You have three main tasks to complete before Tuesday: explore, read, write.
Warning: these will take longer than just a few minutes, so plan ahead & don’t do everything at the last minute.
Explore
Your task is a “space observation.” Walk, bike, or otherwise transport yourself to an outdoor location off-campus and carefully observe the space.
Here are some questions to get you started. You don’t need to answer each of these — they are suggestions to get you thinking:
What takes up space (objects, sound, contour)? Both moving and stationary objects take up space; also, sound can take up space.
How is space shaped?
How are subspaces marked? Example: in the Panhandle, the shared path is paved, which marks it off from the grassy part. Also, the path itself is divided into two lanes by a painted stripe.
How do people (and other creatures) use space(s)?
What speeds happen in space?
What are you not seeing? What’s missing?
Places you could go (again, just suggestions… I invite you to explore on your own):
John F. Kennedy Drive in Golden Gate Park — a big section of JFK is closed to auto traffic on Sundays, could be an interesting thing to see (and participate in)
Geary St. is one of San Francisco’s busiest corridors — early plans for the BART system imagined a line under Geary St, that would tunnel under the Golden Gate and connect to Marin
Fell St. or Oak St. east of Baker — between Baker and Scott on Fell and Oak are some of SFs flagship separated bike lanes
the world-famous San Francisco “Wiggle” (Wikipedia page) (on Yelp)– the seven or eight blocks of the Wiggle are a great place to observe pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists obeying and not obeying traffic laws
Turk Street — on a clear day, you can stand in the middle of Turk St. at its crest and see the Farallon Islands to the west, 27 miles offshore, and Mt. Diablo, more than 30 miles to the east. But don’t stand there too long, because Turk St. traffic moves pretty quickly.
Write a blog post discussing the arguments of Zimmer & Carlsson. Zimmer, as I mentioned in class, is a co-founder of Lyft. Carlsson is a San Francisco writer, activist, and co-founder of Critical Mass.
Your post should show that you are thinking about what ideas and positions these two authors share, and also where they differ. You can also evaluate their points.
Your post should also include information about your spatial observation expedition.
If it makes sense to connect your observation to bicycles, please do.
Purpose: This speaking assignment asks you to apply course concepts to real-world situations.
In class and in the assigned readings, we’ve studied a number of different models of credibility in human communication. The goal of this assignment is to apply what you’ve learned: you’ll analyze and assess credibility. This is one of the most important skills in human communication.
A successful presentation will show very strong knowledge of concepts, ideas, and claims discussed in class and in readings. This means that you should discuss specific ideas, claims, or arguments from the readings.
But it isn’t enough merely to summarize readings. A successful S1 presentation will also demonstrate an ability to apply course content to new contexts. By discussing and evaluating the credibility in a real-world situation, you will show that you can use course material to understand the world around us and the humans in it.
Topic — as always, you should try to develop a topic that is interesting and valuable to you. You can choose to focus on:
a person (a writer, speaker, athlete, scientist, politician, activist… anyone)
an institution (a company or brand, a non-profit, a government agency, a club or team…)
an object (a particular bicycle or accessory such as a helmet, a drug-testing procedure…)
In a short presentation, it’s probably best to focus on a specific idea (for example, goodwill in community policing)—rather than trying to cover all aspects of credibility.
Ingredients (the first three are essential; the fourth is optional):
1. Some information about the person, institution, or object you would like to discuss. You are the only one in this class who has studied this topic, so you need to give us enough information about it so we can understand your argument.
2. A discussion of credibility, drawing on sources provided in class (Horner, Tseng & Fogg). In any important communication, it’s necessary to define key terms or concepts. It is a mistake to assume that your audience shares your definition of a specific word or idea.
Example: in this excerpt from Tseng and Fogg’s report on credibility research, they begin with a basic definition (right), then add some history and complexity to the definition.
3. Your own assessment of the credibility of the person or object of your analysis—remember, credibility is always a relationship to an audience. You should show awareness of how different audiences might react to this book. You should build your case with specific examples and evidence from the book itself and from our course texts.
4. OPTIONAL: you can also refer to news reports, books, articles, or other “outside” information
Format and Logistics:
Length: ~3 minutes
Visual aids or slider optional (email me if you want to use the projector)
Sources: use course readings as sources (where appropriate); other sources optional
This project requires four to five blog posts:
a “write-out” — a draft of what you plan to say. It should be about 400 words
2 rehearsal videos (3 if you would like to get an A)
a reflection/ self-assessment (posted after your talk)