Eloquence

Learning Activities

Culminating Project

To show mastery of the concepts learned in the unit, students will be required to create a brand which can be centered on themselves or on a commodity, movement, or idea and use persuasive techniques and critical knowledge of branding to create a tangible representation of this which should be consistent, accessible, and memorable across the three pre-defined platforms of social media. Additionally, an oral presentation will be required to promote the brand, but a stronger emphasis on academic persuasive tropes, specifically ethos, pathos, and logos, will be the focus, and last, students will be required to write a grammatically, and mechanically sound academic reflective essay.

Specifically complicated in its logistics will be the student-produced persuasive branding example on the three social media platforms. This provides inherent issues with students interacting on social media as a requirement of class, and since it will be discussed that the feedback provided on social media is one of its biggest strengths for assessing success in branding, a cohort of people selected by the teacher will be used as their followers as followers are an essential component of social media and branding. Without the followers or audience, the project serves no real world application. Having a cohort of followers hand chosen by the teacher does three things. First, it eliminates the potential unpredictability for unwanted, inappropriate response from the random layperson on any one of these social media networks. Second, it allows a cohort to respond with their rationale for why a response was elicited or not to a particular post, photo, page, or tweet. Therefore, a place for constructive feedback and reflection is created from a constituent chosen by the teacher thus creating a controlled environment. Third, since the constituent of followers is consistent to all students, it will provide accurate comparative data as well as mimic real world usage as the students will only know small biographical information, if any at all, on these followers.

The cumulative project aims to materialize the essence of this unit into tangible evidence that will showcase student growth and knowledge. Additionally, and importantly, the project will provide an arena for guided practice with branding and social media. It is important that students will be able to test out theories they should later be applying to their own real persona on their own varied accounts. It is the students who have everything to lose if they do not protect their brand. They have one already, it is about what they chose to do with it, and this unit, specifically this cumulative project, allows them the space to have a dress rehearsal before the real show of their own social media feeds.