Sample assignments and activities are divided up by how they meet each of the course objectives.
Course Objective 1
Practice writing as a process involving inquiry and invention, composing, response from instructor and peers, revision, and editing according to appropriate conventions.
Suggested Assignments
Five minute quick writes where students allow themselves to simply write without thinking. This may include a prompt to help get them started and thinking.
Ask students to keep a feedback journal or log where they note what changes were recommended and reflect on why they do or do not accept a suggested change.
Course Objective 2
Analyze rhetorical situations as they relate to discourse communities.
Suggested Assignments
Begin by defining “discourse community” and ask students to think of the DCs they belong to while also explaining how and why it fits the DC definition. Then ask them to gather a piece of communication from their DC and analyze it, considering how each aspect of the rhetorical situation and DC worked together to influence the rhetorical moves and decisions within it.
Provide a sample text for students and engage in a similar process as noted above.
Course Objective 3
Identify particular audiences and appropriate rhetorical moves, strategies, and/or responses.
Suggested Assignments
Analyze a commercial and/or print ad
Define audience
Identify effective strategies
Identify ineffective strategies
Compare similar message in different media
Course Objective 4
Demonstrate engagement with intellectually complex writing situations, accounting for multiple perspectives via readings, visual media, and other texts.
Suggested Assignments
Examine several articles, videos, etc. on a specific topic where multiple perspectives are provided; have students discuss where the perspectives overlap/clash; encourage them to position themselves among the positions (and why)
Ask students to synthesize multiple perspectives with their own and investigate them: why is this issue not black/white? What nuances can they identify and where do they stand?
Course Objective 5
Create texts, including essays, in print and/or digital formats that respond to varied rhetorical situations.
Suggested Assignments
Course Objective 6
Use suitable methods of citation.
Suggested Assignments
Task students with creating a sample Works Cited page based on sources that are either provided to them by the instructor or that they found themselves.
Course Objective 7
Produce reflective writing for self-assessment.
Suggested Assignments
Have students keep a journal
Have students create lists of goals throughout the semester and return to reassess progress
Have students write brief reflection paragraph to answer a prompt after each completed unit
Assign a reflection paper at the end of the semester where students look at the first thing they wrote in class and the last thing to see how they have grown and create goals beyond ENGLI 1101