Presentation Day

I feel that the presentation went fairly well. Putting up a poster was a good idea because people were able to spend time looking at it rather than me walking them through my presentation. It'll also be easy to incorporate my project into the portfolio, because I can use pages from the website.

Thoughts on the Portfolio

I like how we're able to give our papers one last look through before we make our portfolio. When I write papers, I tend to start accepting what I write as correct, and miss out on mistakes that I could correct or on portions that I could elaborate on. With this gap, I can look at the earlier assignments with a "fresh" perspective -- something that is sure to help the quality of my writing.

Rough Draft?

Does a rough draft of a poster need to consist of the actual poster, or can it be a sample layout with some of the text that's going to go on it?

What are people doing for their rough drafts?

Initiating Action Presentation

I also realized that I'll be able to write down transcripts of what I plan to say to people to ask for help in fundraising, as well as some comparisons between possible products and a persuasive argument for why my project is a good idea.

I also decided to make a stand up poster, and I can put pictures of the area that needs change, along with potential replacements. I can also put up the e-mails that I've drafted, etc. I feel that if planned out properly, I might actually be able to complete this and get a ping-pong table for my residence hall.

Initiating Action Literature

The documents that I'm going to create are e-mails that will be sent out to everyone who lives in my dorm, Hillcrest. We have an e-mail listserv, so this is easy to get to all the students. It's hard to give this project a genre, but I would call it a community fundraising project. I could also create flyers and posters advertising the fundraising events, but they would need approval to be posted.

Detailed Project Description

I decided to pick the more realistic option of raising money for a ping-pong table. This project could involve everyone, via the community listserv (basically a giant email list). After we have fundraisers, we could all vote with an online survey on which table to use and then we could use the money from our fundraisers, which could include donations, bake sales, and other means, to finally purchase a table.

Initiating Action Idea

For my Initiating Action project, I think I need to focus on the divide between the two honors halls. To fix this problem, I think some kind of meet and greet would be a good idea. The Nerdfest competition is still going on, so the two halls are already interacting a little bit, but I think it's a good idea to ensure some degree of sportsmanship. To do this, I think it would be a good idea to get the teams to meet each other before the final game of Jeopardy, so that win or lose, people will feel good about the competition. I think that this is possible, though it would likely start as a one time only thing.

The other thing that would be great to change about Hillcrest would be putting in a ping-pong table instead of a pool table. This has tons of popular support, and with a fundraiser or two we could get a nice table to put in our dorm. This idea feels a bit less legitmate, but would be appreciated by tons of people.