Project 2: Podcasting

For Project 2, we will explore how to shape content in an online auditory format. Podcasts are a relatively new medium, but already there are podcasts for almost every topic imaginable, most of which are created by amateur enthusiasts. The one thing that all effective podcasts have in common is that they communicate something to a specific audience in a specific context for a specific purpose.

Each student will create a podcast episode by identifying a specific context, audience, and purpose for the work. This means that each student will find a specific existing venue that would be appropriate for his or her podcast episode. Examples of existing podcasts may be found through Podcast Alley, Find Podcasts, the NPR podcast directory, and Podcast Bunker, among other lists. Students can also find podcasts through iTunes or by doing a Google search for "find podcasts." When students locate an appropriate venue for their work, they should analyze its existing podcast episodes to make determinations about the venue's audience, context, purpose, strategies, and arrangement, and then craft their own work accordingly.

Each student's final podcast episode should be over 3 minutes in length, in mp3 format, and burned to a CD labeled with the student's name. Podcasts may include talk, music, interviews, sound effects, jingles, etc. depending upon context, but the majority of the podcast content on each episode should be original. This means that students can't, for example, make a podcast episode that only plays music (this also would be almost certainly a violation of copyright, which we will discuss). Student final design plans and postmortems should be printed. All projects should be organized, accessible, and professional.


Project Deliverables:


Due Dates:


Grading:
Grading is done holistically. This means that the rhetorical effectiveness of all three deliverables is judged as a whole. There is not a set point value corresponding to the severity and frequency of individual errors. Projects are assigned a letter grade based upon the following criteria.

Excellent design plans will:

Excellent podcasts episodes will:

Excellent postmortems will:


Applicable Resources:


Applicable Links: