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.

How I did it: A week before my class’s visit to the Rasmuson Library, I had my students go through the online library tutorial at https://library.uaf.edu/blogs/library-basics/.  I also assigned the text for the project. In this case, I chose “A Modest Proposal’ by Jonathan Swift, because its rhetorical situation is far removed from the students’ experience, and because the students need to dig deep into history to understand exactly what is going on with the text.

On the day of the library visit, we didn’t start out in our classroom, but rather in the west foyer of the library. (It’s helpful to write a reminder on the chalkboard if your class isn’t meeting in the classroom, and to allot a couple of minutes for those who forget and go to the classroom first.) I broke the class into four teams–my method for doing so changed from one semester to the next. I then randomly assigned each team one of the four components of rhetorical situation: Rhetor, Audience, Context, and Purpose. I told them they were to research their assigned component of the text, and to be prepared to present the material to the class. (More on this later.) I also said that each team needed to provide a bibliography of five references used in their research, and that at least three needed to be non-digital. (I was flexible if a library book was only available as an e-book, which is the case with a sizable bit of Rasmuson’s collection.) I reminded the students that if they needed any assistance, that they could speak with either me or one of the library staff.

I allotted an hour total in the library, including the introduction to the assignment in the foyer. I checked in with each team about halfway through the time to see how they were doing and if they had any questions. For some students, it can be a challenge for them to keep on task for the whole hour, so I found this check-in helpful in getting those students back on track.

What happened after the hour in the library depended on the class’s schedule. When the class met for an hour and a half, we cut the library time a little short and went back to the classroom for each group to give an oral presentation of about five minutes, allowing ten minutes at the end of class to discuss the presentations. When I taught this lesson with an hour-long class, though, I had the students duplicate their work by either typing it out or scanning it, and putting it in a folder on Google Drive for the whole class to read later. I found that, in this latter approach, the students had trouble following through with providing their material to their classmates; if I had to do it again, they would give a short presentation during the next class session.

Overall, in the two times I have conducted this class exercise, I have been impressed with the depth and ingenuity of the students’ research. It’s a short and simple demonstration of the level of research they need to do as they progress in academic writing. This exercise is also great for 111x students to become acquainted with the Rasmuson Library and its many resources.

Goals/Outcomes:

• Acquaint students with the Rasmuson Library and its resources
• Conduct research in both digital and print resources
• Focus on a single component of a text’s rhetorical situation
• Work as a team in research and presentation of materials
• Compile research in a manner suitable for others’ use
• Practice copying bibliographic material

Contributed by Whittier Strong

 

 

Photographer: Sakeeb Sabakka Portfolio: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sakeeb/

Creative Commons License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

 

Students pair up and take the pen to unnecessary sentences, phrases, and words in order to trim their paper down. This peer review session focuses on the practice of revision.

On peer review day, students came with 1 copy of their first draft of a paper. They were told they were working on a 5-6 page paper and they were to bring 4 of those pages to peer review. When they arrived in class, we had a discussion about how the writing was going and what they were struggling with. Then I told them that their 5-6 page paper was now to be only 2-3 pages. While I had some dramatic reactions to the new requirement, students were mostly thrilled that they were now writing a shorter paper.

I paired them up and they traded papers. Their partner’s assignment was to read the paper twice. The first time, they were to make no markings. The second time, they were to cross out everything that was unnecessary, repetitive, or irrelevant. If a sentence needed rewording, they underlined it, but the main priority was to cross things out.

Then they discussed the changes, being sure to talk about the things they thought were working in their paper and their reasoning behind cutting certain things. Writers were encouraged to go home, open a new document, and start over with their partner’s eliminations in mind.

Goals/Outcomes:

While this assignment made me feel a little deceptive at first, I wanted to students to really understand the real concept of revision. I wanted them to re-envision their paper in a new way and learn that sometimes it’s best to write more than you need, then cut it down. The only way I knew to do that was to change a basic requirement of the assignment. I also wanted students to learn how to make their argument strong in a concise way, rather than focusing on “getting to page count.’ The process of elimination was a little painful for some of the students, but their papers were stronger after the exercise. They wrote more concisely, and I could tell they cared more about their arguments than they had previously.

 

Contributed by Natalie Taylor, 2015

 

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 various materials  are cut and pasted together in order to form a design.

Collage can also be used to refer to a kind of writing, which consists of a combination of  original and quoted material. The individual pieces of writing which compose the collage  are often fragments and arranged in an artistic/meaningful/creative/non-linear way. An  example of collage writing is Susan Griffin’s “Our Secret.’ Your assignment is to imitate  Griffin’s style of writing in order to compose a research collage that depicts the various  ways in which Alaska is a frontier/wilderness (historical, literary, scientific,  technological, cultural, governmental, etc.).

Your goal for this assignment is to take Griffin as a model and create a 1,000-2,000 word  research paper, which weaves together a number of different kinds of sources and various  passages of your own writing. You should have a separate bibliography which does not  count towards the final page count of the paper. For the bibliography, be sure to follow  MLA format, which we will discuss in class.

You do not have to generate a complete and concrete outline of the paper, but you should  be thinking about how your various sources will interact with one another. Consider how  you plan to fragment your sources and how you intend to organize them on the page.  Think about how you want to work in your commentary on your sources. You might also  want to think about other ways of fragmenting and interweaving your prose. For  example, you could play with italics, boldface type, font size, font type, colors, still  pictures, artwork, or photographs. Images do not count toward the final page count.

The Sources: You must have the following sources in your paper. If you need help  locating sources, feel free to stop by my office or ask a librarian for assistance.

1. Two books (either e-books or print books from any discipline).

2. Two academic journal articles (from any discipline). There are many  databases you can use to locate articles: Academic Search Premier, JSTORR,  or Project Muse. They are all available on the Rasmuson Library webpage.

3. One website with .edu or .org in its address. Do not use Wikipedia.

4. One dictionary definition from the online Oxford English Dictionary.

5. One non-English word translated and/or defined.

6. One article from a nineteenth-century periodical. The periodicals are  available on the “American Periodicals’ database on the Rasmuson Library  webpage.

7. One newspaper article. The newspapers are available on the “National  Newspapers Core’ database on the Rasmuson Library webpage.

8. One artwork (historical or contemporary)

9. One photograph (historical or contemporary).

All of Rasmuson Library’s databases are available here:   https://library.uaf.edu/databases-by-title.  They are organized alphabetically, so click on first letter of the title of the database  that you are trying to access.

Note: You can also find sources using “Google Scholar’ or “Google Books.’

Revision Requirements for Assignment 6:  Alaska and the Frontier/Wilderness, a Research Collage

For your revision, I would like you to do two things. First revise the paper according to  the suggestions provided (both in class and in the feedback). If you feel as though your  paper is relatively complete, that’s fine. You should still go back and double-check your  sources and your MLA formatting. Make sure that you have all the required sources, and  make sure that the textual citations and the Works Cited page follow MLA format. Next,  I would like you to write a one page reflection letter in which you think about your paper  and explain how it is similar to and different from the Griffin collage. Think about your  writing choices. How did you decide on your topic? How did you choose the individual  threads? How did you go about your research? How did you organize the information on  the page? Why? What were you trying to say about Alaska as a frontier/wilderness? Do  you think you conveyed your idea? What would you change about your paper?

 

 

Contributed by Jen Schell