Contributed by Whittier Strong Summary: Send your class on a rhetorical scavenger hunt in the library! Students research a text by splitting into teams, each assigned a component of the text’s rhetorical situation to investigate. Later, they report their findings to the rest of the class. Detailed Description: How I did it: A week …
Tag Archives: Analysis
Prompt: Museum of the North and Representations of the Sublime
Contributed by Jen Schell The Museum of the North and Representations of the Sublime Many Alaskan artists–poets, painters, sculptors, photographers–have attempted to capture the sublime in their work. Put more simply, they have tried to represent in an artistic form the special and awe-inspiring qualities of life in Alaska. Other artists prefer …
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Prompt: Up-Close Analysis
Contributed by Jen Schell Analysis of Edmund Burke’s Enquiry Into the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) The selections from Enquiry Into the Sublime and Beautiful that you are about to read are quite difficult. Part of the problem is that you are dealing with a philosophical book written in the eighteenth-century. Another issue is that Burke’s …
Lesson: Letter to the Editor
Contributed by Whittier Strong, 2015 Summary: Connect the classroom to the larger world by having students write a letter to the editor regarding a class subject. The letter challenges students to consider tone, brevity, audience, and authorial intent. It also encourages students to consider how their writing can change the world around them. Detailed …
Lesson: Entering the Conversation
Entering the Conversation Activity I. In class discussion, we choose a sample “hot’ controversial research topic, such as abortion (easy to demonstrate), and then brainstorm terms to use for searching for sources. Then, we look at common terms that come up during a simple Google search of “abortion.’ Motherhood, person, moral, freedom, murder, etc. …
Lesson: Finding Yourself in Maps
Finding Yourself in Maps In the northern hemisphere, maps of the world are always shown with north on top. We take this projection as a given. However, as a planet floating in the middle of the universe, this is only one possible representation. What does this representation value? How is that shown? What does …
Lesson: The Mind as Place
The Mind as Place “The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heav’n of hell, a hell of heav’n.’ —Paradise Lost, Book I Though he’s the devil, Milton’s Satan makes a keen point–our perceptions are the governing principle in how we process where we go and where we’ve been. It’s …
Lesson and Prompt: Mapping the Body
Context Place is often thought of in physical, geographical terms, but the physical body is a place as well. It is a place you inhabit, and it is a place that is mappable, both in terms of science and geography, and ideologic mapping (e.g. mapping someone’s gender, sexuality, etc.). The physical body is a place …
Lesson: Thesis Statement Translation Workshop
Contributed by Natalie Taylor, Fall 2013 Context: In the analysis unit, we were using Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue’ and Richard Rodriguez’s “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood’ to think about language, identity, and contexts. We had also watched John McWhorter’s TED talk “Txting is killing language. JK!!!’ They were working on argumentative papers using a …
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Syllabus: Introduction to Academic Writing
Sample Syllabus (PDF): Klotz Syllabus
Lesson: Imitation Exercise
This is an exercise that I did with my class to talk about style and learn more about writing effective descriptions. First, I split the class up into groups and gave each group a paragraph to work with from one of the essays we had recently read and discussed. They had to look …
Lesson: Overheard Conversations
Purpose: To look at how context plays an important role in any text. Instructions: Go to a public place. Coffee houses and pubs work particularly well for this assignment. Make sure you bring a notebook and a sturdy pen. Eavesdrop on a conversation near you. Write down as much of what is said as possible. …
Sample Guidelines for Group Projects
Groups: You will be assigned to a group by the instructor.You will not be able to change groups. Your group is your “home” in this course. You will work in groups frequently. 10% of your final mark is based on your work in your group and will be evaluated by fellow group members. One half …
Prompt: Journal Assignment
You are free to choose a notebook of any kind for your journal, however, please keep the notebook exclusive of coursework from other classes. In class we will discuss various pieces of literature as well as approaches to academic writing about the literature. The journal assignment is intended to be a place for …
Sample Course Sequence: Autoethnography
Definition: Autoethnography is a blending of autobiography and ethnography. Autoethnographers describe and analyze personal experience in order to understand cultural experience. This genre acknowledges subjectivity, emotionality, and the researcher’s influence on research — rather than ignoring these matters or claiming to be objective. The genre demonstrates that cultural research does not have to come from …
Analysis Unit Plan: Gender and Disney
Goals: To better understand the nature of analysis and how it pertains to everyday life. In this unit we will be discussing how the media – Disney in particular – perpetuates gender stereotypes and breaks gender stereotypes. This unit will include three short response essays and one final essay. Week 1: Reading: (Due Thursday) “Introduction: …
Handout: Questions to Ask When Reviewing/Revising an Essay
Is there a clearly stated purpose/objective? Are there effective transitions? How is this idea related to my thesis? How is this idea related to the ideas that come before and after it? Are the introduction and conclusion focused on the main point of the essay? As a reader, can you easily follow the writer’s flow …
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Lesson: How to Analyze a Text
Group 1: Discuss the author’s attitude toward the subject or theme. Explain what type of essay it is – argumentative, persuasive, exploratory, narrative, or otherwise. Define what the subject or theme of the essay is. * Try to sum up the subject/theme in one word or one sentence. Cite specific sentences or paragraphs where …
Garden Gnome Liberation Mini-Project
What I’d like to offer here is an example of how you can take a similar concept–a seemingly silly non-academic topic–and use it in a classroom on a smaller scale. In my class, before launching the zombie project, we spent several class periods working with garden gnome liberation, and my students had the option …
Prompt: Short, Prep Essay
Assignment: Write a 1-2 page typed response to the following questions Purpose: To help you expand your Essay 2 paper by looking into a specific topic that relates to your theme combining the two texts we have read in this class. Process: Step #1: Choose a theme and a question that intrigues you and relates …
Analysis Unit Plan: Transfer Station Sub-unit
Many of the composition teachers at UAF take their classes to the local transfer station, often early in the semester as part of the Observation Unit. This semester I taught a week-long dumpster diving unit, as part of my Analysis Unit. I thought others might be interested in seeing how else you might incorporate the …
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Lesson: Print Ad Analysis
Print Ad Analysis For this exercise, I like to bring in some goofy or bizarre advertisement or PSA For the last few semesters, I have used a PSA from PETA that I found at this URL: https://www.mediapeta.com/peta/Images/Main/Sections/MediaCenter/PrintAds/DiegoLunaHR.pdf Here is a citation: “Diego Luna: Safe Sex.” PETA.org. PETA. n.d. Web. 20 Jun. 2011. I like using …
Lesson: Sentence and Context
This activity asks students to look closely at sentences and challenges them to create and change meaning through a variety of techniques. The goal is to get students thinking carefully about how they construct meaning, at a sentence level. It’s also FUN – there’s lots of room here to play around. I’ve never gotten through …
Lesson: Vampire Games
(Like Reindeer Games, But Bloodier and Less Festive) A serum has been invented which has the power to turn everyone on the earth into a vampire. All of earth’s inhabitants have elected to take the serum, thereby effectively changing 100% of the human race into vampire-kind. The Pope, your grandparents, your former swim coach. Synthetic …
Lesson: Battle of the Sentences
Bringing the Sentence Workshop (Macro in the Micro) To a New Extreme I used this for my unit on Analysis. It took about 15 minutes. This can be done with student produced sentences, or sentences between texts you wish to compare. For my exercise, I chose Deborah Tannen’s “There is No Unmarked Woman” and Lennard …
Handout: Ways to Interact with a Text
Agree/Disagree What part of the essay’s main point do you agree or disagree with? Why do you feel the author is right or wrong in her/his opinions? e.g., “Although the author makes strong points, I do not think the essay is entirely accurate and, in fact, disagree that X is true based on my personal …
Handout: Writing a “Comparative Essay”
What is a comparative essay? As the terms implies, a comparative essay is an essay in which the author compares two things. I use the word “things’ to refer to people, animals, music, instruments, food, highways, clothing, emotions – whatever. Basically, in a comparative essay the author thoroughly studies aspects of two separate things and …
Prompt: Narrative Fan Fiction
PAPER #1: NARRATIVE ESSAY – Fan Fiction REQUIREMENTS: 4-5 pages typed (or more), double-spaced, 12 pt. Times New Roman Font MLA heading and page numbers Rough draft must be edited and signed by a Writing Center tutor. EXPLANATION: For those of you who don’t already know, fan fiction is just what it sounds like: fictional …
Lesson: Textual Analysis
Goal for Lesson Series: Moving towards analytical thinking and ultimately ending in an essay centered on textual analysis. Secondary Skills: Considering context, interpreting and paraphrasing a text, writing with the idea of an audience in mind. Prior Homework Assignment: Read Mark Doty’s poem “A Display of Mackerel” (p95) and write a few sentences on …
Lesson: Museum Activity
This activity has been very helpful in showing students the differences between observational writing and analysis/synthesis. It is separated like a lab report so that it shows students what types of writing go into which fields. Activity: Today we will be going to the Museum. After reading the Hoshino piece for Tuesday, you have seen …
Prompt: Music or Movie Review Essay
Here is the assignment for the essay I use in my ENGL 111 class. I offer the option for the students to review an album, a movie or a piece of visual art, but as of yet, no student has reviewed any visual art. Mostly students have reviewed movies, with about 20% to 30% reviewing …