Contemporary design educators typically embed a rich array of research processes and activities into the curriculum. These processes should become an integral part of the professional practice of our graduates. Unfortunately many of our students do not assimilate these research processes to the extent that they can readily talk about them in the context of their practice.
Using project pitch templates
In our presentation we discussed the development of a project pitch template. This template developed as a hybrid between two genres – a design pitch and an academic abstract. The design pitch is a genre drawn from professional practices. It is used in the context of explaining a project to a client. The abstract is a genre drawn from academic practice. In particular we focused on the form of abstract that is used when reporting on qualitative research. Both genres are united by the narrative structure Orientation–Complication–Resolution.
There is significant potential to develop text-based literacy skills in a subject by embedding small scale texts (100-500 words) within assessment tasks that are primarily oriented towards other modalities e.g. the visual. There is also significant potential to build communities of practice around assessment, through the strategic use of templates for collaborative class analysis activities and self and peer critique.
Recommendations
We developed a set of recommendations for developing templates to support literacy in a genre. These include:
- Audit the genres in your subject
- Develop a template for key genres in your subject
- Use stem phrases where possible
The recommendations are available for download here. You can also take a look at our project pitch template.
We’d love to hear from you if you make use of these documents, email Sally.McLaughlin@uts.edu.au