DWRL Lesson Plans - Summary

Writing Process

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

This class activity came out of several grading sessions, wherein I realized my students were having a hard time subordinating an author's points during a summary. They seemed to give each of the author's statements equal weight, without differentiating between which ideas were primary and which were more supporting details. So while this activity is meant to reinforce the skills of summary and syntehsis, it's foremost an thought-exercise, which I hoped would help them give themselves permission to fairly emphasize certain statements over others.

Media Requirements:

Required Materials:

This activity will go more smoothly if each student can efficiently take notes. I allow them to take digital notes on a laptop or tablet, but this isn't strictly necessary. The project does require that the instructor have a media console and projector.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Mid-Semester

Full Assignment Description:

Ask students to sit in groups of three. These groups will be informal, and they shouldn't get too hung up on them. Most of their work will be individual, but asking them to share with a tiny group before discussing with the entire class can make them feel more confident.

Screen a clip from a popular comedian's standup special. I chose Louis CK, Aziz Ansari, and Bill Burr, to get a range of comedic styles. Each clip should last no more than 3-4 minutes, although the length will of course be based on the amount of time devoted to a single topic within the special. I also chose clips that I felt addressed primary controversies circulating in the news, and ones I felt my students would probably be familiar with.

Ask students to take notes on the clip and to identify the comedian's main point. Then ask them to fill in the supporting details.

Students should share their breakdown of the clip with their miniature group.

Once they have had a chance to discuss (this should only take two minutes or so), get a class consensus about what the comedian is "really" talking about, and what lines are there for effect or support. This is an opportunity to point out which points may seem like they're geting a lot of focus but are actually in the clip for a laugh or for emphasis.

Students should be able to summarize the clip in one statement. Encourage them to write an informal thesis as a class. For example, "In this bit, Aziz Ansari pokes fun at gender conventions by highlighting the arbitrariness of marriage rituals." This statement bridges a summary understanding of the text and an introduction to basic analysis. The extent to which the dicussion veers toward how the comedian's performance and language are affecting the humor is flexible; depending on how far the instructor would like to introduce or foreshadow Unit 2, this activity could stick to summary, or it could invite students to begin considering ethos, logos, pathos, and so on.

Repeat the exercise two or three times, time permitting, and debrief with students. They should feel more confident identifying primary and secondary points, especially with such a flexible genre.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

I recommend converting the YouTube videos to an MP4 file that can be embedded in a Prezi or PowerPoint. This avoids the mid-class confusion of watching ads, finding the right clips, and so on.

Instructions For Students:

1. Watch the following comedy clip.

2. Take notes on what is being said.

3. When the clip is finished, re-read your notes and organize the bit based on its primary argument and its supporting subpoints.

4. Discuss with your group: compare your own breakdown of the primary and secondary claims with the others. Be prepared to report your organization to the class.

Repeat with three different clips, time allowing.

Homework:

1. Find your own clip.

2. Take notes on the content and revise your notes into some kind of outline that separates the main ideas from the subpoints.

3. Write up a short paragraph summarizing and synthesizing the comedian's argument.

4. Post both the paragraph and a link to the clip on the Canvas discussion board.

Evaluation Suggestions:

I ask students to share their choice/phrasing of the comedian's main argument and subpoints with the class. This is an informal evaluation, but it allows me to both determine their comfort with pulling out the major threads of an argument and to encourage them to make those distinctions between which ideas are emphasized and which are supplemental.

I also ask students to do one more summary/synthesis on a Canvas discussion board. They find their own set of clips, summarize them and synthesize their relationship to one another, and post their writing with the clip link on Canvas. I grade it for completion, but it can be a good, efficient way to guage whether students can differentiate between main ideas and subpoints.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

My PowerPoint didn't actually work, but I did have the separate downloaded clips, so it went relatively smoothly. Despite the technical glitch, I got a lot of positive feedback on this assignment. I think my students liked the project simply for content--it made a nice vacation from reading arguments about marijuana legalization--but they did also seemed to really enjoy applying their summary skills to less-conventional media. After we discussed the major/minor points, they enjoyed very briefly discussing how the rhetorical turns worked, which was what made me think this assignment worked well as a pseudo-bridge between Unit 1 (research/summary) and Unit 2 (analysis).

Course Type:

Course Description:

Rhetoric 306 is a course designed to introduce students to the fundamentals of research and argumentation. They are asked to research a controversy, summarize and analyze the arguments of the major stakeholders in that controversy, and then develop their own arguments.

Tags:

Performance

Bridging Summary and Analysis with Standup Clips

Plourde — Thu, 19 Feb 2015 18:51:15 +0000

Author:

Aubrey Plourde

Image Credit:

Image Credit: Cory Schmitz

Brief Assignment Overview:

Type of Assignment:

In-class Exercise

Assignment Length:

Single Class Period

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Literature:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Writing Process

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

Media Requirements:

Required Materials:

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Mid-Semester

Full Assignment Description:

Ask students to take notes on the clip and to identify the comedian's main point. Then ask them to fill in the supporting details.

Students should share their breakdown of the clip with their miniature group.

Repeat the exercise two or three times, time permitting, and debrief with students. They should feel more confident identifying primary and secondary points, especially with such a flexible genre.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

I recommend converting the YouTube videos to an MP4 file that can be embedded in a Prezi or PowerPoint. This avoids the mid-class confusion of watching ads, finding the right clips, and so on.

Instructions For Students:

1. Watch the following comedy clip.

2. Take notes on what is being said.

3. When the clip is finished, re-read your notes and organize the bit based on its primary argument and its supporting subpoints.

4. Discuss with your group: compare your own breakdown of the primary and secondary claims with the others. Be prepared to report your organization to the class.

Repeat with three different clips, time allowing.

Homework:

1. Find your own clip.

2. Take notes on the content and revise your notes into some kind of outline that separates the main ideas from the subpoints.

3. Write up a short paragraph summarizing and synthesizing the comedian's argument.

4. Post both the paragraph and a link to the clip on the Canvas discussion board.

Evaluation Suggestions:

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

Course Type:

Course Description:

Tags:

Adaptable For Use Without Classroom Technology

Performance

Podcast/Paper: Having Students Do the Same Assignment in 2 Media

detweiler — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 20:04:27 +0000

Author:

Eric Detweiler

Image Credit:

Compiled from images on Wikimedia Commons

Brief Assignment Overview:

I have my students complete their first major assignment in two forms: (1) An individual 3-page paper and (2) a 5-6 minute group podcast. In both, they describe a text and situate it in historical context.

Type of Assignment:

Major Course Project

Assignment Length:

Course Unit

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

To get students to think about the ways in which presentational form/medium effects their inventional and organizational processes, as well as what counts as rhetorically effective.

Media Requirements:

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Required Materials:

Recording devices. If at least one student in each podcast group has a personal computer with a built-in microphone, that's fine. If that's not the case, or if you want to go hi-fi, USB microphones can step quality up a little bit. Access to some sort of editing software: Apple's GarageBand or Audacity are common options, and the latter can be downloaded for free online.

Audio Hijack Pro is also another useful software if students want to use clips from the text they're discussing in their podcast. The website snipmp3.com can also be used to grab audio from YouTube videos if Audio Hijack Pro isn't affordable/available.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Intermediate Writing Course

Full Assignment Description:

In my RHE 309K course, Rhetoric of Irony, students examine, analyze, and argue about the rhetorical and ethical implications of irony in political and popular discourse. Their first assignment is to choose a historical (before the year 2000) ironic text and describe the text, its context, and its use of irony to their classmates.

My course includes a lot of writing, of course, and I want to get students thinking critically about that writing from the start of the class. In order to do that, I wanted to supplement the paper version of this first assignment with something in another medium and/or mode. Because I have worked with podcasts and audio strikes me as relatively straightforward (in a sense, a podcast can be little more than a recorded speech, writing's other half in the history of rhetoric and rhetoric instruction). The podcast allows students to invent and organize their material in a different way than the paper, and with structured reflective writing and conversation can help them think about the particularities and peculiarities of written and aural/oral discourse. I've found it can open up productive conversations about the difficulties and tropes of academic writing. For instance, students often have an easier time inventing material for the podcast than for the paper (I do require a first draft of the paper that's due one week before the podcast and final paper draft). Even though a 5-6 minute podcast and a 3-page paper can accomodate about the same number of words, students frequently feel like they've have to make copious cuts to fit everything into the podcast and stretching to find enough material for the paper.

In short, this assignment allows students to think about the constraints and affordances of both spoken and written compositions, as well as how they might adapt rhetorically to both forms/media/modes (these aren't synonyms here, of course, but all potential frames for discussing these assignments). It can also be a useful method of invention and helping students think about the patterns and obstacles that crop up in their academic writing processes.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

There are a variety of ways to approach the podcast assignment. I didn't spend much time teaching my students how to actually make podcasts. I basically showed them what GarageBand, Audacity, and Audio Hijack Pro looked like on our classroom computers, showed them how to drag audio files into the first two and how to sync the latter up with other applications. I focused more on showing students how to search Audacity's robust wiki and how to look up GarageBand tutorials on YouTube, etc. Learning to learn these technologies for themselves, in other words, was a big part of the assignment. I also provided them 15-20 minutes of in-class time to work as a group a few times, which gave them a chance to play with the technologies while I was on hand to offer troubleshooting advice and general tips.

As an instructor, you might want to have some knowledge of the technologies, then, though being an amateur along with your students can be a productive learning experience. If you don't have a computer classroom with those programs, I imagine the shorter introduction described above would be best, leaving the onus on students to experiment with them outside of class. If you do, you could certainly conduct a more in-depth, participatory in-class tutorial.

If even having students download Audacity seems too daunting, this assignment could feasibly be completed by having students record a script using Windows' pre-installed and very basic Audio Recorder; all current Apples come equipped with GarageBand.

Instructions For Students:

Since the meta-assignment comprises two parts (the group podcast and the individual paper), both assignment prompts are included below. The podcast comes first.

Unit 1 Podcast

Podcast: An audio program, often brief, that’s similar to a radio show but intended for digital download rather than live play. We have already spent some time addressing the important role situational factors play in creating a kairos for what counts as/is recognized as effective “irony.

We have already spent some time addressing the important role situational factors play in creating a kairos for what counts as/is recognized as effective “irony.” For instance, much of the ironic political critique of 1970s Saturday Night Live skits might seem dull or weird without a deep understanding of how Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan were seen and thought of at the time, as well as what political contexts they were a part of. Without knowledge of Jon Stewart’s role on The Daily Show, the kairos of his Crossfire appearance would be much harder to understand.

General

Your first major assignment, then, is to create a group podcast in which your group situates an ironic text in its original context. Exploring, in other words, the situational variables that made up its kairos. For our purposes, the text must have been originally released before January 1, 2000 (in part because that’s a neat dividing line, in part because—as we’ll see later this semester—9/11 brought about some important shifts in many Americans’ attitudes toward irony). Your podcast should include your text itself, as well as relevant events, people, etc. that had some influence on the contexts out of which the text emerged. For instance, what cultures was the author a part of, and how might they have influenced her or his ironic rhetorical choices? How was the text originally distributed (British newspaper, 1960s Japanese television, FM radio, etc.), and how might the context of that material form shape the text? Who, if relevant, was in political power? Were any military or social conflicts going on in the background? Was your text responding to a specific previous text, or to a general cultural and/or political atmosphere? In short, your podcast should help your audience better understand your text and its kairos. Don’t give context for context’s sake, but bring to your listeners’ minds key contextual details relevant to your text’s rhetorical point(s) and the broader historical situation in which those points were being made in order to foster a better understanding of your text in its context.

You will work in either pairs or trios. All members must agree on the chosen text. That choice is yours, not mine, as is how you divide the workload—as long as you do so in an equitable manner and all group members’ voices appear at least once in the final podcast. Keep in mind this collaborative project’s potential relevance to your individual Learning Record.

Specifics

Your podcast is due on the wiki by the beginning of class Mon., Feb. 18. Upload it as an .mp3, .aac, .or .wav file. Podcasts must be 5-6 minutes long. We will listen to all groups’ podcasts in class that day. The time limit is strict, and you should make use of that time in a rhetorically effective—in a kairotic—manner. In addition to the release of your text itself, your podcast must introduce and set up at least three additional contextual variables: events, people, wars, other texts, private or public squabbles, or responses to your text. You should verbally cite at least two sources in your podcast. Source requirements are covered in more detail in the corresponding paper assignment. Your primary rhetorical goals are to inform and to entertain. Make a podcast that will hold your classmates’ and my attention. My feedback on the timeline will be given in written form, with each group member receiving the same write-up.

Paper 1

General

In addition to the group podcast, you are responsible for writing an individual paper in which you describe the context out of which your text arose, the significance and ironic message of the text itself, and how that specific message responded to/interacted with your text’s kairos. Keep in mind your primary purpose is—as with the podcast—to give your readers a better understanding of your text by situating it, not to offer context for context’s sake. Always make sure you explain the relevance of that context in terms of your text.

You should try to avoid taking a position on whether your text’s message is “good” or “bad.” Try to stick primarily to describing and summarizing text and context rather than evaluating. If your text was rhetorically ineffective or responded poorly to its context, let that point be made via exposition (for instance, that it’s faded into history or has a powerful legacy) rather than direct argument. Let me know if I can clarify here.

Though you can draw on your group’s conversations, brainstorming, etc. in writing your paper, the actual process of writing should be undertaken individually. If you have questions about the boundaries of collaboration and plagiarism, check the course strands or with me. Basically, your paper should have different sentences, paragraphs, and overall arrangement than your other group members’, though the basic content could be largely the same.

Specifics

Your paper must have at least four sources. Two of those sources must be scholarly; two must be broader historical or primary sources. We’ll discuss these distinctions in class on Jan. 30. If you aren’t confident in this area and want to get a head start, however, feel free to talk with me in advance. Easy Writer also has advice here. Your paper may share one scholarly and one historical source with your other group members’ papers. The other scholarly and historical source must be unique to your paper.

Paper 1 should be at least 1000 words including the works-cited page, heading, title, etc. That should make the body of the paper around 3 pages. The paper should be properly formatted according to MLA guidelines, which we’ll discuss as this unit unfolds. A full draft of the paper

(1.1) is due in the corresponding wiki folder on Mon., Feb. 11. Paper 1.1 will be peer reviewed in class on that day. A substantially revised version (1.2) is due in the corresponding wiki folder by the beginning of class on Mon., Feb. 18.

Evaluation Suggestions:

I use The Learning Record to assess my classes, so students get qualitative feedback from me on both the podcast and the paper. I offer marginal comments on the first draft of the paper. In response to my comments and a peer review, students set three revision goals--each including what the goal is, why they've set it as a goal based on peer review/my comments/personal reflection, and how they plan to carry it out--for writing/revising their second draft (the ".2" in the prompt above). I approve those goals in advance of the revisions, then focus my comments on them in assessing the second draft.

My commentary on the podcast, which focuses primarily on invention, organization, and audience awareness, is the same for all members of each group and is about a paragraph in length.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

I wasn't sure how this approach would go over this semester, which was the first time I assigned both podcast and paper. Students seemed enthusiastic about the podcast. In addition to being more "fun" than a traditional paper, it seems the unorthodox and novel nature of podcasts for school purposes led them to feel more freedom in inventing and organizing. They were, in other words, much less prone to podcaster's block than writer's block. I require the paper to be more conventional in terms of college writing for a rhetoric course, but the podcast gave them ample material to conventionalize for the paper.

Additional Resources:

The Scholar Electric on Incorporating Audio Assignments: http://www.ryantrauman.net/scholarelectric/2012/11/13/212/

Audacity's wiki: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Audacity_Wiki_Home_Page

The Learning Record: http://www.learningrecord.org/

Course Type:

Course Description:

What is irony? It’s a rhetorical device that has been called “infinite absolute negativity” and “the key to the tightest bonds of friendship.” Jane Austen uses it to poke fun at Victorian social norms, Stephen Colbert to mock American politics, television shows like South Park to critique—well, just about everything. Irony’s complex history is part of the reason its definition is so hard to pin down. Working towards an understanding and definition of the term will thus be one of the aims of this course.

Irony’s presence in individual rhetorical exchanges can be equally hard to identify, however. Consider the times you've been reading something online—say a friend's Facebook status—and found yourself asking, "Can this person possibly be serious?" This course, then, will also examine how irony functions practically in political and popular discourse. The effective use of irony requires both the speaker and listener to share a mutual understanding not only of the position being ironically stated, but the other party’s unstated beliefs and the actual critical message under the surface. Traditional rhetorical variables—speaker, audience, purpose—are all present, but layered in a manner that requires especially acute rhetorical awareness. This course will thus necessitate that students assume and practice a rigorous rhetorical consciousness as they engage with irony as both a concept and a complex rhetorical device, constructing and critiquing ironic arguments as they consider the historical, political, and ethical implications of irony’s deployment from Socrates to Swift to sitcoms.

Tags:

Comparing Summaries on a Class Wiki

gerdes — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 15:56:04 +0000

Author:

Kendall Gerdes

Image Credit:

Kendall Gerdes

Brief Assignment Overview:

This lesson asks students to individually summarize a short opinion article, then post their summaries as comments on a class wiki page. The lesson can be expanded with class discussion about the strengths of students' summaries, as well as the similarities and differences.

Type of Assignment:

Assignment Length:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Collaboration

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

This lesson aims to teach students to:

find a text's main argument and supporting claims
practice paraphrasing by condensing an argument
see how their own summary overlaps with their peers'
see how their own summary could be improved
see that there are many valid ways to summarize an argument

Media Requirements:

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Required Materials:

an article for students to summarize (I selected a short 3-page op-ed from the New York Times)
a class wiki or blog where students can post comments simultaneously on a single page (I use PBWorks)
computers for each student so they can compose simultaneously and post their summaries

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Full Assignment Description:

I began by allowing my students time to read the article in class, since it was a short piece--instructors may assign longer articles be read in advance of class. As students finished their reading, I asked them to summarize the article by identifying the main claim and any important supporting claims. Most composed in the comments box of the wiki page where they were asked to post their summaries--as did I. While the students were composing, I composed my own summary to discuss at the end of the lesson.

I allowed about fifteen minutes for summarizing. Then I asked everyone to post what they had, no matter how incomplete. Instructors could allow time here for students to read one another's summaries and compare. We then discussed the summaries as a class. Students are prepared for the discussion because they can draw on what they have already written. We had to agree on the main claim, and then we listed the supporting claims as we would in a brainstorm. Then I read students my own summary, and we talked about what was consonant in my summary with the rest of the class.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

Because this lesson will probably not take up a whole class period, I selected an article to summarize that accompanied another text: an interview with the author which transitioned our discussion from summary to ethos. Selecting useful material for students to summarize and making it readily available to students before class is a must.

Instructions For Students:

(See assignment description above.)

Evaluation Suggestions:

Because summary is a basic skill and this exercise comes early in the semester, I suggest evaluating this exercise only by whether it was completed. Both the lesson and the evaluation could be complexified by giving students more difficult material to summarize and asking them to revise after the class discussion.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

(See assignment description above.)

Additional Resources:

Free wiki site: pbworks.com
NYT op-ed: "The Deafness Before the Storm" by Kurt Eichenwald
Additional: Interview with Eichenwald on the Rachel Maddow Show
Additional: Tweet by Ari Fleischer re: Eichenwald's op-ed

Course Type:

Course Description:

I used this lesson in my introductory writing course, RHE 306 Rhetoric and Writing.

Tags:

No Classroom Technology Required

Wikis

Google Docs - Crowd-Sourcing an Annotated Bibliography

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 14:45:35 +0000

Author:

Eileen McGinnis

Image Credit:

"2 reasons why the term 'crowdsourcing' bugs me" via opensourceway's Flickr

Brief Assignment Overview:

Using GoogleDocs, students create a group bibliography page to practice summarizing and evaluating a source. They then engage in an informal presentation of their source to the class. By addressing their classmates as an audience, students have an extra level of accountability to their peers to find quality sources and to write about them with care.

Type of Assignment:

Homework Assignment

Major Course Project

Assignment Length:

Multiple Class Periods

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Annotated Bibliography

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Collaboration

Open Access Software

Presentations

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

Research, citation, group collaboration, awareness of audience, summary

Media Requirements:

Adaptable For Use Without Classroom Technology

Required Materials:

Students will need a Google account in order to access the group document. A media console with projector would be preferable, but strictly-speaking, this lesson does not require classroom technology as students do most of the work from home.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Intermediate Writing Course

Mid-Semester

Full Assignment Description:

Using GoogleDocs, students create a group bibliography page to practice summarizing and evaluating a source. They then engage in an informal presentation of their source to the class. This collaborative exercise goes against the Lone Researcher model, but it is interesting to track how an article that one student finds stimulates another student's thinking in the final paper. There's also an ethos factor here--by addressing their classmates as an audience, students have an extra level of accountability to their peers to find quality sources and to write about them with care.

This assignment took about two weeks (i.e., less than a unit-length) to complete. 2-3 students would present each day, over the course of about 6 class periods.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

After introducing research methods in class, I asked students to find a source related to our texts for the third unit. They signed up for presentation slots available over the course of the next two weeks. On the day of their presentation, their annotated citation was due.

Instructions For Students:

Overview

In 250-400 words, write an annotated citation of a primary or secondary source. Your annotation should include (1) a concise summary and evaluation of the source and (2) an argument about how this source might enhance our reading of Gattaca or Oryx and Crake.

Specifics

This semester, we've examined materials that establish the historical and cultural contexts in which literary texts participate. E.g., we've looked at Lankester's writings on degeneration to understand the bleak evolutionary themes of The Time Machine. We've also consulted visual artifacts, such as late-Victorian cartoons about evolution and representations of genetics on recent magazine covers.

Now it's your turn: find an outside source that illuminates the literary and scientific contexts of Gattaca or Oryx and Crake. A few ideas: an interview with the author/director; an article in Nature or another scientific journal; a scholarly article or book chapter by a literary critic; an advertisement, artwork, film, etc. In class, we will discuss strategies for researching and assessing potential sources.

Regardless of your choice, your annotated citation will have three components: (1) an MLA-style citation, (2) a concise summary of an argument or an evocative description of an artifact, and (3) an argument that connects your source to the film/novel. Although you won't have much space to quote extensively, use specific language and examples to tie your reader closely to the source.

To receive credit for this assignment, you will also informally present your source to the class, summarizing your findings and pointing us to their implications.

Goals

Demonstrate care in selecting a source.
Provide a succinct but thorough summary/description of your source.
Successfully argue for what this source can tell us about the film or novel.
Clearly present your findings to the class.

Formatting

Each assignment should be 250-400 words, single-spaced. Include an MLA-style citation in bold at the top of your entry.
Add your citation to our class's annotated bibliography on GoogleDocs (no hard copy needed).
In-text citations should be formatted according to MLA style: insert page numbers for any quotations in parentheses after the quote (just the page numbers; no pp. or p.)

Evaluation Suggestions:

This short assignment counted for 6 percent of their total grade. However, the presentation component was evaluated on the basis of completion only, as it was not the focus of the assignment. Strong assignments demonstrated care in selecting a source, provided a succinct but thorough summary/description of the source, and successfully argued for what this source can tell us about the film or novel.

Course Type:

Advanced Writing Course

Adaptable For Use Without Classroom Technology

Course Description:

This lesson was used in an introductory literary studies course: E314J - Literature and Biology

What does it mean to be human? Why do we behave the way we do? What’s the difference between life and non-life, organism and machine? Where are we (the human species, the planet Earth) headed next? Acknowledging certain obvious and meaningful differences in methods and outlook, one might nevertheless argue that both writers and biologists travel similar terrain, presenting themselves as (often competing) authorities on the “big questions” about Life. Instead of seeing literature and biology as necessarily antagonistic ways of looking at and understanding the world, we will read literature about science and literary science writing for their complementary insights. What do literature and biology look like at their interface? How do the scientific paradigms of their day influence how writers grapple with questions of human experience, identity, and ethics? In turn, how do literary narratives about evolutionary biology or genetics shape the way we think about these disciplines, the way they’re understood by non-scientists? No expertise in biology or in literary criticism will be presumed. The broad goals of this course will be to introduce science majors to the basic tools of literary analysis as well as to enable non-science majors to be savvier readers of the popular science they encounter. The course’s emphasis on students’ own critical writing will be helpful no matter what your major.

Tags:

Annotated bibliography

Revising/Drafting/Editing With Wikis

detweiler — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 17:19:32 +0000

Author:

Eric Detweiler

Image Credit:

Eric Detweiler

Brief Assignment Overview:

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.

Type of Assignment:

In-class Exercise

Homework Assignment

Assignment Length:

Partial Class Period

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Collaboration

Software

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

For my RHE 306 (introductory composition) course, I created a course wiki to which students posted numerous in-class activities and homework assignments. I find wiki particularly advantageous for group activities, as students can create pages that all group members can edit/revise/view/etc. (which GoogleDocs can also allow, but in a different manner). A wiki can thus be a useful space for foregrounding the collaborative nature of writing. Also worth noting is the “page history” feature of PBWorks, the wiki platform I use, which can allow both students and you, the instructor, to see how a particular page developed.

This lesson plan provides a way for students to think carefully about the rhetorical choices they make when summarizing a text by collaborating on the creation of a trio of wiki pages. The lesson plan is also designed to help students learn the difference between drafting, revising, and editing—three stages of the writing process we have already discussed as this lesson plan unfolds.

Media Requirements:

Required Materials:

Computers with internet access, preferably one per student; a course wiki (as mentioned above, I use PBWorks).

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Full Assignment Description:

I divide students into groups of 3.* Each group is assigned one chapter from the RHE 306 first-year forum book, and each member of that group is responsible for composing a “research summary” (RS) of their assigned chapter. (RSs are one-page summaries of a source’s argument, and are ideally free from the summarizer’s opinion about that argument.) I have students compose their RSs as Word documents, then copy and paste them into the body of a wiki page. I also ask them to choose a distinct color for their wiki-page summaries. Below is a screenshot of a student’s RS. The student has turned it blue using the bottom-left button in the formatting toolbars above the text window.

Once each student's research summary (RS) is drafted and uploaded, I assign her/his RS to another group member to revise—for instance, if Jaime, Harold, and Terry are a group, Jaime is assigned to revise Terry’s RS, Harold is to revise Jaime’s, and Terry to revise Harold’s. I ask each student to make her/his revisions in a different color than the original draft of the RS.

Finally, I reassign the revised RS to the third group member, who is charged with editing (i.e., Terry drafts, Jaime revises Terry’s draft, and Harold edits the revised draft).

Since deletions obviously don’t have a color, I also have students record any removed phrases, words, punctuation, etc., at the bottom of the page.

The timing on this whole process can differ—you can assign it as homework and have each stage due on a different day, or you can have the revision and editing stages take place during a class meeting.

After the editing work is done, I have the original drafter look at her/his revised and edited RS. I then let the groups have internal discussions about how they made the choices they did at each stage: Why did Harold choose to quote different lines than Jaime during his drafting process? What led Terry to cut the first line of Harold’s second paragraph? If you want something tangible, you can have students write out their reflections: Where did their group members original drafts differ? What rhetorical choices did their group members make that led to these differences? What differences in opinion were revealed in what group members chose to revise about each other’s RSs, and did any revisions seem especially effective? Etc. Broadly speaking, I like these questions to get students thinking about writing—even summary—as a rhetorical process rather than a fill-in-the-blanks sort of task.

*If the total number of students in the class isn't divisible by three, I'll create groups of four, but each group member will only engage with two other group members' summaries as revisor/editor.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

At this point in the semester, my students are already familiar with the wiki and the process for creating wiki pages. We have also discussed the differences between drafting, revising, and editing, which I roughly define as the following:

Drafting: The creation of new written material—getting words on the page for the first time, similar to invention.
Revising: Working with the words you’ve already composed (moving paragraphs or sentences around, rewriting phrases for clarity, deleting extraneous sentences/paragraphs/pages), which can include some new writing (scrapping and recomposing your introduction, or adding a new sentence at the end of a paragraph to better establish that paragraph’s purpose).
Editing: Cleaning up/polishing your grammar, spelling, citation, etc. (removing commas, adding in-text citations, changing “th” to “the”).

We will have also already covered methods of forwarding a source’s argument, particularly the relative merits of summary, paraphrase, and direct quotation.

Instructions For Students:

Relatively similar to the full instructions above--mostly, assign the students the chapter summary as homework in advance, have them post it to the wiki before class begins the day of the activity, and put them into (ideally) groups of three. From there, instruct them to revise one of there group member's summaries using a particular color of text, the edit the third group member's summary with yet another particular color. At the end, have them discuss why they made the specific revision and editorial choices they did and discuss what they found particularly effective about the group's summaries.

Evaluation Suggestions:

I generally grade this assignment on a pass/fail basis—as long as the student completed all three stages, they get credit.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

Students do occasionally find the process tedious, especially by the editing stage. As an alternative, the original drafts could be shorter. Really, one paragraph of drafted material could be enough given how extensive this activity can become.

Course Type:

Course Description:

Rhetoric 306 is a course in argumentation that situates rhetoric as an art of civic discourse. It is designed to enhancestudents' ability to analyze the various positions held in any public debateand to advocate positions effectively. Students work in this course willhelp them advance the critical writing and reading needed to succeed in coursesfor their major and university degree.

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Instructions for Daily Blogging of Class Readings

herbly — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 16:13:16 +0000

Image Credit:

From our class blog and icanhascheezburger.com

Brief Assignment Overview:

Every day one student posts a blog entry covering the reading for the day. Their task is to summarize the reading selection briefly and accurately, to observe linguistic or thematic trends in the day's reading or across the text (or indeed texts), and to post 3-5 substantive (not summary-based) discussion questions to spur class discussion. Since this is a blog post, they are required to observe that genre's conventions, which for our purposes include adding images, personal touches, and candid (but rigorous) discussion of the text. Close to the beginning of each class, the student presents their blog post, walking us through the summary, explaining any critical observations they had about the text, and explaining their rationale for their posting style (why use certain pictures, captions, tone, etc.).

Type of Assignment:

Class Discussion

Homework Assignment

Assignment Length:

Partial Class Period

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

This assignment encourages at least one student per class day to think about how to present the text that they've just read to their classmates. I like doing this because I've sometimes found that students aren't always forthcoming about what they understand or don't understand in the text, and sometimes my discussion plans may assume a direction, or (less often) a level of sophistication that they aren't interested in or haven't yet reached. For example, I may begin discussions with a set of questions that make sense to me, the professor who has probably read the book at least twice, while they on the other hand are still unsure about what is actually going on in the text. By allowing students to speak directly to each other in the form of a presentation, I often find that things that I tend to overlook or unthinkingly find "obvious"--questions about character, plot, language--inspire much fruitful discussion from them.

It's also often interesting to query them about the style they choose for their posts--this includes tone and imagery. Many of their images, for example, reference popular culture, thus implying a connection between the "old" literature that we're reading, and the newer forms of culture that they reference. Making the blog post itself a topic of discussion often how they connect our readings with popular culture.

Finally, since they often cite the text, and sometimes even outside sources, in their posts, the blog also gives me a chance to go over correct citation style with them.

Media Requirements: