Lesson/Handout: Information Literacy Scavenger Hunt

  This lesson/handout is designed to help students begin to navigate the UAF library’s sources for research. The library has a great tutorial online and in this lesson, students use that tutorial to actually begin their own research. Go to the Library Information Literacy Tutorial. Watch the videos and take the self-check tests. Go to …

Lesson, Day 1: What is this class about, anyway?

Contributed by Jaclyn Bergamino, 2015 On the first day of class, I wanted to start getting the students talking about the ideas. I divided the class into two groups. I was teaching on the theme of love, sex, and marriage so I brought quotes about writing and quotes about love all different, the same number …

Lesson: Brainstorm Inkshed Party

Contributed by Jaclyn Bergamino, 2015 To get students thinking about research topics, I often use the Research Paper Topic Generator Game and then take it a little further. Once students have their lists of things that evoke them, I have them choose three and write them on spread out on a piece of paper. They …

Lesson: Defining Success across Audiences

Contributed by Elizabeth Alexander, 2014 Goals: To identify audience needs and revise writing accordingly Engage in self-assessment and self-critique for more effective communication with different audiences When to use this: In a unit in which students must revise a piece using a different mode and/or for a different audience Prior Class: Ask students to bring …

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 …

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: …

Lesson: Choosing and Evaluating Research Topics

Learning to recognize, consider, and research Different Rhetorical Situations and Audiences Context activity: recognizing that a conversation is going on For the first unit, we read six authors with varying stances on a particular theme. Students read a pair of authors for each class period, with opposing viewpoints on a particular issue within the theme. …

Handout: Research Paper Topic Generator

  This activity encourages students to begin the synthesis process before they choose a research topic, so that they don’t choose something too limiting. This activity in particular helps students synthesize things they’re interested in. Research Paper Topic Generation  Game Activity #1 Your research will be most interesting to you when it is connected to …

Lesson: Research Interviews

(this is designed for two class periods) Research interviews! I required my students to interview “an expert’ for their synthesis/research projects. In addition to actually doing the interview, this required them to identify what sort of expertise was needed for their projects, reach out to the interviewee, and create appropriate interview questions — all important …

Lesson: Creating Thesis Statements

A topic sentence is the sentence that conveys a central position of a paragraph. Like a topic sentence, a thesis statement is a sentence that conveys your central position for a multi-paragraph essay. Argumentative/Persuasive thesis statements must contain an arguable claim. Statements of fact are not argumentative thesis statements. An argumentative/persuasive thesis statement must be …

Lesson: Use Your Senses, An Introduction to Observation

Introduction to Observation activity: Use your senses! 1. (10-15 minutes) Choose a short piece of writing that features sensory details. I chose the first chapter of “We the Animals’ by Justin Torres (it’s one of my favorite books!) Read the piece aloud in class. I read the piece to my students so that they could …