Activities

Unpacking Abstracts: Conventions of Empirical Abstracts in Social Science Papers

Activities, critical thought and analysis, genre and discourse community, primary source research, reading strategies, research, secondary source research, STEM, Style, writing across the curriculum /

Faqryza Ab Latif Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description The goal of the activity is for learners to be able to describe the components that make up the abstract of an empirical social science paper and apply them to other abstracts in the field. This goal is connected to introducing students to the conventions of […]

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Playing with Paywalls: Information Literacy in Theory and Practice

Accessibility, Activities, critical thought and analysis, information literacy, reading strategies, research, secondary source research /

Arielle Bernstein & Chelsea L. Horne Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description Increasingly, online publishers and distributors of information – news sites, popular magazines, professional blogs – have implemented paywalls to limit the number of articles to which the public has free access. This has traditionally been true for scholarly sources and databases, and prompts

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“Upstream” and “Lateral” Moves Through Information Networks

Activities, critical thought and analysis, information literacy, reading strategies, research, secondary source research /

Philip Longo Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description Recent widespread concern over the spread of misinformation and disinformation has placed a renewed emphasis on information literacy skills in FYC courses. Traditional approaches often draw on student skepticism, asking them to analyze the credibility of a single source. But such skepticism-laden approaches risk adding to our

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“I Didn’t Know I Could Research That”: Using Objects for Research Topic Invention

Activities, Community-engaged writing, Place-based Writing, prewriting and invention, research /

Mario A. D’Agostino Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description Objects matter. As material rhetoricians (Barnett & Boyle; Gries & Brooke), cultural materialists (Bennett), and compositionists (Rule) have recently noted, objects play an important role in our lives and composing processes. An excellent example of the cultural significance of objects and what they mean to their

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Writing Like a Game Designer

Activities, Community-engaged writing, research, visual/multimodal rhetorics, writing technologies /

Elizabeth Caravella & Rich Shivener Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description As students turn to composing more multimodal and digital pieces in their writing courses, a number of writing instructors have employed the process known as gamification, or, the application of game-like elements, to their classrooms. Through this activity, students will learn to also utilize

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Exploring Ideology in Written Language: A Translingual Approach

Activities, Anti-Racist Pedagogy, linguistic difference, linguistic diversity, Racial Literacy, translingualism, writing in global contexts /

Alex Way Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description There are power dynamics at play in spoken and written language. Language is wielded by people and institutions to exert power over others or to maintain the power they already possess. But power dynamics in language are not always obvious. For instance, one manifestation of power dynamics

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Thinking Out Loud: The Prewriting Interview

Activities, demystifying writing assignments, prewriting and invention, Process /

Helen H. Choi Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description The overall intent of this activity is to support a prewriting phase for invention and creative thinking, as students search for and develop a topic and craft a plan for responding to a writing assignment (Trim and Isaac 107). While invention can be explored through individual

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Lobsters & Second Conversations: Addressing the “So What” in Your Writing

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

Stina Kasik Oakes Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description What’s a lobster? A second conversation? For years I worked to explain to students how to incorporate purpose, depth, and meaning into their writing with the terms “deeper meaning,” or “story under the story,” or “what the essay is really about.” But these phrases didn’t quite

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Exploring Community and Personal Connection as Idea Generation for Argumentative Writing

Activities, Community-engaged writing, Place-based Writing, prewriting and invention /

Amanda Rachelle Warren Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description The argumentative essay is a relied upon element of the composition classroom. These essay assignments help students develop thoughtful, well-considered arguments on debatable topics. As many teachers know, those “debatable topics” tend towards predictable subject matter that is often too broad for an essay-length argument, is

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