secondary source research

Research Literacy with AI: Verifying Sources with Perplexity and the CRAAP Framework to Improve Intrinsic Motivation

Activities, collaboration and group work, critical thought and analysis, digital literacy, genAI, information literacy, Integrating sources, primary source research, Process, research, secondary source research, writing technologies /

Tingyu Zhang Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description This activity teaches undergraduates to critically locate and verify sources by triangulating results from Perplexity AI (free version), Google Scholar, or Academic Search Complete, using the CRAAP framework (Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, Purpose) to evaluate sources (Blakeslee 6). Rather than treating AI as a shortcut, it frames […]

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From Connection to Critique: Evaluating an AI-Generated Essay

Assignments, critical thought and analysis, digital literacy, genAI, information literacy, Integrating sources, Process, research, rhetorical appeals and argument, secondary source research /

Abigail Michelini Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description This assignment brings generative AI into the writing classroom with the goals of learning about what it can and cannot do well, enhancing students’ ability to critique it, and engaging it responsibly without compromising critical thinking. The best place for this assignment is in the second half

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NotebookLM–Assisted Annotated Bibliography

annotated bibliography, Assignments, genAI, Integrating sources, primary source research, reading strategies, research, secondary source research, writing technologies /

Salma Kalim Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description This multi-step assignment invites students to compare their own scholarly reading practices with AI-generated analyses within the context of annotated bibliography writing. By incorporating NotebookLM—a document-grounded research tool—students engage in a guided exchange with artificial intelligence as they draft, revise, and refine their understanding of academic sources.

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Acting Bias: Staging Media Analysis in First-Year Writing

Assignments, critical thought and analysis, information literacy, news, observation, reading strategies, research, rhetorical appeals and argument, rhetorical situation, secondary source research, visual/multimodal rhetorics /

Freddie (Fiona) Harris Ramsby Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description In first-year writing classrooms, embodied teaching methods, such as Kathryn Dawson and Bridget Kiger Lee’s drama-based pedagogy (DBP), “[provide] an innovative means to stimulate students’ creativity…to foster learning that sticks, cultivating brains that retain information” (Harris Ramsby 1). Combining Newman P. Birk and Genevieve B.

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Learning to Incorporate Source Material with a Full Menu of Options: Developing a Discrete Skill in Isolation

Activities, documentation, genre and discourse community, Integrating sources, primary source research, Process, quotations, citations, and style, research, secondary source research /

Stephen David Grover Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description Writing assignments often require students to perform a complex array of interrelated tasks all at once. For example, when composing a typical researched argument essay, students must keep their eyes on higher-order concerns like thesis, organization, and finding and evaluating evidence, while at the same time

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Fuzzy Logic: How the Fuzzy Definition of Plagiarism is Getting Even Fuzzier

Activities, documentation, Integrating sources, plagiarism, primary source research, Process, quotations, citations, and style, secondary source research /

Steven Engel and Staci Shultz Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description Rachel Hall Buck and Silvia Vaccino-Salvadore’s Writing Spaces essay, “‘Doing Research Is Fun; Citing Sources Is Not’: Understanding the Fuzzy Definition of Plagiarism,” suggests ways to help students unpack the complexity of plagiarism. Our activity extends these essential conversations by examining several recent highprofile

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Outside the Frame: An Image Analysis

digital literacy, rhetoric, rhetorical situation, secondary source research, visual/multimodal rhetorics /

Stephen Paur Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description This assignment invites students to critically analyze the rhetorical and emotional effects of images. The project is basically an exercise in contextualizing a news photo. It would work well as the culminating assignment for a unit on visual rhetoric, digital literacy, multimodality, mass media, or the public

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“Read, Feed, and Seed”: Fostering Research Writing in Classroom Spaces

Activities, annotated bibliography, collaboration and group work, demystifying writing assignments, documentation, Integrating sources, reading, reading strategies, secondary source research /

Mustafa Masihuddin Siddiqui Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description During my first two terms teaching first-year composition classes at the University of Toronto, I faced multiple problems—my classes were not engaging enough; many of the students’ essays did not showcase deep understanding of the key course readings; some students did not apply the evidence into

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“Are Cats Good? An Important Study”: Using a Meme Article for Teaching Writing of Analytic Summaries

Activities, annotated bibliography, information literacy, reading, reading strategies, research, secondary source research, summary /

Wei Xu and Hongni Gou Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description This activity is designed as part of the major project “Annotated Bibliography” in a first-year writing course. At the time the activity is implemented, students should have learned the purpose, context, and audience of an annotated bibliography and that both summaries and evaluations are

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Let’s Party: Composing a Review of the Literature on a Technical Topic

Process, professional writing, research, secondary source research, Synthesis, technical writing, Volume 6 /

Daniel P. Richards Volume 6 Chapter Description A literature review can take many forms and can be found in a wide array of academic, scientific, technical, and workplace documents spanning all fields and disciplines. Sometimes it is the full document; sometimes it is but part of a document. From essays in philosophy to journal articles

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