For this lesson you are going to be in a learning circle of your peers. This will give you an opportunity to get familiarized with your peers and their work. For this first assignment, I want to you to head over to the Student Posts page and find the drafts of your peers in your learning circle. Then I want you to submit an anonymous critique in the form below for each member. As I receive them, I will circulate them back to the person you gave feedback to. This exercise affords you the opportunity to practice using the concepts, theories, and language of design.  NOTE: I am not grading anyone’s work based of these critiques. This is only to benefit the learning circle. My hope is that, through this process, you get some helpful advice from each other.

Next I want you to choose one person from your learning circle and comment on their blog post. These are NOT meant to be anonymous. As a blog owner, you will want to make sure that your blog allows comments and that you are “approving” the comments as they come in from peers. Additionally, you will want to make sure you reply to comments as they come in. Though its not required, feel free to continue the conversation after the first comment.

What is a constructive comment? It should be more than “Nice work” or “I agree”. It ought to be a few sentences, and include useful feedback or suggestion for improvement. You can explain why you like what was written or agree. Or explain why you disagree. You can offer relevant contexts or links. Or offer additional resources or links that might benefit the writer. For every bit of opinion you might start writing, think of including an “and…” statement.

One approach if giving criticism is to put it inside a sandwich- open with aspects you praise or agree with, offer critical statements, and close with a positive. Maybe the best advice is to comment in the style and mood that you would like to receive.

When you comment, show that you are listening. Respond to specific parts of what the author wrote. As a form of acknowledgement, when someone replies specifically to a point, it means they are listening. Do not be the commenter who just uses it as a means to talk about their own stuff.

For this assignment, you are being asked to design a business card and a paired letterhead. You want your letterhead to have a very similar look and feel to the brand design you create for the business card. By the end of the week, you’ll embed a draft of your letterhead in your reflection post.

In your letterhead’s text, I want you to write a letter from someone at the company so that you can show what text looks like on the page. This could be a Letter from the CEO thanking a donor, an internal memo, etc. The letterhead to be 8.5 in. x 11 in. The number of columns, margins, and bleed is up to you. Below is a screenshot of a dialogue box and of my recommendation for how you should set it up:

I’ve included below the usual questions for reflection posts as well as some supplemental questions that you are more than welcome to answer:

1. What were you asked to do?

2. How did you respond to what you were asked to do?

3. How did react to what you actually did?

4. Now go one level deeper: Why do you think your reaction was what it was?

Tag your blog post “Reflection.”

Head over to D2L and get your quiz on. Due Wed, February 24, 2016.