Great job everyone!!! I’m extremely pleased with your final presentations (and that I was able to see them all)! I also heard from other faculty who were quite impressed. I hope very much that you enjoyed or at least learned from the process, and I can’t wait to see you pop-ed products tomorrow! Here are a few (not very good) photos I took…
Follow this link to see an introductory video and other info from Dr. Pop!
As discussed in class today, each of your groups needs a design strategy for your popular education product. This strategy should reflect careful consideration of your target audience, what you think they know/feel about your issue, what you want them to know/feel about your issue, how you plan to reach them, and how to convey your message in the most engaging and accessible way.
Here are some guiding questions to help guide your design process:
For today’s class we read: What Makes NYC Run? A Citizens Guide to How City Government Works. By The League of Women Voters (2008) p. 13-47 and 67-77. During class each group worked to specify its policy recommendations in relation to your research findings and what you know about the power of City Council.
Policy Recommendations are solutions that you propose that will make a systematic change to a problem you have identified through your research; these are specific, targeted to a particular person or entity with the power to make the change that you propose.
I also handed out outlines for your white papers: White papers are informative, persuasive documents written by an experts some issue, for a particular outside audience. They typically provide a concise overview of a complex problem, and propose specific actions that the target audience can and should take to address the problem. Each of your groups has a complex problem related to the Future of NYC that you are working with a community contact to address. The white papers you develop should be be targeted to City Council, NYC’s legislative body. You might also consider addressing your reports to particular council members and/or committees.
Model Outline for Your White Papers
Below is an outline of contents that typically go in a participatory action research report or white paper informed by community-based research. You may need to add and omit sections, depending on your organization and issue of focus.
Preface Sections:
1. About the Authors: List the organization(s) with a brief description of the mission and work. Include organizational logos if possible.
2. Acknowledgements: Acknowledge all of the individuals, organizational partners, members, and funders that made the report possible.
3. Foreword: Including a foreword from a well-known public figure or scholar can help raise the profile of your report and draw in readers.
4. Table of Contents: Present all of the sections of the report with corresponding page numbers in a clear and concise manner. You may also want to include a list of all the tables and charts in your report.
The Report:
5. Executive Summary: Should concisely summarize the report. Because this is the section that will be read the most, it should include the most significant research findings, data and policy recommendations.
6. Introduction and Background: Use this section to frame your report and to introduce the issue and/or community of focus. This section can include pertinent historical information, secondary data and a review of literature.
7. Research Methods: Describe of all of the research methods you used in the report. Include demographic information about your research sample, the sample strategy you used, who conducted the research, when the research was conducted and any challenges or limitations to your research that may have significantly impacted your findings.
8. Research Findings: Present all of your significant research findings from the data you collected in this section. Consider formatting this section by research finding including a brief background, summary of the finding, and relevant quantitative and qualitative data that supports the finding. Look for creative ways to present your quantitative data (charts, tables, graphs etc.), and your qualitative data (pullout quotes, individual member profiles or biographies with photos). Try to present the data so that the most important findings pop out the most.
9. Political Context: Describe the present political climate with information about relevant laws, legislation, and government funding related to the issue. This section should lay the foundation for the specific policy recommendations you propose in the following section.
10. Policy Recommendations: This section should present your policy recommendations in bulleted and easy to read format. Each policy recommendation should be directed at one or more specific entity that has the power to create or implement the policy you are recommending.
11. Conclusion: This section should sum up the main points of your report and include the core information you want the reader to take away after reading the report. It should also be inspirational, forward looking and act as a sort of “call to action” for the reader.
12. Appendix: Include addendum documents or information that clarify or strengthen your argument. Often appendix sections include tables, charts, and graphs of relevant information that are too bulky or too detailed to include in the body of the report. This can also include additional details from your methodology or a glossary of terms or acronyms that you use throughout the report.
13. Endnotes/Footnotes: Put all of your citations in this section; consider also including a bibliography of works cited. There are different formats you can use for citing works, but be sure that whatever format you chose, you are consistent for all of your footnotes or endnotes. Some types of publications, such as very technical or legal reports, may require footnotes but usually endnotes will suffice. Additional resources on citations include:
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/instruct/guides/citations.html
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/717/01/
All groups should review the following sources and take them into account as you work on your white papers. I have also posted a more targeted list for each of your groups as an “update” on your project pages.
This week we talked about how to move from research questions and data collection to research findings and policy recommendations. On Monday each group took stock of its most important data. Today each group began assembling pieces of a claim/argument/answer to the research question- in the form of a storyboard, with 3-4 reasons/evidence to support an overarching claim…
The purpose of these activities is to help you sharpen/re-calibrate your focus based on how your research is developing, and to help you determine where you have gaps, what your next steps should be, etc. I encourage you to continue working through these activities in your groups with help from the Craft of Research Worksheet and these guidelines for thinking about policy recommendations (same as what I shared in class today). There’s also the 2nd Edition of The Craft of Research available for free online if you’d like more detailed guidelines.
Today we discussed several key concepts that pertain to shaping the future of NYC and your group projects. Here are some highlights from the readings, our discussion and your reading responses..
As Defilippis & Saegert (and Ashley) point out: Even in this global world, people are still “place-based”- in neighborhoods and communities. According to DeRienzo…
According to Defilippis and Saegert…
In any case, “Communities develop, the question is, how?” (Defilippis & Saegert)
DeRienzo suggests there are 2 models of community organizing:
And the Transformative Model, which aims to address the root causes of shared problems and achieve shared goals. (ie. South Bronx Unite protesting the relocation of Fresh Direct to the neighborhood)…
In either case, community organizing involves building relationships, informing community members (Amir, Libby), and taking steps together (i.e. showing up to a meeting about the Flushing rezoning, speaking up, and signing a petition (Claudia).
As you proceed with your projects please consider the following (riffing on Libby): What are the commonalities of the community/communities your project addresses? What economic, social, and political factors are driving the need for community organizing? What kind of community organizing is already going on, and how can these efforts be made more transformative? Most importantly, how can your group help?
Finally, here are some articles and secondary data analyses that pertain to contemporary community struggles across the U.S….
For those of you who missed the Interference Archive field trip you are in luck because the “Our Comics, Ourselves” Exhibit is also on Tumblr!
However I highly recommend visiting the archive itself if you can, during their open hours. The comic exhibit runs until April 17th and their next exhibit- a collaboration with Mobile Print Power that sounds amazing- starts on May 1st. If you are planning to go please let me know and I’ll try to get one of the archivists to connect with you while you’re there and help you look around for things related to your group project.
Lastly, here are some comic and other visually engaging/popular education projects that were discussed during our visit yesterday that you might check out:
Below you will find activities and tools that will assist your group in the process of collecting data. There are 5 sub-sections on specific research methods that your groups have identified, including: participant observation, surveys, interviews, focus groups, and community mapping/canvassing. Each subsection includes activities, tools, and other resources to help your group through the process of developing research instruments, and preparing to go out into the community and collect data.
A treasure trove of additional resources on these and other methods and aspects of data collection can be found in the following “Community Toolkits”…
And this Action-based Research Methods website/blog/bibliography!
