DWRL Lesson Plans - Group Project

Google Docs - Crowd-Sourcing an Annotated Bibliography

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

Author:

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:

No Classroom Technology Required

Adaptable For Use Without Classroom Technology

Media Console/Projector

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:

Early in the Semester

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

Intermediate Writing Course

Introductory Writing Course

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

Google Mapping Travel Narratives: Lolita

Anonymous — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 14:27:55 +0000

Author:

Lauren Nahas

Image Credit:

Screen shot of narrative Google map

Brief Assignment Overview:

This assignment asks students to engage in an uncommon form of literary analysis, where the goal is to determine the significance of location and travel in the novel. The entire class collaborates in creating a Google map of all of the places that Humbert Humbert travels to in Lolita.

Type of Assignment:

Course Unit

Major Course Project

Assignment Length:

Multiple Class Periods

Pedagogical Goals - Literature:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Research

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

The goal is to offer students a new way to consider the process and products of literary analysis. This assignment also encourages students to consider a novel both visually and spatially, and to determine the usefulness of gaining such a perspective on the novel. In addition, it introduces them to a new technology (surprisingly, most are unaware that you can create your own maps using Google). In addition, it’s meant to be a collaborative experience that illustrated the importance of organization, as what can be accomplished by a group.

Media Requirements:

Media Console/Projector

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Required Materials:

A Google account (this allows students to create, edit, and share their own personal maps. Without this account students will not be able to edit the map). A course wiki, or some other online location for organizing who maps which parts of the novel, questions or problems that come up during the mapping process, and so on.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Mid-Semester

Full Assignment Description:

In one sense, I see this assignment as an alternative form of formal analysis. It is basically asking students to take a very close look at the movements and locations of the novel and visually represent them in a map. In this sense, it broadens the concept of literary analysis for students and will give them at least one example of how digital media can be used for literary analysis. They gain technological skills simply through having to use Google Maps, and they gain collaborative skills as we determine as a class how to organize the creation of the map and make decisions about the map’s content.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

Prep: In Google maps, create a map entitled “Nabokov’s Lolita.” Put in place markers and descriptions of the first few places mentioned in the novel to give the students an idea of what the map will look like in the end.

On your course wiki or website, create a table to organize the map. Add columns to the table with the following titles: Place, Page Number, Found by, Added to Map by, Problems. This allows you to keep track to who found what, who added what to the map, and gives the students a place to note any problems that they run into. The students need to be able to edit this table themselves. Here’s a link to the table I created on my course wiki.

In-class: Have the students create Google accounts. Have them send you an email from that account. Using that email, invite them as collaborators to the map.

Explain the basics of mapping a novel (I showed students maps of The Devil’s Highway and Ulysses, and there are many more on the Google Lit Trips website.

Show them the Lolita map that you have created and explain that they will receive and invitation to the map that will allow them to edit it.

Show the students the basics of how to create and edit a map. Have them create a map of their own, add a few places, edit them, etc. You want them to get a feel for the Google maps interface.

Show them the table you’ve created to organize the map creation. Tell them to add locations to the table as they read the novel.

I didn’t have students begin adding locations to the map until we had finished the novel. At that point we had a long list of places. In class we had a discussion of how we wanted to deal with places that didn’t exist, places where the chronology of HH and Lolita’s travels becomes unclear in the novel, etc. We created a key for the map and there were some issues of representation that we decided to deal with after the map had begun to take form. At this point I also reminded them of the “Problems” column in our organizational table on the wiki and that if they ran into any problems with the map, they should note them there.

I visited the map in class every day to encourage them to keep adding and set a soft deadline for adding locations. I also monitored the “Problems” column on the organizational table and dealt with problems in class as they arose. When the map seemed to be completed, I checked through it and brought up any concerns that I had in class.

Once the map has been completed, it deserves a day’s discussion in terms of how it relates to reading the novel. The students will not automatically see the usefulness of the map.

Instructions For Students:

Lolita Mapping Project

In some respects Lolita is a travel novel. Many of the locations mentioned in the novel are real. Because of this, the text lends itself to mapping.

Mapping a piece of Literature is a new method of literary analysis. It has gained popularity with the advent of tools like google maps that allow anyone to create map.

Although not every place mentioned in Lolita is mappable, we will do our best to create what a geographic model of Nabokov's masterpiece. The purpose here is to consider the novel from a completely different perspecive and to see if the map reveals anything of interest to us about the novel. The may also serve as a reading aid or guide to those of you who later choose to write your essay on Lolita.

Map Key

Exists - Icon with Dot
Doesn't Exist - Icon without Dot

With Lolita - Pink Lines & Icons
Without Lolita - Blue Lines & Icons

Content of the placemarkers:

Page number and chapter
Basic description of the significance of the location

Evaluation Suggestions:

I use the learning record, so the map was not graded. They will be graded on what they took from the experience of mapping the novel. That learning could be related to using this mapping tool, collaboration, literary analysis, completing a complex project, and so on. I do not expect all of them to come to significant realizations about the novel from this project.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

I think the students were initially surprisingly enthusiastic about it. I didn’t make this a mandatory assignment, but they created the list of places and the map itself with little encouragement from me. At this point they seem to be a bit confused about the purpose of what they’ve created. I anticipated that reaction, so in the next week we’ll be taking some time in class to look carefully at the map to consider what implications it has for our reading of Lolita.

Additional Resources:

Here is a list of sources that discuss mapping as a literary analysis technique. They helped me to consider what the purpose of such an assignment was and how it related to my larger course objectives.

Gordon, Eric. “MAPPING DIGITAL NETWORKS From cyberspace to Google.” Information, Communication & Society 10.6 (2007): 885-901. Web.

Moretti, Franco. Graphs, Maps, Trees: Abstract Models for a Literary History. London: Verso, 2005. Print.

Ramsay, Stephen. “Special Section: Reconceiving Text Analysis: Toward an Algorithmic Criticism.” Lit Linguist Computing 18.2 (2003): 167-174. Web.

Samuels, Lisa., and Jerome J. McGann. “Deformance and Interpretation.” New Literary History 30.1 (1999): 25-56. Print.

Tullock, David L. “Many, many maps: Empowerment and online participatory mapping.” First Monday 12.2 (2007): n. pag. Print.

Course Type:

Literary Studies Course

Course Description:

This assignment was used in an introductory literature course, E314K Banned Books

Tags:

Visualization Software

Prototyping Procedural Rhetoric

Scott Nelson — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 20:37:04 +0000

Author:

Scott Nelson

Image Credit:

Scott Nelson

Brief Assignment Overview:

Using procedural, verbal, visual and aural rhetoric, students work in teams on a multimedia presentation that outlines a video game prototype and the ways it makes arguments. While this lesson plan was designed for a course centered on video games and the arguments they make, it can be adapted to any 309K topic if the instructor is willing to discuss procedural rhetoric with students. Additionally, the lesson plan outlined here is the "Cadillac" version, in that it uses multimedia to present the procedural arguments students devise. A simpler version with pen and paper can be used instead, where students storyboard a video game and its procedures.

Type of Assignment:

Major Course Project

Assignment Length:

Course Unit

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Organization

Technical Writing

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

The goals for this lesson is to have students think about multiple modes of communication and the affordances and constraints of each mode when arguing. By the end of the lesson, students should leverage verbal, visual, aural, and procedural rhetoric to argue their case for making their video game.

Media Requirements:

Media Console/Projector

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Required Materials:

computers, various multimedia authoring software (e.g., Photoshop, Audactiy, Camtasia, Illustrator, Flash, Game Salad, etc.)

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Late in the Semester

Full Assignment Description:

Unit 3 will work toward a concept of a single video game produced by you in groups. You will work in groups to design a game that puts forth an argument about the world. Topics will vary with your interests, but research will be necessary to discover the background of the issue and to be able to mount your own procedural arguments. In addition to why your argument is important and the right course of action to take, you'll need to outline the basic plot of the game (if there is one), the characters (if there are any), and most importantly, how the procedures enacted in the game make the argument you say they do.

This project will proceed through two stages:

Stage 1:

Your group will research and write a classical argument on a topic of your group's choosing (within reason). In writing this paper, you should go beyond public web research and pay attention to classical appeals. This paper should have a real target audience and the argument should be tailored to them. You are encouraged to use supplementary digital media, but it is not required at this stage. Use all available means to you: books in UT's libraries, articles in the private databases, government documents, UT's video game archive, interviews, etc. Your group should keep a working annotated bibliography of the sources you research, and this bibliography can be used as a Learning Record work sample.

Stage 2:

Your group will craft a proposal and presentation for a socially conscious video game development company. Working from your Stage 1 deliverable, you will proceduralize the reasons from your argument into actions taken within a video game. Your group will then present a digital media "pitch" to a development company about why this argument is important and what the game would be like.

Deliverables:

Stage 1:

Your initial argument should be between 1500 to 2200 words. Include any necessary digital media you believe adds to the focus of your paper. Be sure to indicate at the top of your paper who your audience is. All of your citations within the paper should be done in MLA format, and you should include a Works Cited. If you feel some other format beyond a Word document would be better to present this deliverable, run it by me first, and we can work something out.

Stage 2 (group):

1. A digital media presentation given by your group to a philanthropically-minded video game development company. That is, you don't have to sell them on the idea that games can persuade, but you do have to convince them that your argument is important and it can be argued procedurally. The presentation should last approximately 20 minutes (Also, be prepared for about 10 minutes of questions afterward.), and should incorporate some form of digital media. For example, you could create a short film, a machinima using an existing game platform, an animation or animatic using Flash, static image promotional materials using Photoshop, remixed sounds & music, or even a working prototype using Game Salad. Remember that the digital media must be rhetorically constructed. If your group is having trouble coming up with your presentation format, schedule a meeting time with me and I can give you some ideas. I'm not looking for prowess with a particular program. You're encouraged to step outside your comfort zone with regard to digital media production programs, and as such, I'm looking for professionalism, not a professional-quality product.

2. A proposal that explains your game and its argument (with digital media supplements as necessary). We will cover the parts of a proposal in class, and you should use your Stage 1 deliverable as your Background section (with some tweaking). Think of this proposal as a document for board members who couldn't attend your presentation; it ties together all of your digital media artifacts in your presentation for those who couldn't be there. This document is also important for submitting your project to the Journal for Undergraduate Media Projects (see below), as it will contextualize your digital media artifacts.

3. A brief (one paragraph per group member) email to me evaluating your group members' performance throughout the project.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

Since this lesson plan is fairly involved and takes up one paper unit, some preparation is necessary. Students will need to be familiar with procedural rhetoric beforehand, and for maximum effect, it would help to go over basic principles of visual and aural rhetoric as well. Matt King has outlined an excellent lesson plan for analyzing the procedural rhetorics of Serious Games, and I implemented a similar lesson plan in a prior unit to accustom students to the procedural rhetoric used by others. It is important that students understand the concept of procedural enthymemes, outlined in Ian Bogost's Persuasive Game: The Expressive Value of Video Games. The first chapter of the book can be found on the MIT press website.

For basic training in multimedia authoring, the Web has a variety of free tutorials to instruct you and your students. I hold three multimedia authoring workshops, each designed as a elementary overview to Photoshop, Audacity, and Camtasia. For Photoshop, I show students You Suck at Photoshop, a tongue-in-cheek tutorial series covering basic layers, masks, cropping, cutting and photomontaging. Audacity's website has a list of tutorials for getting started with the program, and TechSmith provides excellent tutorials for Camtasia, most of which can be accessed through the program's interface on demand.

My aim in having students create multimedia is to get them used to some of these programs' graphical user interfaces, the metaphors of which get repeated across different programs. If you feel this step is too involved, the lesson plan can be implemented using pen and paper is less time (about 1-2 class periods). Creating multimedia artifacts seems to get the students more invested in the project, but the major aims of the lesson plan can be achieved through just having students think about procedural rhetoric and how to create procedural arguments.

Prior to this lesson plan, students wrote a standard classical argument to an audience of their choice. Since I'm having students create multimedia (which is a time-intensive endeavor), each group turned in one paper that was researched and written collaboratively. If you choose to not have them create multimedia, then a possible alternative would be to have students read each others' final arguments in small groups, and then each group chooses one argument to proceduralize.

Instructions For Students:

Unit 3 will work toward a concept of a single video game produced by you in groups.

A philanthropic organization has agreed to meet with you about funding your Serious Game. You are tasked with creating a multimedia presentation for this organization that argues why your game is important for the audience you chose, and how you plan to proceduralize this argument into a video game.

The presentation should last approximately 15-20 minutes, and should incorporate some form of digital media. For example, you could create a short film, a machinima using an existing game platform, static image promotional materials using Photoshop, remixed sounds & music, or even a working prototype. If your group is having trouble coming up with your presentation format, schedule a meeting time with me and I can give you some ideas. Outstanding presentations will be submitted to the Journal for Undergraduate Multimedia Projects, a peer-reviewed online journal.

Pay close attention to the rhetorical choices you make in creating your multimedia artifacts. How does the use of jump cuts in your video juxtapose two ideas? How does the addition of music to a scene argue for a particular interpretation? How do the visual elements of your game cover work together to argue your point?

The most important part of this assignment, however, is the procedures you use to enact your argument. To proceduralize your argument, you'll need to think of both the reasons you have for your thesis being the way to think or what to do, and the assumptions your audience already holds about the topic. Think of the "gap" in a procedural enthymeme, the logical step you have players enact. What will your video game ask the player to do? How can these actions argue either implicitly or explicitly for your thesis?

Note: if you choose the non-multimedia route, I would suggest revising the multimedia paragraphs to outline a deliverable of storyboard sketches and text.

Evaluation Suggestions:

Since I use the Learning Record Online for evaluation, this assignment was not graded. However, the processes students used in participating in this project can be used in their Learning Record assessment. In addition to the various documentation of their process, I require each student to submit an evaluation of their group's work. Both the documentation and their group's assessment can be used in the Learning Record.

Were I to use this in a "traditional" assessment course, I would most likely assign a completion grade. If students focus too much on the product, I believe it could stunt some of their personal growth. For example, if the assignment had an evaluation at the end, some students may be more inclined to stick with what they know and not branch out into using other programs for multimedia authorship. The quality of the final product is not what's important here (as this isn't a course in how to use Photoshop professionally), but instead the processes they used to collaborate and proceduralize arguments.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

So far, there has been an overwhelmingly positive response to this project. Students have pushed the boundaries of the assignment, opting for multimedia authoring tools not covered in the class and investing themselves in creating fascinating games. One group decided to use the game Little Big Planet, not as a platform for their game, but instead as a presentation platform (something I might look into in further lesson plans), while another is using the program Game Salad to prototype their game. The goals of getting students immersed in a project and thinking creatively about multimedia authoring seem to have been met.

I approached the multimedia component as studio work, where students learn basic principles from the workshops, but are free to develop other skills and teach them to the rest of the class (myself included). I believe this freedom led to much of the innovative work on the students' part.

Were I to change anything in the lesson plan, it would probably be the amount of time needed to complete it. I, personally, am interested in multimodal scholarship, but would also like to see how the "pared down" version of this lesson plan would pan out. Is it the multimedia that is engrossing students, or the prototyping of the game?

Course Type:

Intermediate Writing Course

Introductory Writing Course

Course Description:

This course seeks to explore video games as a moderndiscursive medium. Far from being mere “mindless entertainment,” many videogames make explicit or implicit arguments about gender and sexuality, economicsystems, corporate practices, geopolitics, and both real and imaginedsocieties. What arguments do these simulations and simulacra mount about howthe world is? What arguments do they mount about how the world should be?

Much of the past and current study of digital rhetoric seemsto look at the content of computers through applying older means ofrhetorical analysis, looking at the text and images contained on computersrather than the processes through which this content is represented. What weseek to explore is a relatively new field—procedural rhetoric—and the ways thisnew field can inform video game criticism. How do the procedures inherent invideo games make arguments about the world?

Tags:

Multimedia Presentation

Group Project