Transmedia Advocacy Project

Final Project

Statement of Goals and Choices

For my Transmedia Advocacy Project,  I chose to create a blog post and an infographic that explains why school funding is an issue and why it should be changed. Underfunded school districts not only affect the students that attend those schools, but also their families and the faculty that works there. My goal of this project was to create compositions that were easy to read, and colorful to draw people in and to make them aware of the effects of underfunded school districts who may not be aware of or familiar with the issues of school funding. Overall, I wanted to advocate for the people being affected by it. I chose to create an infographic of basic information about inadequate school funding. I wanted to create something for everyone to read, not just adults. This infographic can help anyone see that school funding is a problem. For my second composition, I chose to create a blog post. This post goes more in depth about problems of school funding and is more geared towards older generations being adults and elders. I say this because it goes into a lot of detail and there are many words that a child wouldn’t take the time to read in its entirety. This blog post is more of an argumentative piece to not only show the problems with but also to sway the reader to also believe that inadequate school funding is a major issue. 

To accomplish my goal of trying to get the overall message that inadequate school funding is bad, I created a blog post with loads of information about school funding and how it can affect the people within the districts. I also created an infographic that contains basic information about school funding and why it’s bad. This infographic is very basic and easy to read. I chose to do this because I wanted it to appeal to everyone, not just adults. Like I stated earlier, my blog has a lot of words that I think only someone older would take the time to read. I chose to do this because I wanted to dive deeper into the hard facts of school funding and what it really relates to, property tax. I feel like I adequately got all the information out that I desired, and I am content with the final product. I chose to create a blog because I felt like it was the best way to get all my ideas and information out. It allowed me to write as much as I wanted in as big of a space as I wanted. I chose to create an infographic because I wanted something easier to read for everyone and I wanted to get the basic information out there. In relation to when I chose to work, I chose to get my compositions done early. I made some minor changes based on the feedback I received from Carrie, my teacher, and my peers, though these were some minor tweaks. This included putting pictures into my blog post, putting in some information to my blog post about how this has affected me, or my experience with it, and adding pictures into my blog. Through these changes, I was able to create something I am very proud of.

As I stated earlier, I chose to go with the blog post instead of something else because it allowed me to go whatever direction I wanted to. I felt like I could talk about whatever I wanted, and give as many details as I wanted about the subject.This was the only option that stuck out to me that allowed me to write everything I wanted to write. For my second composition, I considered making a t-shirt, but decided to create an infographic instead. I chose to do this instead of a t-shirt because there was a lot of information I wanted to include on my second composition that I felt like I couldn’t fit on a t-shirt.

There were many things that allowed me to accomplish my goals. One of the sources that inspired me was the Roscoe’s Wetsuit website by Camden Ostrander. This website inspired me to want to do a blog post and kind of gave me the idea of what I wanted my post to look like. This website uses text, photos and other forms of media usefully to get his point across to the reader. This is what I tried to do in my blog post as well. Another source that I used to help me with my project was the America’s New Funding article on the Forbes website by Linda Darling-Hammond. This source allowed me to get a lot of my information on the subject and allowed me to further my argument on both my blog post and my infographic. My last source that aided me in my project was the article, Why Our Education Funding Systems Are Derailing the American Dream from the Learning Policy Institute website by Jeff Raikes. This source provided a lot of information I used to create my infographic. A big part of bringing this project to what it is was the feedback I received from my teacher and peers. Without this, I would not have been able to make the changes necessary to make my compositions better and ultimately what they are now.

Process Artifacts

For my process artifacts, I chose to include artifacts that led me to the final product of my project.  My first artifact is a picture of me creating my infographic on Canva. I chose to use Canva because it was easy to learn, and didn’t force me to create an infographic from scratch. My second artifact is the plan for my project which mostly included my research on the subject matter and what I planned to do with that information. My third artifact is a picture of me gathering information to create my plan and my blog post. Obtaining the information to create my compositions was essential in backing up my points I made throughout my blog post. These three artifacts were essential in me creating a final product that I am proud of. Without these artifacts, I would not have been able to create a project I am content with that satisfies the goals I had for this project.