reflection

Embodying Process: A Making-Based Writing Challenge

Activities, demystifying writing assignments, metacognition, Process, reflection, Threshold concepts, visual/multimodal rhetorics, writing myths and anxiety /

Franziska Tsufim Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description Writing classes routinely ask students to engage in a lengthy process of drafting and revising their work. As instructors, we emphasize to students the need to “fail” (Carr), call “shitty first drafts” messy yet generative (Lamott) and position these ideas as “writing thresholds” (Adler-Kassner & Wardle). At […]

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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

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Collaborative Brainstorming with Generative Artificial Intelligence

Activities, genAI, peer review, prewriting and invention, Process, reflection, writing technologies /

Kellene O’Hara and Elizabeth Williams Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description Given the widespread use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), it is imperative that writing instructors teach students to use this technology, including Large Language Models (LLM), both critically and ethically. By providing students with opportunities to practice using these tools, discuss their affordances and

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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

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GenAI Assignments for Critical Digital Literacy

Assignments, critical thought and analysis, digital literacy, genAI, information literacy, Process, reflection, writing technologies /

Aurora Matzke and Angela Clark-Oates Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description This assignment is about slowing down the composing process at the beginning, middle, and end of any given assignment to provide students the opportunity to critically examine the technologies they use/d to mediate the composing and designing of texts. Specifically, this assignment asks students

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Analyzing AI-to-AI Debate as Rhetorical Observation

Activities, critical thought and analysis, digital literacy, genAI, genre and discourse community, observation, reflection, rhetorical appeals and argument, rhetorical situation, writing technologies /

Daewoo Jin Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description This activity aims at developing students’ ability to distinguish statistical text generation from human meaning-making by observing how two AI systems exchange directed arguments in response to short, human-written prose. Students analyze rhetorical clarity, disruption, and absence in AI-to-AI debate transcripts, within one class meeting, and in

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Developing Details: Embodied Writing Activity

Activities, collaboration and group work, observation, Process, reflection, rhetorical situation /

Alexandra Chakov Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description The purpose of this activity is to have students explore the ways their body is part of their writing process. Writing is not just a mental activity—it also involves the body. The body types out words or commands speech-to-text; the body feels anxiety as deadlines approach and

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The Nature Journal: Observing, Naming, Knowing Kara Mae Brown

Activities, Community-engaged writing, nature writing, observation, Place-based Writing, reflection, rhetorical ecology /

Kara Mae Brown Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description Writing is a powerful tool for understanding and communicating about the natural world. In turn, the places that writing happens inform, influence, and shape the writing. As Madison Percy Jones writes, “writing emerges out of the reciprocal interaction of writers and the complex rhetorical ecologies. Place

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Multimodal FAQ Assignment

Assignments, metacognition, Process, reflection, rhetoric, visual/multimodal rhetorics /

Mary Laughlin Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description This assignment reflects my ongoing attempts to build transfer-oriented reflective opportunities into first-year writing projects. It was inspired in part by pedagogical advice in John C. Bean’s Engaging Ideas; specifically, his emphasis on giving students opportunities to consider purpose and audience. For example, Bean suggests an imagined

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Ethical Use of Generative AI for Conducting Research

Activities, genAI, metacognition, Process, reflection, research /

Aimee Jones Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description This activity demonstrates how to ethically use two Generative AI tools in the research stage of the writing process. In the last year, AI writing tools, most notably Chat GPT, have generated academic-integrity related concerns for university administrators and instructors. In a study conducted from the Spring

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