Critical Language Awareness

Exploring Grammar in Food Reviews: A Critical Language Awareness Approach

Activities, Critical Language Awareness, genre and discourse community, grammar and mechanics, linguistic diversity, rhetorical situation, Style, translingualism, visual/multimodal rhetorics /

Lyn Westergard and Chloe de los Reyes Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description This activity uses food reviews as an entry point for teaching grammatical awareness, specifically adjective strings and intensifiers, within a multilingual undergraduate writing course. Grounded in critical language awareness, the activity positions grammar as a rhetorical resource rather than a set of […]

Exploring Grammar in Food Reviews: A Critical Language Awareness Approach Read More »

Clause Patterns, Clause Meanings

Activities, Critical Language Awareness, drafting and revising, grammar and mechanics, linguistic difference, linguistic diversity, reflection /

Mark Shea Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description In my writing classroom, I want students to approach revising and polishing with the idea that there is benefit to trying different phrasings and sentence structures. Even if their current writing works, the only way to know if there’s a better version is to try new versions

Clause Patterns, Clause Meanings Read More »

Framing Bad News: Hedging, Voice, and HR Memos

Activities, collaboration and group work, Critical Language Awareness, drafting and revising, genre and discourse community, grammar and mechanics, peer review, professional writing, reflection, rhetorical situation, technical writing /

Chris Mayer Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description This two-class sequence, which is an ideal fit for professional writing or business communication courses, helps students see how grammatical and lexical choices shape the ethical and practical work of workplace communication. The project culminates in students drafting a one-page memo delivering bad news through announcing policy

Framing Bad News: Hedging, Voice, and HR Memos Read More »

Communication Guide Assignment

Assignments, CLA, Critical Language Awareness, cultural awareness, identity, linguistic diversity /

Alexandria Hanson Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description First-year students often enter introductory writing courses with a wide range of language experiences and backgrounds. To develop critical language awareness, as Shawna Shapiro writes, it is important to help students “recognize the variation within their own linguistic repertoir—no matter how many languages or language varieties they

Communication Guide Assignment Read More »

Intersectional Identity Photo Essay

Critical Language Awareness, critical thought and analysis, cultural awareness, demystifying writing assignments, digital literacy, identity, linguistic difference, narrative and storytelling, visual/multimodal rhetorics /

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

Intersectional Identity Photo Essay Read More »

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

Activities, Anti-Racist Pedagogy, Critical Language Awareness, critical thought and analysis, cultural awareness, identity, language bias, linguistic difference /

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

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

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

Beautiful Sentences Read More »

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

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

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

Community-engaged writing, Critical Language Awareness, genre and discourse community, linguistic difference, linguistic diversity, professional writing, Translation, translingualism, writing in global contexts, writing technologies /

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

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

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

Critical Language Awareness, critical thought and analysis, digital literacy, grammar and mechanics, language bias, linguistic difference, linguistic diversity /

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

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