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Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

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

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.

Defamiliarized Keyboards and Embodied Writing

Falling down in QWOP

This assignment is geared toward getting students to begin thinking, talking, and writing about how writing is a deeply embodied practice.  I ask students to play two games (QWOP and GIRP) that reconfigure how we engage the keyboard as a material object. 

Using Music Videos to Explore Historiography

Members of the band 'N Sync hang from strings in a still from the "Bye Bye Bye" music video.

This assignment encourges students to think about how they can read and piece together primary sources to create a descriptive narrative.

Teaching Audience and Stakes With the Colbert Report

This exercise asks students to work in groups to move past a working summary of a text's rhetoric to consider the goals of an author and their strategic approach to audiences. It uses PBworks' collaborative potentials to bridge the gap between two connected class discussions.

Agonistic Debate on a Course Blog

Students break up into two groups to engage in agonistic debate regarding an issue in an assigned reading in the course.

Using an Annotated Bibliography to Teach Basic Research Skills

an actual annotated bibliography

In this assignment, students conduct research and build an annotated bibliography.

Using Juxta to Compare Editions

Manuscript Revision

This lesson plan prompts students to use Juxta (collation software) to compare different witnesses or instances of a text.  Students compare multiple versions of a literary work, locating revisions in order to discuss word choice and textual instabilities.  Most useful for literary works with full-text editions available online. 

Using Facebook to Review Local & Global Argument Types & Rhetorical Appeals

facebook logo

In this lesson students review the basics of argument types & rhetorical appeals.  Working in groups, they look for examples of several argument types in facebook status updates.  As a class we review the examples, evaluate their classifications, and discuss the rhetorical appeals at play.  

Comparing Summaries on a Class Wiki

Screenshot of class wiki page with comments

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.

Analyzing Visual Arguments

A doctor's body inside large, bleeding ears with large money bags against a blood-red backdrop seen behind the mirror images of the enlarged close up of a man's ears.

Students practice closely describing and analyzing an image for its argument and rhetorical impact.

Pre-Writing: Surveying Expectations on the First Day of Class

The Writing Process Diagram with arrows showing the interrelationships between prewriting, writing, and revising.

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

Introducing iMovie

Film reels

This activity introduces students to iMovie software and reveals the range of rhetorical possibilities and effects that the program provides.

Creating OED Word Constellations

Magnifying Glass

In this assignment students use the Oxford English Dictionary to make individual mindmaps of the multiple definitions of related words, then the class together creates a constellation of meanings surrounding a seemingly simple topic that becomes more and more complex. 

Collaborative Web Page Annotations With Diigo

Screenshot of Diigo sidebar listing comments & annotations along side webpage with highlighted text

This lesson introduces students to a collaborative annotation tool to facilitate class discussions and to encourage active reading and research practices.

Blogging Research from the Oxford English Dictionary

A picture of an open dictionary page with eyeglasses on top.

In two short blog posts, I asked students to choose an interesting or perplexing word to look up in the books we'd just finished reading. After conducting their research, students blogged about their findings and made a quick effort at applying their research to a passage. 

Close Listening

Do the assignment

Using Photoshop to Create Persona-Avatars for Class Blog

a student's avatar on a course blog

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.

Using Mind-Maps to Make Modular Arguments, MASS EFFECT Style

Nova Mind Map with Many Arms

This lesson is best used in conjunction with “Using Mass Effect 1 to teach critical situations," which can be found under that title on this site.

Using MASS EFFECT 1 to Teach “Critical Situations”

Three characters converse using the dialogue wheel in Mass Effect One

This lesson plan uses the interactive video game Mass Effect 1 (BioWare, 2007 for XBOX 360) to teach students about making situated speech acts that effectively address a certain audience in a particular rhetorical situation.

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