• Time Required
• 8–10 hours, including reading time

Welcome to Week Nine of the course. This is our final week to work on the Pitch Presentations. By this point, you should know what you want to say and have a working draft of your slides. This week, you will make any remaining revisions to your work and then record your presentation as a video. Starting next week, we will turn to working directly on the Recommendation Report itself.

Holidays & Events This Week

• Women’s History Month lasts for the entire month of March.
• The first day of Spring is Monday, March 20. It is a day of celebration for Pagans, Wiccans, and Druids.
• Naw-Rúz, the Baha’i New Year, is March 21–22.
• Newroz, the celebration of Spring in the Kurdish culture, which takes place March 21–22.
• Nowruz is the celebration of the New Year in many areas of the Middle East and in Central Asia. It is observed on March 21.
• Ramadan, celebrated by Muslims, begins on Wednesday, March 22 and continues through Friday, April 21.
• The International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade is Saturday, March 25.

If you observe these holidays or events and need me to adjust your due dates, send me a message in Canvas.

 

Objectives for this Module

After completing this week’s activities, you address the following course objectives:

• Analyze the rhetorical situation and determine the appropriate audience or users of written communication, considering the needs of global audiences and people with disabilities. [CLO 1]
• Use conventions of various workplace genres, such as proposals, instructions, correspondence, reports, and slide decks, with understanding of how the genre conventions can be used as heuristics and as principles of arrangement. [CLO 4]
• Collaborate with classmates in planning, researching, writing, revising, and presenting information. [CLO 5]

Activities to Complete

📚 To Read This Week

• Markel & Selber, Chapter 20, “Making Oral Presentations”
• Markel & Selber, Chapter 9, “Emphasizing Important Information”
• Technical Help for Making Videos
  • Turn Your PowerPoint Slides into a Video
  • Ways to Record Your Presentation
  • Using Kaltura to Create Your Video

📝 To Write This Week

• Finish work on your Pitch Assignment, using the these resources:
  • Recommendation Report Topic Overview
  • Pitch Criteria
  • Tip Sheet: Pitch
  • Pitch Self-Check
• Try out strategies from the course by submitting these activities:
  • Try-It #15: Using Memorable Language
  • Try-It #16: Emphasizing Important Information

💬 To Discuss This Week

• Optional ways to discuss class issues:
  • Post public questions in the General Q&A Discussion in Canvas if it can be shared with the class.
    
  • If you have a private question, send me a message with the Canvas Inbox.
  • Ask a question or make a suggestion anonymously with the Anonymous Questions & Suggestions form.

 

📓 To Check-In This Week

• Fill out the Week 9 Check-In Survey to let me know how you are doing in the course.

 

 

Photo credit: Yellowstone social media team member, Ashton, recording a video by Yellowstone National Park on Flickr, used under Public Domain.