Mustafa Masihuddin Siddiqui
Assignments & Activities Archive
Activity Description
During my first two terms teaching first-year composition classes at the University of Toronto, I faced multiple problems—my classes were not engaging enough; many of the students’ essays did not showcase deep understanding of the key course readings; some students did not apply the evidence into their essays; and most students struggled conforming to the basic referencing guidelines. To address these issues, I developed an interactive approach called “Read, Feed, and Seed” (RFS), aimed at fostering “collaborative learning in writing” (Hunzer 1) while reinforcing research writing skills. The activity begins with the “read” phase where students actively annotate the introduction of a course reading, highlighting significant points. They then compare annotations within small groups to recognize diverse perspectives. After they have grasped the intent of the reading, the group members are assigned exclusive sections of the remaining text, which they skim through, preparing points for group discussion.
The “feed” phase of this activity is a simple session in which all group members share insights from their respective sections, which cultivates a supportive environment for diverse learning capacities. Groups then use this comprehensive understanding of the text to craft a research-style response to a question I give options for. To bolster their arguments, they “seed” evidence from the text while using a source integration technique. Meanwhile, a group member is tasked with ensuring that the in-text citations strictly follow APA guidelines and creating a reference-list entry for the reading. At the end, I provide feedback on the quality of responses, source integration, and APA compliance. These one-hour RFS sessions not only encourage “co-construction of knowledge” (Dobao 55) but also reinforce most students’ research writing skills, as evidenced by the quality of their subsequent essays.