Major Assignments

Throughout the course of the semester, students will research a topic of their choosing and write a scholarly article that they can then submit to undergrad academic publications or competitions. In addition to submitting the final article, students will upload three drafts from the writing process and a final reflection essay into an ePortfolio site of the students' choosing. This assignment is scaffolded throughout the semester, with students having the opportunity to conference and workshop their article at varying stages of the writing process. 

I really like the idea of giving students the opportunity to submit their paper to an undergraduate journal. For one, not many students have the opportunity, or even know how, to submit to journals. Although many students will likely not pursue academia, having a publication could help students in their future careers, as it shows that they have research and writing skills. I think the possibility of submitting this assignment to a publication could also prevent questions surrounding the usefulness of the class and assignment. I also really like the way that the assignment is scaffolded and incorporates revision. 

Students will create a 5-7 minute, scripted, non-fiction podcast, researching a topic that falls in the social sciences or natural sciences field. Prior to beginning their research, students will give a 5 minute verbal proposal, where they will introduce their topic, their podcast's purpose, their intended audience, and their ideas for making the podcast engaging, as well as submit an annotated bibliography.   

I think this assignment could be fun because almost everyone listens to podcasts at this point, or at least knows what podcasts are. This assignment could do a good job at teaching students the rhetorical situation, and how they themselves, as the rhetor, should create ethos and present their findings. I do worry about whether students have the right equipment, but I think this assignment can be edited in a way to meet the needs of students. 

Students are asked to write two versions of the same argument, adapted for different rhetorical situations. Students must write an academic paper for their first argument, but have the choice to present their argument in a different rhetorical situation, with a multimodality component, during the second integration of this assignment. After completing the two arguments, students submit an analysis paper, where they explain how they adapted their argument to different rhetorical situations. 

This assignment could be a useful tool in teaching students about the rhetorical situation. While I can see some students questioning as to why they have to create the same argument two times, I think the multimodal aspect could make the second argument feel fresh and exciting. 

Students are asked to pretend as though they have been hired as a graphic designer at their university's press and their first assignment is to create a cover for a new edition of the book that their class is currently studying. In order to complete this assignment, students are asked to select an image that represents the themes in the book, edit this image into a book cover, taking font, color, and placement into consideration, and submit an essay where they analysis their cover and argue as to why it should be chosen as the new cover of the book. This assignment is scaffolded and gives students multiple opportunities for revision and peer-review. 

In undergrad, my capstone project was the creation of a literary magazine, so I think that is why I love this assignment so much. I think this could be a fun way to have students engage with homework, and it teaches students digital literacy and visual literacy. If I were to ever teach a literature class, I would love to find a way and implement this assignment. 

This assignment asks students to find three news articles that depict a current event that the students are interested in. These three news sources should represent three political biases, conservative, liberal, and centrist, using a media bias chart. Students will then write a comparative analysis essay and determine if the news source's media coverage aligns with the news source's placement on the media bias chart. This assignment is scaffolded with a discussion board post, where students introduce their three articles, their news sources political leaning, and why the student chose the articles that they did, and a small, annotated bibliography, where students cite and summarize their three articles. 

I really like how this assignment teaches students media literacy, and how all sources have some kind of political bias. It also does an interesting job teaching students the rhetorical situation and that there are different forms of writing.