Activities

“So What?” Speed Dating: Articulating an Argument’s Significance

Activities, critical thought and analysis, drafting and revising, Feedback, reflection, rhetorical appeals and argument /

Shannon Mooney Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description This activity is intended to help students practice articulating the larger stakes, or the “so what,” of an argumentative or analytical assignment. The activity works best after students have developed complete drafts, and it can be easily adapted for any paper that requires students to present and […]

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Literary Analysis via Songs

Activities, critical thought and analysis, reading, reading strategies, reading to write /

Sean Oros Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description The purpose of this lesson is to provide students a pathway for applying literary analysis skills to modern songs of their own choosing. The rationale for this is twofold: first, it is partially a response to avoiding copied responses from Spark Notes or Lit Notes and the

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Rhetorical Moves Analysis of Emails

Activities, genre and discourse community, reflection, rhetoric, rhetorical situation /

Lisa Parzefall Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description The purpose of this activity is to introduce students to rhetorical moves analysis as a way to approach and respond to a variety of genres as well as better understand rhetorical concepts such as audience and purpose. To do so, students begin by reviewing an example analysis

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Learning to Listen for Immersion and Rhetorical Choices

Activities, digital literacy, prewriting and invention, soundwriting, visual/multimodal rhetorics /

Tanya K. Rodrigue and Kyle D. Stedman Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description Soundwriting assignments—those that ask students in writing and rhetoric classes to compose rhetorical digital audio projects—are becoming more commonplace in the college classroom (e.g. Alexander; Friend; Faris, Danforth, and Stedman). One of the ways students learn how to compose effective soundwriting is

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Beautiful Sentences

Activities, Critical Language Awareness, grammar and mechanics, linguistic difference, punctuation, Style /

Mark Shea Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description We often associate metalinguistic terminology with an adherence to normative language standards in students’ writing. Basing metalinguistic practice on students’ own writing can also evoke demotivating and damaging episodes in prior educational contexts. A more productive way to incorporate a focus on metalinguistic language into writing courses

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“Read, Feed, and Seed”: Fostering Research Writing in Classroom Spaces

Activities, annotated bibliography, collaboration and group work, demystifying writing assignments, documentation, Integrating sources, reading, reading strategies, secondary source research /

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

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Teaching Three ‘Writing for University and Beyond’ Course Concepts Simultaneously Utilizing One Three-minute Scene from a Bollywood Film

Activities, Critical Language Awareness, Threshold concepts, translingualism, writing myths and anxiety, Writing Transfer /

Kanika Verma Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description Teaching writing concepts in an undergraduate university writing course can be challenging. Several threshold concepts in writing studies are new for undergraduates majoring in any discipline. The comprehension of many concepts is dependent on other sub-concepts or meta-concepts. For instance, students need various examples to understand what

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“Are Cats Good? An Important Study”:Using a Meme Article for Teaching Writing of Analytic Summaries

Activities, annotated bibliography, information literacy, reading, reading strategies, research, secondary source research, summary /

Wei Xu and Hongni Gou Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description This activity is designed as part of the major project “Annotated Bibliography” in a first-year writing course. At the time the activity is implemented, students should have learned the purpose, context, and audience of an annotated bibliography and that both summaries and evaluations are

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“Getting a Peek Behind the Wizard’s Curtain”: Teaching Students How to Read Academic Articles with Haas’ ‘Learning to Read Biology’

Activities, demystifying writing assignments, genre and discourse community, reading strategies, rhetoric /

Kevin E. DePew Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description As instructors across the disciplines know, most incoming college students struggle to read academic texts. While there is an array of reasons that students might not be reading their assigned texts—from limited time to neurodivergent challenges to failure to see the assigned reading’s relevance—this series of

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Source Speed Dating: Where Do Research Topics Come From?

Activities, demystifying writing assignments, prewriting and invention, primary source research, research /

Hannah T. Davis Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description The beginning of a research paper assignment might involve a discussion of the goals of the assignment and a short brainstorming activity to help students think about possible topics. When students are asked to quickly choose a topic in this manner, without first conducting preliminary research,

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