linguistic difference

Map-Making and Storytelling

Gitte Frandsen Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description Transnational, multilingual students have extensive experiences negotiating language difference by translating, translanguaging, and drawing from their literacy and rhetorical resources (Canagarajah). Further, by traversing physical and digital borders, these students habitually engage in the transnational flow of ideas and information, which gives them access to a wealth […]

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Intersectional Identity Photo Essay

Jackie Mohan Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description In this assignment, students craft a photo essay about their identity, through which they hone basic writing skills, understand genre, and develop an understanding of voice, tone, and style. Intersectionality refers to how we can better understand each person’s lived experiences in the world by examining how

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Building Inclusive Classrooms: Equipping Educators with an Introductory Social Justice Lesson Plan

Bethany Meadows and Kimberly Groves Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description Many scholars have called for the necessity of social justice frameworks within K-16 classrooms for decades (e.g., Friere; hooks; Walton et al.; Muhammad). Specifically, in the first-year writing classroom, we know that neither writing nor our writing classrooms are neutral, apolitical spaces, but instead

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Beautiful Sentences

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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Writing, Translating, and Revising Menus: An International Virtual Exchange Project

Massimo Verzella Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description This assignment is informed by a pedagogical tradition that emphasizes the connections between the fields of writing and translation (Matsuda; Horner and Tetreault), a connection that becomes even more relevant in technical communication (Gnecchi et al.; Petts et al.). Just like writing, translation is process-based, iterative, and

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The Grammar of Text Messaging: Analyzing Non-Standard English to Develop Genre Awareness

Kristen Vogel Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description In every course I teach, I work to instill in students the understanding that Standard English is merely one variety among many, rather than a superior form. In this assignment, students are asked to write an essay that analyzes the “grammar” of their own writing in a

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Gen AI: Large Language Models and Linguistic Whitewashing

Chris Mayer Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description This multi-step lesson engages students in the critical analysis of Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI) and its impact on linguistic diversity. Through assigned readings, writing tasks, and in-class activities, students will explore how Large Language Models (LLMs) can reinforce linguistic hierarchies and biases. Even older LLMs, like

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Reflecting on Literacy Identities Through Writing Personal Narratives

Ruth Li Volume 7 Chapter Description In this chapter, I offer an approach to teaching literacy narratives, which encourage students to reflect critically on their diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. I interweave examples from literacy narratives written by three of my first-year writing students in Saudi Arabia. By examining the ways students’ stories reverberate across

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Writing as the World Falls Apart: A Filipino Perspective on Academic Writing

Florianne Jimenez and Aileen Salonga Volume 7 Chapter Description In this chapter, we focus on how Filipino university students think about and make sense of the notion of ‘good’ academic writing.1 We introduce a social and historical view of the entanglements between English and academic writing in the Philippines, which have resulted in an academic

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Writing Counterstories: Ways to Challenge Dominant Narratives in FYC

Sana Sayed Volume 7 Chapter Description This chapter draws from Aja Martinez’s concept of counterstories as a rhetorical research methodology in rhetoric and writing studies and encourages you, a first year writing student, to draw upon your experiential knowledge to both challenge and reframe master narratives that are accepted by the majority. In first-year composition

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