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Course Overview

Writing 155A is the first of two capstone courses in the Multimedia Communication track of the Professional Writing Minor. This course focuses on basic design principles for print and digital multimedia communication in a variety of rhetorical contexts and using a range of software programs.

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Course Learning Outcomes

  • Rhetorical Awareness: In each of the course projects, you’ll analyze how audience, purpose, context, and medium shape communication strategies in multimedia compositions. In your own creative work and in your response to work by your peers, you’ll demonstrate your ability to make informed rhetorical choices.
  • Design Resources: You’ll conduct research, broadly construed, to identify and evaluate appropriate digital tools and design resources for your multimedia projects. This means that you’ll demonstrate your ability to analyze design precedents and adapt inspiration from the world around you that informs your own creative process.
  • Design Proficiency: You’ll apply design principles and conventions to create effective multimedia compositions. You’ll demonstrate your understanding of how color, typography, layout, and other design elements can help you achieve your communicative goals.
  • Reflective Practice: You’ll analyze and articulate your composition process through structured reflection. That is, you’ll demonstrate your understanding of course concepts by explaining how you incorporated design principles discussed in class and by evaluating your growth as a multimedia writer.

Strategies for Success

  1. Find Your Style: Make every assignment your own by connecting it to your unique perspective and voice. Your style will develop and strengthen as you lean into choices that you genuinely care about and are drawn to. Give it time: this process takes a lot of experimentation and iteration.
  2. Take Creative Risks: Push beyond the obvious choices and experiment with new tools, platforms, and approaches. It’s ok to take big risks and fail in a big way if you can show what you’ve learned and apply that learning in subsequent projects.
  3. Make Your Process Visible: Share your thinking, justify your choices, and engage actively with classmates. Every detail of your work, from initial concept to final layout, should reflect intentional decision-making.
  4. Build Your Network: Learn from your peers through collaboration and constructive feedback. Engaging with others in class discussions and group projects will strengthen your own creative practice.
  5. Use Resources: Take advantage of every available tool for learning: office hours, peer feedback, tutorials, AI tools, online communities, and campus resources. The best multimedia writers are resourceful problem-solvers.
  6. Practice Reflection: Document your learning journey. Regular reflection not only improves your current work but also prepares you to put together your final portfolio and website in Writing 155B.

Grades

The assignments for the course constitute your final grade, roughly as follows:

  • Brand Style Guide: 60%
  • Design Playground Mini-Projects: 20%
  • Interactive BSG in Figma: 20%

Important Information

  • My email is sorapure@ucsb.edu.
  • My office hours (for now) are Thursdays from 12:00-2:00 in my office (South Hall 1522). But I’m available at lots of other times, via Zoom or in person, so feel free to send me an email to set up a time to meet.
  • Class meets on TR from 3:30-4:45 in Phelps 1518. Because much of the work of the course will be done during class time, your attendance and participation are very important.
  • You are allowed two absences; after that, your final grade will be lowered by one grade for each absence (e.g., if you are absent 3 times, an A becomes an A-; if you are absent 4 times, an A becomes a B+; etc.).
    • I don’t differentiate between “excused” and “unexcused” absences. If you know you have a trip or family event or other activity planned, make sure you attend all other class sessions. Emergencies and illnesses happen so you want to have absences in your bank to draw on, so to speak, if you need them.
  • If you arrive late to class, I count that as half an absence.
  • Remember that even if you are absent you are responsible for any work that is done during class and for any assignments that are given or are due during class. Send me an email or meet me during my office hours to find out what you missed.

Academic Integrity

From the Student’s Guide to Academic Integrity:

“All members of the academic community share responsibility for the academic integrity of the UCSB community. Academic dishonesty is an assault upon the basic integrity and meaning of a University. Cheating, plagiarism, and collusion in dishonest activities are serious acts which erode the University’s educational and research roles and cheapen the learning experience as well as the value of one’s degree. This is true for perpetrators as well as the entire community. It is expected that all UCSB students will support the ideal of academic integrity and that they will be responsible for the integrity of their work. Materials (written or otherwise) submitted to fulfill academic requirements must represent a student’s own efforts unless otherwise permitted by an instructor. It is also the responsibility of each student to know the campus rules regarding academic misconduct.”

Use of AI

In this course, you’re permitted and even encouraged to explore AI writing and multimedia tools as a resource for generating ideas, refining your work, or seeking inspiration or feedback. However, it is important to use these tools responsibly and critically. Here are a few guidelines to help you make the most of AI tools while maintaining your own voice and rhetorical agency:

  • Think critically: AI tools produce language patterns but don’t truly “know” things and can generate incorrect information, so always verify any facts or claims they provide and use them as supplements to your own research and ideas.
  • Acknowledge the use of AI: When you use AI tools in your work, clearly explain how and when you used them to promote transparency and develop your self-reflection.
  • Pursue your own rhetorical and creative choices: While AI can be helpful, you need to ensure that it doesn’t overshadow your unique voice and thinking process.

Campus Resources

Also, I am always available to help via email, during my office hours, or by appointment. I’ve been teaching at UCSB since the beginning of time, so I can probably point you in the right direction if you have a question or a problem.

If you need special course adaptations or accommodations because of a disability, please get in touch after the first or second class session and we’ll set that up.

And finally, if there’s a resource you need for the course but can’t afford, get in touch and I’ll figure out a way to help.