Pitch Day

Yesterday this room was the Admiralty Court. You read the record, you voted, and you found out the record decides how a person is remembered. Today you take the record's job. Your project is the retrial, and your pitch is the opening statement.

Today ends with a signed commitment form in the facilitator's hand: your person, your format, your evidence, your supply list. No printer here. You rule the form up yourself on a plain sheet, copying the fields from the screen. That sheet is the contract for the build days, and the shopping list. Supplies get bought from it once.

Everything below, the pitch, the sharpening, the captain's check, exists to make that form easy to sign.

One sheet, folded like a book. Cover: your name, "Day 16," the date. Then:

No cipher today. Today you write the message. And write in pencil. A pitch gets sharper by getting marked up.

You have been narrowing since Day 4. Your top 2 people ride on your tracker. One last pass: which voice pulls at you?

1. Read your top 2 people's cards one more time. Which card do you stop scrolling for? Write that name in WHO. Pencil.
2. Now read the format menu with your person in mind. Which shape fits their story? Which shape can you finish in two build days? Write it in HOW.
3. Gear check: we build with paper, pencils, folders, and performance. No school printer, so anything "printed" comes from home or gets drawn. Our Chromebooks have no logins. If your format needs an account, ask the facilitator for its paper twin. A story map runs login-free in our own Map Studio, or lands on paper. Eight stops either way.

Format 12 is "pitch your own." Legal. The green light comes at the captain's check.

A pitch is one paragraph that names four things. That's it. That's the whole move.

Stuck starting? Steal these:

1. "My person is ___. He/she ___."
2. "My format is ___: ___ (four letters, six panels, eight stops)."
3. "My evidence is my Day ___, Day ___, and Day ___ pages."
4. "I picked this person because ___."

A blade gets sharp against a stone. Your partner is the stone.

1. Pitch out loud. One minute. Partner times it.
2. Partner asks one sharpening question. Not a compliment. A question that finds the soft spot.
3. Write the question on your spread. Word for word.
4. Swap roles. Do it again.
5. Both of you: revise. Answer the question inside your paragraph.

Questions that sharpen: "Which Journal page proves that?" · "Can you really build six panels by Wednesday?" · "Why this person and not your other pick?" · "What does a visitor see first at your table?" Questions that don't: "Is it good?" · "I like it."

Every pitch gets checked today. Every single one. Here's how the queue works:

1. Pitch revised? Add your name to the queue on the board.
2. Keep working while you wait. Tighten the paragraph. Pull your source pages to the front of your folder so you can grab them fast.
3. Your turn: 2 minutes with the facilitator. They check four things.

Hear "not yet"? Not yet is not no. You get one named fix. Make it, re-queue, done. Pass, and your PITCH page gets the captain's mark. You are cleared for the build.

Cleared early? Write your build list on the spread: three materials you'll want Tuesday morning. Then game time: Whydah’s Voyage.

The captain's mark is on your page. Now ink it.

1. Write the final pitch on THE PITCH page, clean and readable. This page leads your Journal at the Showcase. Visitors will read it.
2. Under it, answer this in two or three honest sentences: Why did you choose the perspective you chose?

Every pitch got made. Now the ring answers. Around the circle: name one pitch that is not yours that you want to see finished. The person's name, then five words on why.

Every builder should hear their own name at least once. Your teacher fills the gaps.

You adopted your ship on 13 July. Seventeen days at sea since. Where is it now? Take one quick look if a Chromebook is near. If not, write from memory. A captain knows their ship.

This tracker started on Day 4 with six names on it. Look what's left.

1. Write the final line: your person · your format · 30 July 2026 · CHOSEN.
2. Read your old back covers if they're in your folder. Six names became one. Not one big decision. Lots of small ones. That's how a course gets charted.

Monday: Synthesis Studio. You walk the whole unit start to finish AS your person. Tuesday and Wednesday: build days. Thursday, August 6: the Showcase. Doors open.