Explainer

Description

The Explainer Video has been designed to accomplish the following:
Create a 5-7-minute video, in collaboration with your peers, on an issue related to sustainability, in the style of a Vox Media “explainer.” Successful videos will mix audio from tour guides and guest speakers with interviews, external footage, still images, and a voice/sound track. To be composed in groups of 4-5, uploaded individually as an .mp4 to Canvas with a 300-400-word explanatory headnote and works cited. You are also invited, though not required, to publish your video on a social media platform of your choice.

Goals

Upon completion of the Explainer Video, students should be able to:
  • 1. Identify and explicate the central claims/concepts of theoretical prose through a local development issue
  • 2. Explain the central claims/concepts of theoretical prose in a video 
  • 3. Persuade an audience of their peers of the efficacy of their argument via situationally effective visual and verbal rhetoric
  • 4. Respond to a rhetorical situation through process: invention, drafting, peer review, and revision

Explainer Project Checklist

Successful Videos will complete the following:
  • 1. Introduction: A 300-400 word introduction, in MLA format, uploaded to Canvas as a .pfd or .docx file on date poster is due. See below for the Explainer Introduction Prompt.
  • 2. Explainer Prompt: Explain a key concept related to global warming and/or sustainability that is both psychological/individual and social. For example, carbon emissions, deforestation, species loss, waste, ocean acidification, drought, or rising sea levels.   
  • 3. Explainer Design: Video must explain the key problem in global warming and provide solutions, through a mix of audio from tour guides and/or guest speakers with interviews, external footage, still images, and a voice/sound track. 
  • 4. Explainer Specs: final draft of Explainer needs to be 5 to 7 minutes long and available as an mp4
  • 5. Explainer Process: Script/Proposal Workshop, Video editing workshop, and independent group conferences
  • 6. Explainer Submission/Publication: for full credit submit the video as a .pm4, the 300-400 word introduction, and any process documents to Canvas.

Explainer Introduction Prompt

Successful Explainer Introductions will respond to the following prompt in 300-400 words:
Why is the sustainability topic you present in your video both psychological and social?

Tools

Compose your Poster in the design software of your choice OR you may also create your poster through collage. The following are some tool suggestions:
  • Google Slides, Photoshop, or Power Point, Visme, or Canva
  • iMovie

Assessment

The Explainer is worth 20% of your total grade and will be assessed according to the final criteria adapted from the Common Feedback Chart:
  • 1. Rhetorical Awareness: Does the Explainer address writing the situation (and assignment) completely and/or with unexpected insight? Does the Explainer fulfill the assigned design requirements and include an introduction?  (20%)
  • 2. Stance: Does the Explainer clearly articulate a unifying argument/goal? Does the video explain a key concept related to global warming and/or sustainability that is both psychological/individual and social? (20%)
  • 3.Development of Ideas: Does the video develop the claim/goal by illustrating the key concept through a mix of audio from tour guides and/or guest speakers with interviews, external footage, still images, and a voice/sound track? (20%)
  • 4. Organization: Does the author establish a clear pattern for reading through CRAP and color, lines, etc.? (20%)
  • 5. Design for Medium: Does the video use the affordances of its mode to enhance the goal/content? For example, does the video reinforce the content of the audio track visually and vice versa? (10%)
  • 6. Process: Does the final draft demonstrate planning and revision? (5%)
  • 7. Conventions: Does the video meet grammar, mechanics style, and syntax conventions with few or no errors? (5%)