Contributed by Jen Schell In-Class Essay on Michel Foucault’s “Of Other Spaces’ and Joe McGinniss’ Going to Extremes Take the entire class period to formulate an essay around one or more of the following questions. The essay should be approximately three handwritten pages (single spaced) or as long as it takes to adequately answer the …
Tag Archives: Prompt
Prompt: Defining Utopias, Dystopias, Heterotopias
Contributed by Jen Schell Although it is short, Michel Foucault’s essay “Of Other Spaces’ is the most difficult reading we will complete this semester. This piece uses many, many challenging and confusing words, and it deals with abstract and theoretical ideas. So how do we cope with this piece? One way of dealing with a …
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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 …
Prompt: Collage Essay
Contributed by Jen Schell Alaska and the Frontier/Wilderness, a Research Collage The research assignment for this class is a bit unconventional. Your goal is to create a research collage about Alaska and its status as a frontier/wilderness. What is a collage?Collage is term used to describe a certain kind of abstract art in which …
Prompt: Write about a place of significance
We all have places that are special to us. It might be your hometown, your kitchen, or the first place you live on your own. This essay is an opportunity to bring us, as your readers, to a place that has significance to you and show us why it is important. …
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Prompt: Goal-Setting Essay
The purpose of this essay is for you to explore your relationship with writing and how it fits into the larger picture of your life. What are your expectations of English 111x? What do you expect to learn and do this semester? What are your goals for this course and for this semester? …
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 …
Prompt: An Individual Landscape
The places that we inhabit throughout our lives shape who we become. The nature of these significant locations that mark passages of our lives can vary in form. They can range from the expanse of a city to the rough floor of a tree house. Even our bodies are a place of sorts. We became …
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 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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Reflection Unit Plan: Into the Wild Movie Reflection
For our final, “Reflection” unit, I decided to pair watching a movie with a low-key writing assignment in my class. I chose Into the Wild because 1) I think it is great 2) Alaskan students generally have a lot to say about it 3) students can relate to the main character, which makes for good …
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Prompt: Reflective Essay
A reflective essay is one that collects your thoughts on a subject — writing the essay is just a way of thinking back on what you learned. This should be a very personal piece of writing: it is more about you and what you learned. It should highlight the problems you faced, how you feel …
Final Portfolio Assignment
During one the pro-development workshops this year, we talked about student assessment and portfolios. This is something I have been experimenting with in my class, as part of their final project. I thought it might be helpful to post what I’ve been doing and why as just one possible (work-in-progress) way of approaching this. …
Prompt: Research Wikis
Research Wikis (300 Points) Research plan post (10 points) due: Thursday 3/31/11 on blog Research paper prospectus (40 points) due: 4/5/11 and 4/7/11 in conferences Rough draft (50 points) due: Thursday, 4/14/11, in class for peer review session Final draft (200 points) due: Tuesday, 4/26/11 in class (turn in all drafts, research plan, …
Prompt: Documentary Review
This assignment can be a nice way of practicing “good research.” Students are required to look critically at the research and presentation of a documentary, and will hopefully incorporate those lessons into their own research writing. THE COVE — CRITICAL REVIEW PURPOSE: To provide a critical review of the documentary, “The Cove.’ INSTRUCTIONS: Watch …
Prompt: Engaging in Inquiry
Assignment: Write a 5-7 page researched essay that identifies and explores an important question related to a contemporary social controversy. Your paper should be followed by a Works Cited page in correct MLA style. Purpose: In Unit 1 we looked at contrasting ideas (they Say / I Say) on a given topic from a …
Synthesis Unit Plan: The Zombie Project
This is a fairly large-scale project that builds upon itself and is meant to take up the entire unit, culminating in one final research paper. The project includes many smaller elements besides the final paper, including free-writing, blogging, interviews, reviews, and collaborative work with peers. It’s a bit complicated to explain, so here’s the basic …
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 …
Prompt: Place Essay
Observation (100 Points) Purpose: To draw from a variety of observations that will allow you to focus on possibility through observation. Your essay will rely heavily on selective description and perspective. Instructions: Select a “place,” and describe it in detail. This could be where you grew up, a place you feel most connected to, somewhere …
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: Observation and Perspective
(Consider taking students to the museum or the transfer station and having them choose an “object” for this activity) Read Wallace Stevens’ “13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.’ In the poem, Stevens describes 13 different ways of looking at a blackbird. Some of Stevens’ observations are concrete others are more philosophical. Your assignment is …
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 …