DWRL Lesson Plans - Revision

Homework Assignment

Assignment Length:

Adaptable For Use Without Classroom Technology

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Literature:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Multimedia

Remix

Media Requirements:

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Mid-Semester

Full Assignment Description:

This assignment is meant to be a fun activity that allows students to exercise their creative muscles, while simultaneously demonstrating the possibilities of revising style for different audiences. The lesson plan in adopted from Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style (first published in English 1958). In this book, Queneau writes a single (2 page) short story, in which a narrator sees an argument on a bus, and then later recognizes one of the men on the street due to his strange hat. Queaneu then rewrites the story 99 different ways--for example, he rewrites the book as a sonnet, in slang, using exclamation points in every sentence, and even grouping words by the number of letters they contain.

I use this assignment immediately after students submit the first draft of their second essay, giving students the opportunity to either complete it in class, or work on it for credit over the next week. Students select what they believe to be their weakest paragraph from the essay they just submitted. How they evaluate the term "weakest" is up to them--all I ask is that it is a paragraph that they would genuinely like to rework and to which they would like to pay closer attention. After having students answer questions about why they would like to revise that paragraph, I turn them loose on revisions. Typically I provide a copy of Exercises in Style for reference, but some sample exercises I suggest are:

Translate the paragraph to another language, and then back to English (either on your own or through Google Translate)
Rewrite the paragraph as a tweet with 140 character limit (include mentions and hashtags if possible)
Create lists of parts of speech, and place each word under the correct category
Record yourself reading the paragraph outloud, and set it to music or remix it
Rewrite the paragraph as an internet meme

After rewriting the paragraph five times, students are asked to respond to a few questions reflecting on the process, before revising the paragraph for the next draft. The reflective questions ask them to consider their own writing voices and styles. The assignment is graded as complete/incomplete--students that actively participate in the assignment and satisfactorily meet the requirements get credit for attending class, those that do not meet the requirements are marked absent for the day.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

I suggest skimming Exercises in Style in order to familiarize yourself with some potential options with students. PDFs of the first few story permutations are easily found through Google, and most University libraries should have a copy (the most recent edition is published by New Directions, and translated by Barbara Wright). Creating your own list of suggested processes is useful as well--students might be paralyzed by the "anything goes" aspect of the assignment, and creating a list of suggestions helps them get started.

Instructions For Students:

Reflect carefully on the essay that you just submitted, and choose the paragraph that you believe was the weakest in the essay. In a few sentences, describe the specific reasons you felt this paragraph needed improvement. Did it not have enough quotes? Too many quotes? Was it too long or short? Did it feel repetitive? Out of place in the essay? Did you just plain run out of time to revise it?

Experiment with your paragraph by rewriting it five times in entirely different styles. You might choose a model for your style (a favorite book, movie, song, etc.). Rewrite it as a poem. As a speech. Or you might choose a constraint a la Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style. This is your chance to be creative and stretch your wings. The sky is the limit on this assignment.

Once you have rewritten the paragraph in five different ways, reread them all. Which was your favorite, and why? Was it just the style that made the paragraph your favorite? Or did you substantively change your paragraph's content as well? Now, answer the hardest question of all: Why don't you always write in this style? Is it the demands of the formal academic context? Or had you just not considered it at all? Do you think this style can be assimilated to your own voice when writing papers?

Now that you've had a little fun, and really atomized how the paragraph is put together, revise it in a way that you would like it to appear in your revised. And remember: sometimes the only way to improve a draft is by playing around and experimenting with it.

In order to be considered complete, the following must be submitted in a single document:

The original paragraph from your essay
A reflection on why or how it needs improvement (minimum 1 paragraph)
FIVE rewrites, with an indication of the rewrite's style
A reflection on the experiment process, answering the questions in the third paragraph of the assignment instructions
A fully revised paragraph for the next essay

If you rewrite a paragraph in a non-text format, include links to the material, or email it to me separately.

Evaluation Suggestions:

The key to this assignment is effort, so I suggest a simple complete/incomplete grading rubric. Numerical or letter grades might discourage students' creativity or invention--the use of which are not always highlighted in introductory composition classrooms, but which are critical for high levels of writing.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

This was an especially successful assignment in my class. Students responded positively, and they especially enjoyed the ability to follow their own interests. Some asked me about whether or not they could use curse words--I encouraged it as long as it was relevant to the style of their rewrite. The assignment was completed by all students within a 75 minute class period (with computers available in the room).

Additional Resources:

The Wikipedia article on Exercises in Style, which includes a list of all styles used in the book.

Course Type:

Advanced Writing Course

Tags:

Composing Short Writing Assignments for the Internet: Confronting the Digital Native Myth

Steel — Tue, 17 Sep 2013 00:13:32 +0000

Author:

Connie M. Steel

Image Credit:

Digital native image found at http://www.mondaynote.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/144-digital_native2...

Brief Assignment Overview:

This peer learning assignment and lesson plan series gives students the opportunity to explore digital composition. It allows students to research container designs for themselves; set up a website or blog; peer-train each other to use the site; develop writing standards for content; and write peer-editing and publishing content. This plan can be adapted equally well to short rhetoric or short literary criticism assignments.

Type of Assignment:

Class Discussion

Homework Assignment

Assignment Length:

Multiple Class Periods

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Literature:

Literary Criticism

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

1) To develop ideas of critical reception in digital formats by asking students to analyze and benchmark websites and blogs

2) To develop standards for on-line writing by having the students generate the writing prompt

3) To access on-line composition technologies by choosing a product capable of meeting their aesthetic goals within their resource limits (i.e. free and within time constraints)

4) To develop research skills by selecting books for review appropriate to the blog theme

5) To develop collaboration and oral argumentation skills through an in-class debate and final selection of aesthetics, technology and writing standards

6) To formulate ideas for logos and arrangement of multiple textual pieces

7) To write a short review essay. (The short reviews become the final product and content for the website).

8) Peer review and copyediting of short essays

Media Requirements:

Required Materials:

A computer classroom; or enough laptops that every two students could share

Internet access

Students

An idea for a short writing assignment relevant to course content that would be interesting to potential audiences outside of the class room, such as book reviews on a particular theme, or research summaries on a coherent topic of current interest

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Mid-Semester

Late in the Semester

Full Assignment Description:

I designed this series in response to the 'Digital Native' myth. The 'Digital Native' myth goes something like this: today's students grow up surrounded by technology, and therefore, magically know how to use it. But when I surveyed actual students at the beginning of a course "Literature and Artificial Intelligence," I found that the number of students who knew how to compose on the internet was very small. When I showed the aggregated results to the students they noticed immediately a large gender bias in our class--only one of the young women had ever started their own blog. This raised a sort of accessibility issue that we decided to address as a class. Further discussion revealed that instructors tend to set up courseblogs or course websites for students, and then just ask the students to create a login and add the content. Many did not understand the data input side of things well enough to explain it to a peer. The majority of students did not know how or why those containers had been chosen or how to set up a blog of their own, thus indicating a significant barrier to entry for digital composition in spite of access to the relevant hardware. In response to the students' survey results and comments, I expanded the original blog post assignment to include the full range of steps required to get from Step A to Step B in digital composition for the internet. This series was designed for a computer lab classroom (I have done similar things with a series of reservations for a computer lab).

This is a series of in class workshops and take home assignments. The entire class functions together as a collective to produce a single website with a common theme composed of multiple short essays. These are the skeletons of the prompts I used to guide the students through the process of selecting a container, developing standards, writing, editing and publishing content.

TAKE HOME ASSIGNMENT #1—Selecting Texts Prompt

As a take home assignment, I asked students to post three suggestions (each) for texts to review on the website we would build. The idea here was that the texts selected might influence the overall aesthetic choices. The stories needed to fit the course theme of science fiction involving artificial intelligence with the added dimension of a female author as we found a shortage of information about female science fiction writers on the internet. Here’s the discussion board prompt:

“List three stories by giving MLA citations for the copies you find (on Amazon, at the PCL, your local bookstore, etc). If someone else checked them out of the library, recall them now! If we don’t own the book/story, use Inter-Library Loan to request a copy from another university.”

Then we whittled down

WORKSHOP #1—Brainstorming and Benchmarking Writing Standards and Technologies

In order to accomplish the next goal the class was divided into four teams representing different types of decision making steps. Each team is giving a specific task building towards decisions that will effect the writing of the whole class. The instructor should leave some time at the beginning and end of class for discussion and should check in with each team to make sure they understand their job and how their job fits in with the other jobs.

Technology Selection Team: This team consists of students with prior web/blog/wiki experience. It is this teams job to compare notes on the usability of programs they have used and come up with their top recommendations for the class. (Tumbler and Word Press are favorites).

Aesthetics Team: This team's job is to identify sites that do similar types of work and look appealing. What might be the technical challenges of making something similar? They come up with a list of sites and narrow it down to their favorite four to show the class.

Writing Standards Team: This team is given the task of developing standards for content. In this case the students benchmarked the genre elements in a graduate level E3W Review of Books and adapted them to a shorter on-line format. Students should think about word limits (discourage anything longer than 500 words) and types of questions they want answered in the review, and think about things like pictures.

Managing Editor Team: This small team (two students is fine) compiles, polishes, organizes and removes the duplicates from the lists of books in the discussion forum. At the end of class, final decisions are made as to who will read and review which texts. Everybody commits.

HOMEWORK #2—Find and begin reading your story

Prompt: “This past week you were supposed to find and start reading the text you will review for our blog/wiki on Women and Science Fiction. BRING YOUR STORY TO CLASS on X Date! If it is something you are accessing through EEBO or other on-line source PRINT the cover/title page and the way to access it (website/database) onto a sheet or two of paper and bring that to use. Come to class ON-TIME and ready to do some creative workshopping.”

GAP CLASS—Schedule a day for something else while you give students the time to find/buy/read their books.

WORKSHOP #2—Caucusing and Decision Making

First half of class:

1) At the beginning of class students turn their books and book covers over to the General Editing Team. The Gen-Ed Team gets a delegate each from the Tech and Aesthetics teams to come up with two creative ways to organize texts in the on-line exhibit. (Total of four people). They will present these to the rest of the class.

2) The Tech and Aesthetics Teams caucus to figure out which of their favorite aesthetics are ones that are technologically feasible. They will come up with their best two options to show the class.

3) The Writing Standards Team meets with the professor to publish a handout with their content requirements. This will be distributed at the end of class.

Second half of class:

1) Managing Editor Team presents the final list of books.

2) Tech and Aesthetics teams present their recommendations.

3) Voting on container choices.

4) The Writing Standards team explains the content requirements prompt.

5) Final Decisions are posted as a plan on the discussion board (by the professor) for students to refer to at home and in the next workshop.

HOMEWORK #3—Short Content Writing Assignment

Students write their content using the standards developed as their prompt. They are asked to bring their work to class in electronic format (we used Word).

WORKSHOP #3—Peer Review and Content Building

1) Students read and peer review each other’s content. (This could also be a homework assignment).

2) Students copyedit and correct their work.

3) The tech team peer trains everybody to upload their content. People who "get it" first become peer trainers for the person next to them.

4) Uploading and final proof reading.

5) Troubleshooting. More troubleshooting.

FINAL SHOWCASE

Some students may need to take their time with the content upload. Give them the chance to finish their upload and editing during office hours or for homework. The instructor can review the site for typos or you can leave the remaining mistakes. Extra credit opportunities can be offered for students to add bells and whistles to the site, or for submitting an extra writing assignment.

At the beginning of the next class show off the final product and give the students a chance to discuss what they learned. A fun follow-up is to ask everyone to publicize the site by posting it on their social networking accounts (like Facebook, Twitter or their own blogs). Follow up in a later class by reporting the number of hits.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

This assignment/lesson plan requires clear communication with the students, and a certain amount of patience with utter chaos. By that I mean, the students did all the things I would normally do for them, like picking the website technology and designing the prompt, and I had to stand back and let them take control. Basically, my main job was to keep the teams communicating, to keep them aware of how their jobs fit into the bigger picture, and to help them figure out how to do things without micromanaging. This meant letting them make and learn from minor productive mistakes. There were a couple of challenges, which are described below.

Instructions For Students:

The series of steps are listed above in the Assignments section. Assignments and content can be flexibly adapted to course themes. The in-class workshops were designed for a 1 hour 15 minute class format. When lesson planning, it is important to include time for explaining tasks clearly to students and for getting their feedback at the end of class sessions. This time could vary quite a bit depending on the size of the class, the experience level of the students, and how well they have bonded as a group. I save this type of series for the end of the semester when students already have experience with writing, editing and conducting peer review. This assignment builds off those skills and teaches them new ones.

Evaluation Suggestions:

GRADING

This is a multi-piece project, so I split the grading into smaller chunks, which could be adapted to a variety of syllabi. This also encouraged class attendance.

1) Homework grade for the discussion post listing book choices (credit/no credit--went into the homework grade built into my syllabus)

2) Quiz grade for bringing books to class so that the general editors for workshop number 2. (Pass/Fail--went into the reading quizzes part of my syllabus)

3) Writing assignment for content, and upload completion—Students were given a letter grade. The writing assignment was worth 10% of the syllabus total.

4) Peer review quiz credit for editing during the third workshop. (Pass/fail quiz grade).

5) A small extra credit bonus was given for the “best peer editing team.” This was awarded to the peer editing pair that had the fewest number of copyediting mistakes in their final blog entries.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

The students chose to make a wordpress site. The following is a representative entry of the work they produced.

http://womenofsteel.wordpress.com/2012/04/19/34/

Their target audience was potential high school and lower division college instructors looking for science fiction texts for their courses. They decided each entry should include an image; a quote reflecting the author's writing style; a brief gloss of plot, genre, and themes; and an indication of the relative reading difficulty, along with pricing information. Two of the students were radio/television/film majors and the class decided it was OK if they reviewed science fiction films by women directors. Tagging and navigationals levels were added to reflect time periods, genres, theme and popular media. One challenge occurred when it was discoverd that the blog's default is to list entries by the date of upload. This wasn't a useful navigational feature but the students discovered it after they had already committed to their container theme. Another challenge appeared with the image uploads. Some of the book cover images load exactly as they are supposed to and others don't (in spite of a uniform training session). Overall, they did a nice job with the content and peer editing. The feedback from the students was that their overall confidence in trying to build a website or blog on their own had increased with knowing the types of decisionmaking steps to make, and their overall ability to explain what they were doing to a peer increased.

The site has since become the target for trolls. As a consequence there are some random unauthorized entries dating after May in the blog. A blog's flexibility for multiple users is an advantage, but sometimes older static website designs have better security. So, that's something to think about.

Additional Resources:

They needed to read books to complete this assignment.

Course Type:

Advanced Writing Course

Literary Studies Course

Course Description:

This lesson plan was developed for a writing intensive sophomore level course designated as "introduction to the major/introduction to literary methods." The course variant was titled "Literature and Artificial Intelligence." Course content bridged the canons of English and Artificial Intelligence with a selection of science fiction, philosophy, literary criticism and scienctific essays. In the second half of the semester, students were asked to build a website featuring book reviews for relevent science fiction stories by women authors. Their potential audience was instructors in high school and lower division college courses.

Tags:

Collocating and Word Choice Using Madlibs

Anonymous — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 16:48:39 +0000

Author:

Kevin Psonak

Image Credit:

"Canonyonlands - Needles Backcountry March 2011" via akeg's Flickr stream

Brief Assignment Overview:

Students use an online resource to learn some common ways that writers use a few "hard words". Then, with the children's game Madlibs serving as a model, students generate a template for a game in which they learn new words and collocations from their partners.

Type of Assignment:

Assignment Length:

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Ethos

Rhetorical Analysis

Pedagogical Goals - Literature:

Close Reading

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Collaboration

Open Access Software

Presentations

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

This exercise teaches students how to use difficult words properly. The instructor can alter it for use in introductory linguistics, syntax, semantics, and lexicography courses.

Media Requirements:

Required Materials:

Computer classroom with internet access and printing functionality on every computer.

ForBetterEnglish.com

Optional: a Madlibs book, from Penguin group

Free online version of Madlib-type game is available on the Maglib website.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Early in the Semester

Full Assignment Description:

Students use an online resource to learn some common ways that writers use a few "hard words". They use ForBetterEnglish.com, a database of common "word collocations," to compose a paragraph. The database resembles a list of dictionary examples of words used in text, but the most common word combinations are identified. The entry for "impeccable," for example, shows that "impeccable credentials," "impeccable timing," and "impeccable taste" are three word combinations.

Then, with the children's game Madlibs serving as a model, students generate a template for playing a similar game with a partner. This "game" stage helps the students to learn new words and collocations from their partners. A main lesson is that one way to improve one's English usage is to take the step from having a strong vocabulary to knowing how all the words actually fit into sentences.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

The instructor should hand out the student instruction sheet and introduce the collocation database in a class prior to the class set aside for the main exercise.

Students should experiment with the collocation database for five or ten minutes to get a feel for it.

On the day of the main exercise, students bring to class a list of three hard words (i.e., recently learned, frequently misused, etc.) with the words' definitions already in mind.

The instructor begins with a two-minute demonstration of Madlibs (or the computer version Madglibs), taking word suggestions from students. The use of the children's game can intrigue the students, and the references to parts of speech can get them to start thinking about traditional grammar.

Instructions For Students:

List three words that you are not sure how to use, but that you want to learn to use.

For each of your three words, use ForBetterEnglish.com to find one way that writers use it. List what you find.

Example:

elicit: "elicit a response"

effect: "investigate the effect"

affect: "affect the outcome"

Write a paragraph using all three of your words. Use the three words the way the "For Better English" website suggests, marking your words in bold.

Ex.: The election results elicited a response from the surprised political scientists. They decided to investigate the effects of political debates on election results. What they found is that debates affect election outcomes much more than they realized.

Save your paragraph as "Original.docx"

Create your "Madlib" paragraph:

Make a copy of Original.docx, name it "Madlib.docx", and open up Madlib.docx.
Keep your three "hard words", but replace the words that go with them with "blanks" and the part of speech of the word you removed.

Ex.: The election results elicited a _______ (noun) from the surprised political scientists. They decided to investigate the _______ (plural noun) of political debates on election results. What they found is that debates affect _______ (plural noun) much more than they realized.

Print a hard copy of your Madlib paragraph.

Play Madlibs with your partner:

Name a part of speech for your partner and write in the blank whatever word your partner provides.

You: "Give me a noun."
Partner: "astronaut"

Repeat this step for all three blanks.

Give the Madlib to your partner for review.

Switch roles and play Madlibs with your partner's paragraph.

Use "For Better English" to come up with better words to match up with your partner's "hard words".

Check your guesses against your partner's Original.docx.

Now, compose a new paragraph. Use all three of your own words, but follow different suggestions from "For Better English" (e.g., instead of "elicited a response", try "elicited sympathy"). Also, try using all three of your partner's words properly.

Save this final paragraph as "Final.docx" and email both your "Original.docx" and your "Final.docx" to the instructor.

Evaluation Suggestions:

9 points:

3 for correct usage of your three words in Original.docx

3 for correct usage of your three words in Final.docx

3 for correct usage of your partner's words in Final.docx

The exercise counts as a quiz.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

The database has its limits. Some words have few or no examples, so instructors might find that they benefit from getting a feel for how deep the database goes and then giving students guidance accordingly.

The title of the lesson and the accompanying image of puzzle pieces suggest that sentences are like puzzles. Individual words are like unique puzzle pieces in that they are governed by rules for combination with other words.

Course Type:

Literary Studies Course

Course Description:

An introductory writing course that includes instruction in practical reasoning and the principles of rhetoric. Also useful in a literary studies course.

Tags:

Color-coding Revision - Visualizing the Process

Cate Blouke — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 18:46:38 +0000

Author:

Cate Blouke

Image Credit:

"Big Cup'O Crayons" via haydnseek's Flikr stream

Brief Assignment Overview:

Following a detailed set of instructions, students use crayons (or other multi-colored writing utensils) to visually distinguish between certain elements of their papers. The result is a colorful paper that visually demarcates areas of text that may require revision.

Type of Assignment:

Assignment Length:

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Arrangement

Delivery

Pedagogical Goals - Literature:

No Classroom Technology Required

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Multimodal

Visualization

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

Revision

Organization/Arrangement

Delivery

Media Requirements:

Required Materials:

*Having attempted this exercise on computers, I highly recommend a low-tech approach. Using hard copies and forcing students to interact with the material pages themselves both allows for more freedom in marking up the papers and helps the visualization process. Additionally, my students loved playing with crayons.

So, all you will need are:

hard copies of the papers to be revised
crayons, highlighters, or variously colored pens

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Early in the Semester

Mid-Semester

Full Assignment Description:

Students are asked to peer review each other's papers using crayons (my personal favorite tool) or other colorful writing utensils. Using three differently colored crayons, they look for very specific aspects of the paper to underline, circle, or cross-out. The particular parts of the paper they should attend to are easily adaptable to an instructor's needs and the common issues arising in a given class. The important thing is that students mark up the papers with different colors and different types of annotation.

This workshop is incredibly helpful to students who are more visually-oriented learners. It is also an extremely helpful editing process for students to practice. By giving them extremely detailed instructions and asking them to pay close attention to more minute aspects of their peers' papers, they often leave the workshop feeling more attuned to these issues in their own papers.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

Adapt the workshop instructions to your own needs. This is particularly helpful once you've already seen the students' writing and can gauge the issues that need addressing. For example, in my rhetoric/composition class, I find that students often rely too heavily on quotations in their first papers (which involve a lot fo summary), so I have them underline all of the quotations. This makes it immediately clear to most of the students just how much of their paper is quoted and how much is their own writing. On the other hand, in my literature class my students might not be providing enough evidence from the text, so underlining quotations have the inverse effect of highlighting a paucity of quotation.

My own teacherly pet-peeve is vague pronouns and distant referents, so this usually turns up regardless of the course I'm teaching. But as you'll see in the instructions below, it's fairly easy to tweak the worksheet to fit your needs.

Other than that, make sure to tell students to bring a hard copy of their papers. It's also important to provide writing utensils in a variety of colors (at least three per student). I tend to bring a giant box of crayons to class - both because crayons are less expensive than colored pencils or other options, and because my students get a kick out of playing with crayons in a college classroom.

Instructions For Students:

(You will probably want to re-format this before giving it to students, but for accessibility reasons, I am not retaining the original Word document's formatting)

This exercise is designed to help with the revision process by making certain aspects of your papers stand out visually. For those of you that are visual learners this might be really useful in that it literally highlights the way you use language. For others of you this might just be an easy in-class exercise where you get to play with crayons.

1. Select three different colored crayons. This will work best if they are distinctly different colors.

2. Assign each color a function by creating a color key here:

a. PRONOUNS ___________________

b. TOPIC SENTENCES ______________

c. QUOTATIONS __________________

3. As you read through the paper,

a. With the color assigned to pronouns,

i. Circle every: THEY, THEIR, THOSE, THESE, THIS, IT, ITS,

ii. Cross out any: I, YOU, YOUR, WE, OUR, US, (and any contractions you come across ‘cause they shouldn’t be there either)

b. With the color assigned to topic sentences, underline the first sentence of every paragraph

c. With the color assigned to quotations, underline every quote you come across (make a second line if quotes are used in the fist sentence)

4. Once you have worked through the entire paper, go back through it a second time. Do the following exercises with a pen or pencil.

a. For every pronoun you circled, identify the referent (i.e. who is the “they,” what is the “this” or “it”), and write your answers on the line below each pronoun.

b. Read through each paragraph again, and in the margin write a few words identifying the subject of the paragraph. Does the content match the topic sentence? If not, make a single, neat X across the entire paragraph.

c. For each quotation, assess whether the quote is one of the following and label each quote accordingly:

i. Rhetorically effective (i.e. uses powerful/evocative language) [RE]

ii. Highly specific (statistics or technical language) [HS]

iii. Could probably be paraphrased or seems unnecessary [PARA]

Evaluation Suggestions:

As it's purely for the students' benefit, this assignment is not graded. I simply use this as an in-class exercise and send them home with their marked-up papers.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

My students generally really enjoy this exercise - in part because I have them playing with crayons in a college classroom. What I have found is that the actual process of doing the workshop is more helpful than the feedback they receive - so, in doing this to someone else's paper, it helps them to notice the trend in their own papers. The exercise can be adapted to any number of common problems, these are just three things that my students tend to consistently have issues with in the first paper (no matter how much we've gone over these things in class).

I do think it's important to use hard copies of their papers. I've tried this in a computer-classroom, and using highlighting in Word just doesn't have the same impact. It also makes it more difficult to visualize all together and doesn't have the same tactile effect.

Course Description:

This exercise will work in any course requiring writing and revision. I've used it in both rhetoric and literature classes, but it was originally designed for an introductory rhetoric class.

Rhetoric 306 is a course designed to introduce students to the principles of rhetoric, responsible civil discourse, and college writing. Students are asked to select a contemporary controversy to explore through research, rhetorical analysis, and ultimately to advocate their own position.

Tags:

Revision

Peer Review

Editing

Visual Representation

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:

Adaptable For Use Without Classroom Technology

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:

Early in the Semester

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.

Tags:

Essay Revision with Automated Textual Analysis

Michael Widner — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 18:47:21 +0000

Author:

Michael Widner

Image Credit:

Screenshot of Voyeur interface by Michael Widner

Brief Assignment Overview:

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.

Type of Assignment:

Assignment Length:

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Arrangement

Rhetorical Analysis

Pedagogical Goals - Literature:

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Open Access Software

Remediation

Visualization

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

Gain an objective, computer-assisted understanding of one's writing. Learn how to use Voyeur for textual analysis.

Media Requirements:

Required Materials:

Computer, Voyeur software, student writing

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Full Assignment Description:

I like to discover and play with digital humanities tools. One I recently discovered is Voyeur, which creates word clouds and word frequency graphs for texts you provide it. Despite the warning by Jacob Harris that we should be wary of word clouds, they can serve as a gentle introduction to automated text analysis for students. While experimenting with Voyeur, I wondered how I could best use this tool to expose my students to the ways the digital humanities are transforming how we interact with and study literature. Rather than explore a literary text, however, I decided that it might be interesting to see if textual analysis can help with the process of revision. My hope is that this exercise might make students see the value of such tools in a different way and see their own writing as texts available to (and requiring) interrogation.

Voyeur is an easy tool to use. You simply upload or paste a text and click “Reveal”. You’re then provided with a workbench-like screen that starts with a word cloud and copy of the text you submitted. You can also upload multiple documents in many common file formats such as Microsoft Word or PDF. Doing so allows Voyeur to create a corpus of texts that it can then compare for word frequencies. Voyeur also provides two pre-defined corpora: one of Shakespeare’s plays (which would be fun for a course on his works) and another of a humanist listserv archive. The initial word cloud includes every word in the document, which is often not very useful because of common words like “the,” but the tool provides a pre-programmed list of “stop words” that will cause Voyeur to redraw the word cloud with those words omitted. Clicking on any word in the cloud will provide a graph of the relative frequency of that word. The tool also provides information about vocabulary density, distinctive words, length of documents, and a number of other statistical details worth investigating.

Rather than delve into the possibilities some of the more advanced statistical measures provided, I decided to focus on word clouds and word frequencies when I use this tool with students; those two elements seem the most accessible to students who probably lack experience with automated textual analysis. I also want to focus on seeing if this approach can help address one of the biggest and most prevalent problems I encounter in student writing: the difficulty stating a clear thesis and then staying focused on that thesis throughout the paper. I wondered, then, if a word cloud and graphs of word frequencies might allow a way to visualize the actual (rather than implicit or imagined) topics of a paper and their appearance and disappearance in different sections. I came up with this exercise as a result of these ideas. Note: I teach in a classroom that provides a computer to each student. Still, this exercise could, with only a little effort, be repeated with laptops or outside of class time. Voyeur does allow users to export all data, so it would be fairly simple to share work.

First, have students upload their papers to Voyeur. If they have multiple revisions of a paper, all the better, as it allows a comparison of the iterations of their writing. After setting the stop words and exploring the different word frequencies of their own work, students should then trade and look at a peer’s work. This switch allows the students to avoid being biased by what they think the paper is about and instead focus on what Voyeur shows. Here are a few instructions I have come up with for students to ask:

Use Voyeur to see if you can get an idea of the paper’s thesis and how the argument progresses without reading the paper.

What can you determine about the paper's organization?
What words are most common? What words would you expect to be most common based on the thesis?
What words rise and fall (or do not) in frequency together? Would you expect them to do so?
How can you revise your paper so that the most important words to the argument appear more frequently or in more effective combinations?

I have tested this technique on some of my own writing and found that it does, in fact, reveal some interesting patterns. For example, in one essay I wrote, I juggle three major topics, which rise and fall in sequence through the paper. It was surprising to me to see just how regularly the paper followed that pattern, in fact, and confirmed that I had organized it in a logical manner that accords with my argument. What other uses might you suggest for Voyeur? Are there other questions you think I could pose for students as they use this tool to analyze their own writing? Do you know of other tools that might be useful for this exercise?

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

Play around with Voyeur first.

Instructions For Students:

Download the file containing your essay.

Go to the Voyeur website

Upload the file via the "Upload" link.

Hit "Reveal".

Select the gear icon in the upper left box titled "Cirrus". Select the "Taporware (English)" stop words list to remove common words like "the", "a", "and", etc. from the word cloud.

Shrink the text-view window by clicking the arrows on the bar on the far right. This action will reveal several new windows, including a word frequency chart.

Explore various word frequency combinations to see if the most common words in your paper match your thesis, to see how different, important words vary in frequency throughout the paper, and how word combinations appear (or do not).

Have a peer look at the graphs you've created and see if they can determine the main topics of your paper from them. Trade places with your peer; explore one another's texts using Voyeur to see if you can get an idea of the paper's thesis and how the argument progresses without reading the paper.

What can you determine about your paper's organization?

What words are most common? What words would you expect to be most common based on your thesis?

What words rise and fall (or do not) in frequency together? Would you expect them to do so?

How can you revise your paper so that the most important words to your argument appear more frequently or in more effective combinations?

Evaluation Suggestions:

None

Course Type:

Advanced Writing Course

Megan Varelmann Gianfagna

Literary Studies Course

Course Description:

Why do we read literature? What, if anything, do we get out of literature that makes it important? What cognitive faculties to we use when we read and how do those faculties effect or even determine our interpretations? In this course, we will explore these and related questions in order to introduce students to the study of English literature through criticism focused on how the mind works. We will emphasize, in particular, the rapidly growing field of cognitive literary studies, which applies the findings of contemporary cognitive science and neuroscience to traditional humanities questions about the nature of literature, the practice of reading, and the possibilities of interpretation. We will read selections from some of the leading cognitive scientists and cognitive literary theorists and test their theories and methods through our own interpretations of primary literary texts. We will also discuss the history and practice of psychoanalytic critical approaches like Freudian, Lacanian, and feminist theories. We will read an eclectic mixture of literary works including contemporary science fiction, classic novels and short stories, and medieval and Renaissance poetry.

As an introduction to the study of English literature and preparation for upper-division English courses at UT, this course will also focus on developing the fundamental skills of close reading, critical writing, research, and critical analysis. In other words, this course is not primarily about psychology. Instead, that is the lens through which we will view our primary object of study: literature. We will receive an introduction to various formal, historical, and cultural approaches to literary texts, all of which will use some form of psychology. We will also learn how to use the Oxford English Dictionary and other resources central to literary studies.

Tags:

Visualizing Word Choice with Lexipedia

gianfagna — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:10:08 +0000

Author:

Image Credit:

Screen shot of Lexipedia entry for "choice"

Brief Assignment Overview:

This assignment focuses on using a visual thesaurus to illustrate the nuanced relationships among words that the list form of the traditional thesaurus glosses over. It asks students to use Lexipedia to evaluate the word choices they’ve made in their essays and to revise for more precise rhetorical effect.

Type of Assignment:

Class Discussion

Assignment Length:

Partial Class Period

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Topoi

Pedagogical Goals - Literature:

Adaptable For Use Without Classroom Technology

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Visualization

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

The primary goal of the exercise is to help students revise their essays at the word level to more precisely communicate their ideas. It suggests to them that while a thesaurus can help get them thinking, not all words listed as synonyms convey the same meaning. It asks them to think critically about the reference materials they use and about how careless word choice can affect their authorial ethos.

Media Requirements:

Media Console/Projector

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Required Materials:

Internet-connected computers are necessary for students to look up words drawn from their own essays. However, the instructor could select a few examples and present them to students either with one media console or in handout form and ask them to do the revision portion of the exercise outside of class.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Full Assignment Description:

This in-class assignment is part of a larger clarifying writing workshop I do with students to help them revise their essays. I have used it with mapping essays, rhetorical analysis essays, and proposal essays but imagine it can be applied to a wide range of assignments. I begin the activity in class with a discussion based on a few examples of “synonyms” from a particular thesaurus entry. I ask students to think about the different connotations each word has and how they might change the meaning of a sentence. Then I ask students to pair up and answer questions about another word and the synonyms the traditional thesaurus offers for it. We discuss how the list form the thesaurus offers implies that synonyms are equivalent in meaning. Then I show them the visual thesaurus Lexipedia, ask them to look up the same word, and have them discuss how the representations of its relationship to the other words in the entry differs from the traditional thesaurus. Finally, I ask them to turn to their essay drafts to identify words that aren’t appropriate and/or that aren’t pulling their rhetorical weight and revise accordingly.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

The Lexipedia site is a simple interface, and students and instructors will likely get comfortable using it in just a few minutes. Prior to class, the instructor might just familiarize him/herself with the color code for parts of speech and word relationships as well as the distinction the site makes between “fuzzynyms” and synonyms. Instructors might identify a few commonly misused words in the students’ drafts and use those examples when demonstrating the difference between the traditional and the visual thesaurus. Also, if the instructor wants students to begin revising in class, s/he will need to arrange for students to bring an electronic or hard copy of their essays.

Instructions For Students:

Step 1

As a class, let’s discuss the following examples of synonyms. Specifically, what do each of these “synonyms” uniquely contribute to the sentence?

Ex. 1: I’m going home. vs. I’m going to the house.  

Ex. 2: He acts cocky. vs. He acts confident.   

What different connotations does each word in these “synonym” sets have?

Ex. 3: Slender/skinny/scrawny

Ex. 4: Careful/stingy/thrifty

Step 2

With a partner, look up one of the following words in the dictionary: friend, snub or suggest. Then choose three synonyms and list the associations you have with each one. How do they compare? What are differences in meaning you can find (even tiny ones)? Write 3 sentences using at least one of the words in each.

Step 3

Now look up the same word in Lexipedia. Based on the entry it provides, what do you make of the relationship among your word and the synonyms you examined in Step 2? Think about the distance shown between words as well as the way they are grouped and the way they are color-coded. Does Lexipedia show words that the traditional thesaurus didn’t? Does it leave out words the traditional thesaurus included?

Step 4

Look at your essay and mark words that you aren’t sure express your ideas as well as they could. What does the word you choose in revision need to express differently? Use the visual thesaurus to see if you can find a more suitable word.

Evaluation Suggestions:

I use the Learning Record, so I provide feedback but not grades on student work. I gauge student success with this activity (and with the larger clarifying writing workshop) by the improvement their subsequent drafts show.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

This activity gets mentioned often both in student Learning Records and in course evaluations as something that was effective in helping them become more aware of their diction. They report that they enjoy discussing their relationship with the thesaurus (most commonly one built on frequent and hurried interactions) and using the visual thesaurus to explore relationships among words.

Course Type: