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Mapping a Controversy Using Dipity Timelines

Students map the sources from a controversy they have researched

In this lesson, students created Dipity timelines that allow them to integrate multi-media content into a temporal-sequential order.  Taking the sources from their first essay, students reflect on the benefits of the multimedia/chronological presentation.

A Structured Approach to Teaching the OED as a Close Reading Tool

a person in a black shirt holding up a book. On the left-hand side of the book is a yellow page that read "step one" in white font. On the right-hand site is a white page with the word "one" written in large brown font.

Using a structured worksheet, students explore a word of interest from one of the course readings through the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) online. The worksheet asks them to consider how the definition(s) of the word can help inform their textual analysis/close reading of a text.

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. 

The Rhetoric of Performance: Teaching Logos through Disney Movies

This assignment uses clips and text from Disney movies to teach students to analyze logos as part of a unit on rhetorical analysis.

Introducing iMovie

Film reels

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

Locating Bias Within A Dictionary

A portrait of Samuel Johnson by Joshua Reynolds

In the course of discussing David Foster Wallace’s essay “Tense Present,” I asked my students to compare and contrast the en

Essay Revision with Automated Textual Analysis

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

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

Using Google Drive for Collaborative Bias Analysis

In this exercise, students research potential sources of bias within a set of assigned texts and add their notes to a Google Drive spreadsheet. The students and instructor then review the spreadsheet as a group and finish with a class discussion.

Tracing Memes in Storify

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

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

Figuring Out Rhetorical Figures

Aeolus

This assignment uses online resources (Wiktionary or Silva Rhetoricae) to introduce students first hand to different rhetorical figures.

Color-coding Revision - Visualizing the Process

students use crayons to visually distinguish between elements of their papers

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.

Peer-to-Peer Review

red pen and paper

When revising a paper, a second pair of eyes is always useful. But who says those have to be human eyes? By utilizing a range of peer review technologies, your students get to play teacher for each other — and for themselves.

Using and analyzing images: Public transportation

Using and analyzing images

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.

Concession, Refutation, and Rebuttal in "Bart's Comet"

Ned Flanders invites the town into his bomb shelter.

Use the acclaimed Simpson's episode "Bart's Comet" to teach refutation, rebuttal, and concession in a fun, group dynamic. Class groups are asked to don the role of familiar Simpson's characters and justify why their character, rather than others, deserves to continue living in the "world of the future." 

Audience Appeal - Making Commercials with Animoto

blank billboard

Using the extremely user-friendly online video creation tool, Animoto, students create short commercials pitching (potentially) odd combinations of products to target audiences (pianos to businessmen, running shoes to retirees, etc.)

Using Debates to Teach Rhetorical Analysis

Two debaters at podiums smile at one another

This assignment asks students to watch a debate and evaluate the participants' use of ethos, pathos and logos given their goals and their audience.

Close Reading Through Interactive Storytelling

students create games based on scenes or passages from a novel

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

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