it works on behalf of
2. explaining why this is an especially good or important topic that needs an expanded communication campaign 
3. previewing what aspect of the group's communication/rhetoric your paper will focus on (social media, speeches, etc.)
4. if applicable, explaining any successes or hurdles so far in your research or project development
5. including at the end of the post a preliminary reference list of at least 5 credible sources (IN CHICAGO) to confirm information about this topic is available.

Incorporate in-text citations within the proposal when you reference information that is not common knowledge. Images or video clips are welcome if helpful.

Responsive Posts (2):

Respond to two peers, asking them a pertinent question about their proposal, and/or offering resources you think may be helpful for the topic or type of messaging they’re working on.

Follow-Up

Reply to any questions asked of you!

Meeting with Instructor + Peers

You may sign up for a Zoom meeting with your instructor. Several other peers may also take part in this meeting based on availability to help one another bounce ideas around and because people generally have similar questions. You should have significantly started the research phase of your project (looking for information about the organization and its contexts - PEST Analysis) before this meeting. Prepare a 2-minute review of your project and what questions you have, based on the following prompts:

• What organization have you selected, and what social movement are they working on behalf of? Why did you select them?
• Briefly, what successes have you had and what hurdles are you encountering with researching the organization, social movement, and the contexts in which it is operating? (PEST Analysis)
• Do you have any preliminary ideas for what suggestions may be useful for them?
• Do you have any questions about the project, and/or are there any aspects of your project you’d like some brainstorming with the instructor and peers in this meeting?

During the meeting, pay attention to others’ projects, offer ideas and resources, and take note of information that comes up about others’ projects that may also be useful for you.

Peer Review Discussion Board

3-4 students will be assigned into Peer Review Groups to help one another prepare your final report. Groups in Canvas each get a private group discussion board that only group member and the instructor can access. This is a great place to ask peers for input about areas you feel you’re struggling, and to test the recommendations you’re making.

Peers will read the draft and comment on it based on the assignment rubric and/or peer review form, as well as replying to your specific concerns. This is not the time to “be nice” and say “it’s all great” if it’s not. This is the place to offer suggestions for how someone can strengthen sections, such as pointing out and offering advice for sections that: seem incomplete, don’t flow, need clearer organization, should be cited, should more explicitly draw on a course concept, contradicts earlier information, doesn’t follow directions, etc.   

**You receive a grade for substantially engaging in the peer review discussion, for sharing a complete (even if far from perfect) initial draft, and for offering useful in-depth critique to your peers in a timely manner. You are NOT graded on the content of the draft – this is a safe space to share undeveloped ideas, that’s the point of the write-review-revise process.

Final Consultant Report

Have you looked at the examples from previous students posted for you? 

Use the feedback you’ve received from each of the previous steps to strengthen your report. Use the rubric as a checklist for meeting the minimum requirements, and confirm you’ve met all the requirements in the template. As a last final-check, update the report’s Table of Contents in case you made any last minute changes. I strongly recommend turning in your final paper as a .pdf to preserve formatting.  

*This assignment used with permission from the Dr. Christy-Dale Mauer