essay project3

For our 3rd big assignment, the general topic areas that we are exploring is: Politics (this can be local or national) /Community engagement / Climate and Environment .... Of course you don't need to have your idea hit ALL these areas.... one area is enough.  What you are doing for this Essay/Project #3 is creating a project proposal.  You should think of this as a document that you are creating that LOOKS like a proposal. 

Here are the questions for you to address. You will want to do Rule of 3 for as many of these questions as possible :

1. Please describe in detail, what exactly is your project proposal about?

2. What need is being filled, or what problem is being addressed by your project? (What is the issue that you are addressing and why does it matter?)

3. Who is the audience for your project? (It usually doesn’t work to say “everybody”--that usually means you have not focused deeply enough on your project details.)

4. How will people interact with your project?

5. What makes your project innovative?

6. What materials will you need to  create your project? Be specific about types of materials and quantity of each.

7. What existing assets in the community can you  leverage to complete your project? Describe in detail how you will use the asset to execute your project. (This can be people you know, or community members, or organizations, or  other resources.)

Please provide data, case studies, past experiments/experiences, success stories from other situations, etc. to support why you believe your project will be successful.  This is the research part of this assignment. 

You will want to include: Cover page, with title of your project, pics, your name, make it look pro, make it colorful

Table of contents--- with the names of your sections

RULE OF 3

A crucial part of college involves coming up with and then shaping/controlling an idea or concept. When students first try to answer questions posed in class or on essay prompts, almost always their ideas are too big, too general--with the result that it appears clichéd. Students can’t handle these big ideas—they get over whelmed or lost or jumbled. Our job is to help them take control of their own mind. (One thing I do is to let students know it is GREAT that their ideas are too big. Because Student Capacity can be honored and put into play.) Like Goldilocks trying to find the right bed, we talk about an idea being too big/too small/just right. By “just right” we mean an idea that is just right for dealing with inside of one single paragraph. Soon this becomes a mantra type question in the class. A student offers a response to a question or raises an idea and we ask “too big/too small/just right?”

As we said, most of the time a student’s first concept choice is TOO BIG. The “Rule of 3” is one very powerful way to get a handle on an idea, carve it into smaller more easy-to-handle ideas that can then be turned into a paragraph. “Rule of 3” means when you have a concept, you should see if it can be broken into 3 (sometimes 2 or 4 can work too) smaller concepts. Similarly, when you are asked a question, see if you can give more than ONE answer by offering 3 (sometimes 2 or 4 can work too) concepts in response. When students practice doing this they are amazed how powerful their brain is and how much content is really IN THERE! Why do Rule of 3? Doing so gives students more ideas to work with. Doing so allows students to see that that bigbigbig paragraph probably has a bunch of smaller ideas jumbled inside. That is a problem because we want only ONE specific concept per paragraph.

(Below are notes from a class discussion—the underlined concepts were “too big” and so the class did “Rule of 3” on them.)

Relationship: love, family, friend    Responding to mistakes: Repent, Move on, Try it again

NOT Responding to mistakes: Regrets, Do it again, People angry, Punishment

Analysis of mistakes: Why did I make the mistake, Why am I still making mistake, How to stop, Lessons learned       

Areas in my life where I am making mistakes: Office, social world, school

This Rule of 3 exercise below came out of a discussion around “Into the Wild.” We were talking about Chris and what he values in life and someone said “Nature.” The class quickly realized that Nature is too big of a concept----how can we RULE OF 3 it?

· Living off the land

· Spiritual connection with nature

· Push himself and be tested by nature

· Nature as place for Adventure

· Nature’s rhythms effect Chris: Emotionally, Mentally, Physically (You can Rule of 3 a concept that was already created by a previous Rule of 3 exercise!)

Of course 3 is just a number. In this case the class generated 5 or so smaller concepts. These concepts were much more “handleable” for students when it came time to write paragraphs. Once students get a right sized idea, they need to know how to talk about it, how to spend time developing it inside an academic paragraph. Below is a paragraph template that can help them “package” the concept…