Unit 3: Proposed Solution to Wicked Problem
Due Date: December 12 by 11:59pm on Canvas
Presentations December 13 at 4PM
Length: 6 - 8 page proposal, following document design principles
Task
Gather into a team of three or four writers. Choose one of the team members’ wicked
problems from Unit 2, and write a proposal for a mobile app that will give community
members the information they need to address that problem (for example, a proposal for an
app that gives trans people a map of all-gender bathrooms in Kansas City, MO). Once you
choose a wicked problem to address, the person who researched that wicked problems
becomes lead person. You’ll present your ideas as a group presentation on December 13.
Here are some questions to help guide your project:
● How do we as a team negotiate which wicked problem to address?
● What are the needs of the community members we’re helping?
● How do we describe this easy-to-use app in our proposal?
● What information do we include to ensure interactivity leads to real-world action?
● What are some effective ways we can convince stakeholders to fund the project?
Purpose
This final assignment continues the course goals: see how different formats of information
troubles theories of composition and neutrality. Specifically, it achieves three goals: First, it
helps you learn theories on composition and interactivity. Second, generate strategies for
working with a team of communicators and how theories of authorship get disrupted by this
dynamic. Third, self-reflect and practice how interactivity does (or does not) promote
understanding and social action in the context of participatory civic media.
Audience
Based on your goals for the project, the audience may vary. Ultimately, you’re writing for
multiple groups: stakeholders who may fund the project as well as members of your identified
community. The community must be able to interact with information in the prototype that
then leads to some kind of real-world action. The potential funders must understand the
project clearly enough that they would be willing to help out!
Genre and Format
Overall, as you design your mobile or web app prototype consider the following features:
● Describe the problem in a compelling way
● Justify why your app is the best solution to start addressing the problem
● Describe some of the features of the mobile app that helps community members
address the problem in the real world
● Description of the app must include how information is given to community members
● Include rough sketches of what the app may look like
● Discuss potential challenges or obstacles to create the app and helping your audience
● Create a well-designed document, visually compelling to read
Interactive Components and Timeline
All writing is a rhetorical and social activity, and it often entails cognitive process of
development. This assignment, then, requires you to engage in your own writing process and
develop your own writing habits, but with the expectation that you share your draft throughout
the entire unit. Below you will find small assignments and their due dates that build up to the
final product and your portfolio:
Activity Due Date
Entries to writing habits journal (individually) Throughout sequence
Waypoint Assignment: Team Contract (as a group) November 5
Waypoint Assignment: Pitch (as a group) November 7
Rough Draft 1 December 3
Process Letter (as a group) December 12
Portfolio (as a group) December 12
Presentation (as a group) December 13
Evaluative Criteria
Evaluation is based on your reflecting on how the concepts we discuss in this unit inform your
own writing processes, writing habits, and the rhetorical goals you have for your composing
the proposal. Evaluation of the proposal itself is in direct relation to your goals and justification
for your choices in composing the document and creating the app. In my response, I take into
account your goals for the piece and make suggestions on how you might revise the project so
you can get closer to your goals. While you won’t have to make revisions, you can consider in
your process letter what steps you would take had you had more time.
