First Day/Week

On the first day of class, students think about the course topic and document their personal definitions of and understandings of the topic.

This lesson uses Photoshop to manipulate creative commons images found on the Internet into an avatar which represents the persona or ethos from which the student will write on a course blog.

Start close-reading on day one by using YouTube videos and considering their archives.

This user-friendly activity has students write informally using "word cloud" freeware through responding to an educational film.

Make the first day of class more engaging by creating a Prezi to introduce the major concepts on your syllabus. This offers students some visualization tools for what can be a tedious lecture.

Using samples pulled from the popular website, Texts From Last Night, this exercise introduces students to textual analysis in a fun and (most likely) funny way.