Due: Tuesday, March 9^th

With a partner, write a two- to three-page proposal memo to me concerning a specific change you would like to see in this class during the second half of the semester.

Proposal Concepts
Some of the concepts employed in this memo will serve as preparation for our Recommendation Letter and Assignment Proposal & Presentation. This assignment will also combine some of the concepts we've discussed in class / used on assignments so far, such as Understanding Audience:

• Building Goodwill—be sure to establish a rapport between you and your audience; knowing appropriate ways to phrase suggestions, what interests your audience has, and how to appeal to those interests
• Constructive Criticism—constructing positive messages / shaping negative messages in a positive, constructive manner so that your audience doesn't feel attacked, but as though your critiques are being offered as a way to improve the status quo
• Affecting Change—writing a workplace memo to a real audience from whom you hope to exact some sort of change / improvement in a service to you (as in our Complaint Letter and / or Recommendation Letter); choose something you feel would definitely benefit you, your writing skills, and the class as a whole
• Feasibility—determine whether your proposed idea is even possible; for example, if you are proposing an assignment or activity that requires meeting more often in a computer lab, do research to make sure a computer lab is available (just because a lab is "open" does not make it available for class)
• Document Design—designing visually-appealing, well-organized, easily-searched documents by using appropriate spacing, headings, lists, etc. so that your ideas are easily displayed to your reader

Presentation Component
As we will be proposing these ideas to the class, evaluating each, and selecting those we wish to implement in class, each group will prepare a five-minute PowerPoint presentation of your proposal. You will want to incorporate all of the information from your proposal into this presentation; however, your audience will not want to read large chunks of text on a PowerPoint slide.

Individual slides should not necessarily contain all of the information from your presentation. Often times slides are used as outlines for the presentation, offering main ideas and supporting ideas, where the speaker(s) elaborate on the concepts from the slides with the descriptions and analysis of the concepts displayed. Don't offer too much information on your slides so that you are merely reading the information; your audience could probably do this without your help.

In the same way, be sure to include enough information on your slides so all of the main ideas are presented and, in the speaking component of your presentation, you are not introducing ideas that are difficult to link with the sparse text on the slides themselves. For more information and examples of how to construct presentations, see Creating Presentations in the class notes sections.