Rebecca Chenoweth Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description This assignment invites students to identify academic knowledge that they value, and to share this knowledge with a new audience that is impacted by and/or can impact the topic. They are then tasked with analyzing their own writing in this “non-academic” rhetorical situation. Both components of this […]
Megan Heise Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description First-year writing classes (can) provide a fertile ground for student exploration of meaningful topics that impact them and their broader communities both within and beyond the Ivory Tower. Research-based writing courses, in particular, can open up spaces for students to dive deep into areas that are important
Matt Hill Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description The activity is meant to encourage thinking about sonic pollution in our world and about the rhetorical nature of such pollution. It could also move into other sonic topics: effects of noise on hospital care, effects of anthropogenic noise on the natural world, how military sonic technologies
Our Sonically-Composed Worlds Read More »
Meng-Hsien (Neal) Liu Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description As Writing Studies has sought to address multimodal and embodied composition, one area has focused on how objects mediate writing processes and identity formations (Shipka). This assignment represents a final term project for an advanced composition class with the overall objective of complicating students’ thinking regarding
Jessa M. Wood Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description Prior to a first-year writing course, students often see writing as static and rule-based, and have not been challenged to reflect on how they make choices about writing and the impact those choices have on readers. I have found in teaching my first-year writing course that
Reflective Cover Letter Read More »
Keri Epps Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description As a writing instructor dedicated to researching and teaching rhetorical genres, I often struggle with how to facilitate students’ learning of what makes a genre, how it circulates, and who it matters to. In short, designing scaffolded assignments around “genre” has seemed difficult in writing courses at
How to Write a _____ Like a _____ Read More »
Heather Shearer Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description Many composition instructors ask students to read drafts aloud during writing workshops because doing so helps writers identify logical gaps, stylistic mishaps, or localized errors they overlook when reading drafts silently. To amplify the writerly knowledge gained from reading drafts aloud, we can extend the read-aloud practice
“Lend Ears!”: Creating Audio Recordings of Final Drafts to Develop Rhetorical Awareness Read More »
Melvin E. Beavers Volume 5 Assignment Description The purpose of this assignment is to use rhetoric to think and write critically about technology and the users’ experiences with it. To do so, students will work collaboratively to determine what makes a smartphone app successful. Once they agree, each student is bound by the criteria they
Rhetorical Analysis: Creating an App Casebook Read More »
William Duffy Volume 5 Chapter Description Providing an introduction to rhetoric is a foundational component of most first-year writing courses.1 Discussion of rhetorical appeals, for example, is standard fair in these contexts, as are activities that ask students to develop an appreciation for rhetorical situations, audiences, purposes, and even more nuanced concepts such as kairos
What Is Rhetoric? A “Choose Your Own Adventure” Primer Read More »
David Blakesley Volume 5 Chapter Description This essay presents a working definition of rhetoric, then explores its key terms to help you understand rhetoric’s nature as both an applied art of performance and a heuristic art of invention and creation.1 The definition also situates rhetoric in the social processes of identification and division. The definition
Elaborate Rhetorics Read More »
