Erin Breaux
Assignments & Activities Archive
Assignment Description
This multimodal assignment challenges students to think in a different medium and consider the impact of visual rhetoric. While composing an infographic, they learn skills such as concision, design principles, organization of texts and images, and use of statistics, charts, and graphs. The infographic works well for remediation of informative or persuasive essays where the goal is for students to transform their written essay into a visual form, using research they have already completed. However, the infographic may also be assigned as a stand-alone project involving new research. To prepare for this assignment, the professor analyzes existing infographics, discusses the principles of good design, and compares the components of good writing with that of effective visual media. The students also look at popular programs and tutorials, and they compare them before deciding which one they want to use to create their infographic. Students browse and experiment with their program in class and sometimes decide they need to transition to a new program depending upon what they want to do. This assignment may also be assigned without the remediation component; the infographic does not need to be directly related to an essay the student has already written. Students can go through the research process for a new topic they choose specifically for their infographics. An infographic may also be assigned as an activity rather than a major assignment.