This is an assignment from a Basic Skills English class. Students were invited to design the Student Initiative Center (SIC) while it was still just a dream. Asking students to flesh out this dream helped to really kick start the work of making the SIC a reality. When the SIC finally opened, many of its features came directly from students who did this assignment.

Student Voice is an extremely powerful tool for driving institutional change, and the TEA team works with faculty to learn how to best leverage this powerful force. 

A ‘World Class’ Class—

The Student Initiative Center (SIC)

For this 3rd essay assignment, you have a Design Challenge. The broad challenge is that you are being asked to design the SIC. 

We are organizing this effort around 4 major questions. (For sure you can raise other questions and areas of discussion, in addition to these 4 questions.)

• What needs do students have that the SIC will address?

• How do you imagine the room being used?

• How would you design it?

• How do you imagine SIC interacting with the Collaborative Projects Center and the Knowledge Garden?

You should write this essay as if it is a proposal. We will be talking about the features of typical proposals. Your audience for the proposal is Chabot administration. 

You should do an Intro.  You may submit a budget breakout page if you like. 

You should devote considerable time to talking about the problems that students face that SIC will help solve. (Q#1) Really nail why it is that SIC is crucial for students and teachers. 

You should do Rule of 3 in answering the questions. 

You should integrate education issues into Design theories….they need to serve each other…

You should include pics, even room layouts.

Even though you might not use quotes in a real proposal, for this essay you will be using quotes in your body paragraphs. (They actually will probably help the persuasiveness of the proposal.) You will want to incorporate Design concepts from the book and from other sources we have been looking at, including videos we have seen. 

Make the project be WOW! 

In other words, surprise yourself. Surprise your audience. NO idea is too weird. Your goal is to make this the coolest space on campus, truly world class. 

The Page minimum is 8 pages of writing. (Any  pics, graphs, etc. are in addition to the 8 pages of writing, as is budget or time line.)

The paper is due April 30th…draft day is the 23rd..