Week Six 3/4-3/10

This week you’ll be finishing your Expanded Definitions, leaving Comments for each other the way you did for the 500-word summary, and taking a look at the next assignment — Instruction Manuals.

• Fri 3/4: Intro video lesson is live! Finishing the Expanded Definition. Writing the Conclusion. Pulling the Expanded Definition together into a single document. Onward to the Instruction Manual.
• Mon 3/7:
  • Google Drive folder: Upload the full draft of your Expanded Definition to the folder labeled “Expanded Definition.”
• Thur 3/10:
  • Google Drive folder: Pick one other student’s Expanded Definition and leave meaningful feedback.
  • Perusall: Watch and annotate the video “PB&J.” At the end leave a comment about what you learned from watching it.

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Instruction Manual Assignment

There are obviously all kinds of instruction manuals, each one directed toward specific audiences and specific purposes… and specific rhetorical situations. Here’s a look at some of them. https://medium.com/level-up-web/types-of-manuals-43ba2018f209

But they all generally boil down to one thing: step by step directions rendered in alphabetic text or images or a combination of both, or these days even as interactive texts. And getting those steps right — enough detail, orderly layout, audience-friendly — is what we’ll be playing with in this assignment.

The assignment: You will create a short instruction manual designed to teach someone how to do something you know how to do well. The instruction manual will include graphics as well as text. It will also be accompanied by a brief introductory memo explaining the target audience and the process you went through to get it made.

Procedure: This sounds harder than it is. Here’s the way to go about it:

1. Think of something you do really really well. For me, I can make biscuits from scratch when I’m half asleep. Maybe you can knit, or tune a car, go through a weight-training circuit, repot plants or grow vegetables from seed, install a piece of software, build a kid’s Lego house… anything.
2. Do that thing and write down each step as you do it.
3. Take accompanying pictures to visually demonstrate the process.
4. Decide who your target audience is (kids, computer engineers, your best friend, etc.)
5. Create your manual. I say “manual” but it can be an infographic manual, a video manual, an interactive manual, a booklet manual. We’ll look at some examples and some programs to help you create your manual.
6. Give your manual to someone and have them do what you’re teaching them.
   • Have that person use your manual to build/do the thing, and ask them to keep notes about what happens: what works, what’s confusing, what just crashed and burned. Ask them to write up a set of notes for you about all of that.
   • OR watch them while they build/do what you’re instructing, and take notes as they work.

7. Revise your manual based on the feedback and/or things you saw.
8. Write an introductory memo explaining who the audience was meant to be, what you did to create the manual, what your reviewer told you, and how you changed it.
9. Upload both the revised manual and the memo to the Google Drive.

There are a bazillion templates for creating manuals that you can find by Googling (we’ll look at some starting Week Seven), so feel free to use them. And if you want to do something interactive, feel free. Get creative. Have fun. Check the Weekly Unit schedule for specific assignments.

You’ll be graded on: