Participation is graded on continual presence and engagement with themes, activities and the projects of your peers. Your participation (from week 4) also includes discussion of your research with the rest of the class. You should specify: 
- what argument(s)/issues/institutions/community work you are exploring and why, 
- what theoretical insights you have come up with or are drawing on 
- what challenges you have come across 
- what you have learnt so far in your research 

During this time, you can ask your peers for their feedback and use this time to help hone your research questions and methodologies 

Choose a key activity/community/culture/creative practice or social problem/phenomenon. 

Your task here is to make yourself aware of the critical and theoretical research that has been done with respect to this field/group, and key representations associated with it/them. Construct a miniature literature review or make an annotated bibliography which will inform the types of issues you may want to observe first hand when you engage with that community, group or practice in the field. Collate representational material from available theoretical insights, media images, policy documents and other reportage to construct your literature review or an annotated bibliography. 

For more information on what a literature review is: 
http://guides.library.yale.edu/content.php?pid=128822&sid=1115850 

For more information on annotated bibliographies: 
http://guides.library.cornell.edu/annotatedbibliography 

Observe a culture, activity or community context in practice for a minimum of 30 hours over the semester. This may refer to political, social, legal, scientific, or activist settings, fan based cultures, community meetings, marginalised or socially disadvantaged cultures, other topical social phenomena, performance contexts, etc. This culture or community should be directly connected to the group, problem, or representations you explored in Task Two. 

The first half of your action brief should state the existing literature (i.e. studies, research and representations) that relates to your chosen example. You need to write how your own focus, observations, and analysis either confirms, extends, differs, and/or challenges this existing literature. 

The second half of your action brief should consider how the setting (context) of your example is structured and identify how members of the community/cultural group are recognised and/or recruited. Some questions you might consider: 

 How do they engage with each other, and what are the aims of interactions? 
 Is the group political? 
 What issues are the group concerned with? 
 How are issues of work, ethics, and identity dealt with? 
 How do the lived experiences of those you have encountered and observed compare with the mediated and/or policy-based representations of them? 

There are two parts of this exercise: Firstly, you will present your project in its entirety to the group. You may present your material as creatively or formally as you find appropriate. Start with your initial aims, take the group through your process, and accentuate the key points of interest/characteristics of the cultural practices at play in the setting/group you have explored. On the basis of your research and experience, offer some solutions or propositions to help produce ethical and/or socially inclusive outcomes for the group, or for some of the issues at hand. This should take no more than 15 minutes. 

Secondly, you will submit your final portfolio. You will include the Task 2 and Task 3 assignments, in addition to a 1,000 word report that summaries your final position – or ‘project outcomes’ that you illustrated in your presentation. Here, you need to place the critical and theoretical material in relation to the field notes and representations in order to create a final research statement that not only reflects your experiences, but suggests and acknowledges where further action could taken in research, policy, creativity or social practice.