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In-class Exercise

Becoming-Imperceptible, or How to Disappear Completely

Teach students about managing their online presence

In this assignment, students learn about the importance of protecting their information and image online, and in turn, take measures to delete themselves from the myraid places where they are visible/vulnerable.

Diagnosing Digital Literacy via Student-generated Avatars

class avatars

This assignment is purposefully simple because its serves as a diagnostic for students' levels of functional digital literacy in programs like Photoshop and Jing. It also serves to familiarize some students with these programs, and with the processes necessary for maintaining their class blogs.

Wordle as a Tool for Research and Invention

sample wordle

This is a short assignment using the free text visualization software, Wordle, to help students find keywords for researching their chosen topics.

Editing Poetry: Manuscript to Printed Page

Manuscripts offer an opportunity to discuss editorial decisions.

Students work on transcribing an Emily Dickenson poem from manuscript form into print. Their transcriptions are then compared with each other and with several printed editions of the same poem and used to discuss editorial decisions.

Close Reading Through Interactive Storytelling

students create games based on scenes or passages from a novel

In this assignment, my students used a game-authoring platform called ARIS (Augmented Reality and Interactive Storytelling) to create augmented reality games based on scenes or passages from novels studied in our course.

Tracing Memes in Storify

A man pins pages to a white wall. To his right, "Storify" is defined.

In this assignment, students use the free online program Storify to track the life of a meme by combining elements pulled from social and news media sources. 

Revising/Drafting/Editing With Wikis

Students engage with and revise each other's texts using a wiki platform

Students engage with and revise each other's texts using a wiki platform. Allows students to consider the various ways of composing a summary of a single text.

End of Semester Reflection on Political Rhetoric

Students consider an ostentacious example of political rhetoric, then consider the other side's analysis of said rhetoric.

In-Class Group Evaluations of Short Videos

Eminem looking at marquee saying "Keep Detroit Beautiful"

For an entire class period, groups of students are tasked with evaluating a short video. Each group is assigned a video and a category of evaluation that they will use to evaluate their assigned video. They will work together to come up with criteria, evidence, and an evaluative claim for their video.

Teaching the Enthymeme with Restaurants

Students to think about how the enthymeme might function in practical argument

This assignment requires students to think about how the enthymeme might function in practical argument—specifically, in convincing a group of out-of-town visitors to Austin to try one of the local restaurants.

Historical Approaches to Literary Criticism Using Internet Archive Videos

student groups analyze the use of “utopian” themes in a 1937 Ford Commercial

For one class, student groups analyze the use of “utopian” themes in a 1937 Ford Motor Company commercial, then compare this to specific elements of Huxley’s dystopian satire.

Procedural Rhetoric: Analyzing Video Games

Screen shot of September 12 Video Game Instructions

This activity asks students to practice rhetorical analysis with reference to Ian Bogost's understanding of "procedural rhetoric." This mode of rhetoric focuses on the ways that procedures, processes, logics, and rules can be expressive and persuasive.

How to Advocate a Course of Action via Excel

Spreadsheets can be a useful tool

Students will use a combination of rhetorical analysis and Microsoft Excel formatting to brainstorm and write a two-page policy proposal that advocates a particular course of action.

Exploring 18th-19th Century Crime Broadsides Online

students explore the rhetoric of 18th-19th century crime broadsides

As a conclusion to an online research workshop, students explore the rhetoric of 18th-19th century crime broadsides from the Harvard Law School Library's online collection of crime broadsides.

Jump-Start Your Rhetoric Class with Text Visualization Software

A word-cloud on education

This user-friendly activity has students do some informal free-writing in response to an educational film, then reflect on their writing using "word cloud" freeware.

Essay Revision with Automated Textual Analysis

This assignment uses Voyeur to analyze of word frequencies and word distribution

This assignment uses Voyeur to analyze word frequencies and word distribution in student writing to help students see the paper’s thesis and how the argument progresses without reading the paper.

Composing Tutorials for Navigating Databases

Students write short manuals outlining how to use databases

RHE 306 group work: Students write short manuals outlining how to use databases (LexisNexis, Infotrac Newsstand, Academic One File, Opposing Viewpoints, Google/Wikipedia).

In-Class Writing / Digital Midterm

Against Health: How Health Became the New Morality, book cover

Give an essay exam as a midterm — using classroom computers — so students can synthesize course content, advocate a position, and revise as they write.

Video Conferencing in the Classroom

Hardcover edition of Lehrer, Proust Was a Neuroscientist

In this classroom activity, a scholar/expert whose work is on your syllabus visits the classroom via Skype or another conferencing tool.

Procedural Enthymeme with Inform7

Screenshot of Inform7 Interface

Even though we use enthymemes in our everyday speech, teaching the concept presents difficulties. By making enthymemes in the interactive fiction design system Inform7, students develop a deep understanding of implied reasoning.

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