August 18, 2014
This activity is very helpful to use during a Rhetorical Analysis unit. It can be used at almost any point during the beginning of the unit, and is very helpful to get students interested in persuasive arguments.
August 18, 2014
Before the development of a common medical language, every country, region, city, and doctor would have different terms for body parts and diseases. Observation was a primary method of gathering evidence; however, the scientific community had much difficulty sharing knowledge. And we, as (developing) members of a modern scientific discourse community, have a difficult time understanding the 1860s medical discourse community–our modern values, concepts, culture, traditions, style of communication, and level of scientific understanding all get in the way. As Nuland writes in The Doctors’ Plague: Germs, Childbed Fever, and the Strange Story of Ignac Semmelweis, a course textbook,
August 18, 2014
1) Ask for a volunteer. This volunteer will be further referred to in the class meeting as “The Most Motivated Employee in the Company.”
August 18, 2014
This activity is best when students are developing their first research essay and after audience consideration has been discussed.
August 18, 2014
August 18, 2014
The Letter as Essay assignment introduces the class to place-based writing. It allows students to begin to analyze the places they find themselves most interested in on campus and take the analysis to written form. In writing their letters to people from home, people who perhaps have never been to Iowa State, the student can take a critical look at the campus and describe in a genre that may be less formal than the subsequent essays they will be writing.
August 18, 2014
This activity can be done at any point of the semester for any number of thought-provoking questions. Perhaps it’s an electronic version of thinking-writing or writing-thinking. Whenever you would ask questions to the whole class and yet get no response or only a response from one or two students, use this activity to showcase more than one perspective and nudge students toward responding.
August 18, 2014
“In English 150 and 250, we are implementing a process-oriented approach for every major assignment, which requires students to substantially revise as well as proofread their earlier drafts. Also, at the end of the semester, they are supposed to submit portfolio for which they should revise earlier assignments and describe what was added, deleted, changed, or reorganized. However, it is not easy for both students and teachers to see whether they considerably revised their essay or merely corrected minor mistakes until they compare the original and final drafts line by line. This activity helps students and instructors to easily see the degree of revision and reflect or evaluate their writing process. As this activity needs Microsoft Word, it works best in a computer lab.”
August 18, 2014
“This survey activity should be scheduled after the first peer-reviewed assignment so that students have some experience in interacting with their classmates and they can really respond to the survey items. Since the survey is online, this activity has to be carried out in a computer lab. The survey can be made based from students’ perspective, using either Likert scale based statements or open-ended questions. The specific items can be tied back to the lecture of Peer Response activity in earlier weeks and/or draw actual responses from students’ peer reviewed drafts. Alternatively, this survey activity can be used before the first peer response activity to elicit students’ previous experiences and their expectations of peer response activity.”
August 18, 2014
“I think students, or any writer for that matter, have a difficult time understanding that an audience can’t see what they are seeing as they write a description of a memory or place. The result is often a sparse description that doesn’t paint much of a picture for the audience. This activity forces students to put themselves back in the place they are describing and give a hyper-detailed description of their place in order to help their audience see, smell, hear, taste, and feel it more like the writer. This activity is used during the invention stages of the Letter-As-Essay assignment that asks students to write about home.”
