A critical part of creating policy is the data gathering process. What data can you find quickly and analyze? What do the data mean? What story can you tell using reliable data? What data do you need?

Using your hometown as the subject of your investigation, assume that you are a policy analyst and you work for the new mayor or the new town or city council.

What data can you use to tell a story about your hometown? Where is it located? How many people live there? What does it provide in terms of resources to the state?

Start working on your idea for this sketch, and bring into class: data, audience, goals, and question.

Finish your sketch

Start working on your idea for this sketch, and bring into class: data, audience AND goals!

Finish your sketch.

Read Paige Williams, “How to tell a story: The Moth.” Nieman Storyboard (Harvard), August 2012. Choose and listen to one Moth Story. Write down and bring to class your analysis, as Paige Williams lists in her article’s item #3.

Come to class knowing what dataset you are working on, an outline of the story, and a sketch of what you want to make.

Finish your sketch.

Write up your project on the class blog. Start with a summary sentence in the form: "The data say ________. We want to tell this story because _____." Include a 300ish word summary of your data sources and why what you made is an appropriate and effective way to tell the data story.