I could write a long article on the importance of referencing and how it can help your animation, but frankly I've sat on this exercise for soo LONG, I'd rather just get going on the outline.

Here's an article that will help you understand: Importance of Referencing [blog.digitaltutors.com]

And a Youtube video example: Disney's Frozen BTS

The Exercise for this week is: Film yourself or an object doing something and use that footage to help animate a scene with a character or object doing the same thing

There's nothing wrong with rotoscoping, but for extra credit study the footage and figure out as much information as you can, where the arcs are, what's the timing and the interaction with other objects.