Monthly Archives: April 2020

1101 Units 2 and 3-Draft Due May 4

Look HERE for some tips and quite a few examples of Units 2 and 3 for 1101.

  • Make sure you review the unit descriptions of Units 2 and 3 in prior blog posts.
  • Drafts of these assignments are due on the Open Lab on May 4. You can post them together, and just click both categories: 1101 Unit 2 and 1101 Unit 3.
  • There will be an optional Zoom meeting on Thursday, April 30 at 3 pm (link at the bottom of this page) to talk about Units 2 and 3.

Important Upcoming Dates

  • Thursday April 30: Optional Zoom meeting to discuss 1101 Units 2 and 3
  • Monday May 4: Deadline for posting 1101 Units 2 and 3.
  • Monday May 11: Deadline for Commenting on partners’ Units (same partners as before.)
  • Thursday May 14: By noon, post a draft of a final portfolio assignment (with reflection) for 1101. This is the assignment as you would give it to students. 3 PM ZOOM MEETING!
  • Thursday, May 28: The final syllabi, and all unit assignments for 1101 and 1121 are due. Please note: final syllabi do not need to include the whole schedule for courses–they will include all your course goals and policies.
  • Thursday, May 28: Student grades due. All portfolios uploaded to the PD Dropbox folder (I will provide link shortly)

 

 

Thoughts on Final Reflection/ Link to Monday Zoom


1101 Unit 2: Low-Stakes Assignments

I have a couple ideas for low-stakes assignments for the Genre Awareness unit in 1101.

First, I’ve found that students most readily know genre as a term related to music/film, and therefore I think it would be useful to start there.

1. In class, play a short clip from a recent horror/thriller film (Midsommar/Us).

Discuss w/ class: What makes this a horror film? Are there any things that, if you took them away, would change the genre?

Writing Prompt: Imagine being asked to rewrite this as a romantic comedy. What would change? What would you have to add to make it romantic and funny?

2. Play clip from Seinfeld’s “The Subway” where riders strain to hear an indecipherable announcement.

Class Discussion: What are the conventions of a subway announcement?

Writing: What other ways can you find that information? What are the strengths and weaknesses of these other different genres/modes? What is unique about subway announcements versus all other genres/modes?

Concepts to tie in (for both): How do considerations of audience/purpose/constraints/genre conventions impact the content and form and mode of the text? Can we write out a procedure for identifying the conventions of a genre given some exemplar?

Considering genre in 1101

I’m working with an architecture course for my FYLC in the fall, so I’m thinking of this specific course for this assignment, but it could be easily abstracted for a non-FYLC course.

Low-stakes writing activity:

Part 1: Think of a building you’re interested in–either a specific building, like the Flatiron, or a building type, like a brownstone. Find an image of it.

Part 2: Spend about 10 minutes writing about the building, in whatever format works well for you, such as a freewrite, a brainstorm, or a bulleted list.

Part 3: Now imagine you’re writing about that building for an AIA guide, for a Time Out NY article, or for a Twitter thread. Transform all or part of what you already wrote into about 150 words in one of these 3 styles.

Part 4: Read someone else’s response. Reply to that response addressing the following: Which genre did they choose for Part 3? How did you know? What features did it have that helped you understand that? What else could they have added to make their writing fit the genre even more?

(If I were going to assign a low-stakes assignment to get students thinking about genre, I would want them to consider a variety of genres, and we might brainstorm a list of different genres we could compose in. But it’s harder to sequence this in an asynchronous class, so I would have a couple to get them started.)

Brainstorming about Genre, Josh B.

Prompt: What are some strategies or low-stakes assignments you might use to teach your students what genre is, and how and why we move between genres in order to reach our audiences and achieve our desired outcomes? Try to think of strategies that you might be able to use online.

Genre Awareness (First Steps?)

  • To prepare for class discussion and activities, I could ask students to read and annotate a three-page excerpt from The Bedford Book of Genres (Braziller, 2nd edition; pages 30, 32, 39). Doing so would introduce students to a framework for analyzing rhetorical situation and genre conventions. This specific excerpt provides a chart template, specific questions, and an engaging example.
  • In a low-stakes assignment or discussion, I could offer students a long list of genres. I could ask students to brainstorm which different “types of texts” they’ve read in the past two weeks. Then I could ask students to choose one specific text that they’ve read recently and fill in the chart mentioned above.

Moving Between Genres (Intermediate Steps?)

  • To prepare for class discussion and activities, I could ask students to read and annotate “Navigating Genres” by Kerry Dirk.
  • In a low-stakes assignment, I could ask students to find something that they had written in a previous class, for work, or on social media. Then I could ask students to fill in the chart mentioned above for that specific text.
  • In class, with blank copies of the chart, I could ask students to brainstorm in groups how they could move the information from that specific text into another genre for a new specific audience: Given a new audience, what could they really accomplish with this new text, in a new genre, and how could the text look?

Genre Awareness versus Audience Awareness (Early On, or Much Later On?)

  • I wonder how I could separate, organize, or integrate class discussions about genre awareness and audience awareness.
  • For example, I’m thinking of WIRED’s 5 LEVELS series (1 Season, 10 Episodes): “Can everything be explained to everyone in terms they can understand? In 5 Levels, an expert scientist explains a high-level subject in five different layers of complexity— first to a child, then a teenager, then an undergrad majoring in the same subject, a grad student and, finally, a colleague.”
  • In a given video, while all the conversations are part of the same multimodal text, and while the modes of live conversation within the video generally remain the same, each live conversation uses different rhetorical appeals and communication styles.
  • So perhaps I could use one of these videos to jump from choices in live conversation (across audiences) to choices in written texts (across audiences and across genres)?

Low Stakes Genre Assignments-Patrick Redmond

To teach genre I was thinking about having an assignment with two parts: first the  students would choose  a genre that they are familiar with and write about the core rules and rhetorical strategies of the genre, and who the desired audience is. After they have solidified their set of rules, I would then have them analyze a work of art in the genre of their choosing through the rules that they have written.

The second part of the assignment would be for them to locate a parody of the genre they are choosing, and have them write about the parody and whether it adheres to or plays with the rules of the genre that they had established previously. After they have analyzed this, then they will be asked about  the effects that the parody has on the desired audience.

I did something similar at the beginning of our multi-modal composition unit on the discussion board this semester after instruction began online and the students seemed to understand and respond well. Since this was successful I think it could be easily done through online platforms.

Jessica Penner, Genre Strategies/Assignments

Q: What are some strategies or low-stakes assignments you might use to teach your students what genre is, and how and why we move between genres in order to reach our audiences and achieve our desired outcomes? Try to think of strategies that you might be able to use online.

A: I liked the idea presented in the Murder/Rhetoric piece we read, since my trashy TV of choice is crime drama. Having a student review how one documents a crime scene is a good way to look for specific details. Then having a student write those details in different forms: from police report to a newspaper article–from newspaper article to a feature piece or eulogy–from a feature piece to… I’d say you could do the same with other jumping off points, and you could have a series of questions with each genre used: Who is the audience in A? Why do you say this? What does A want to see? What about B? (And so forth.) All of these would easily be taken from the internet.

 

Genre Awareness Low-Stakes Homework

I might have students do a post like the one below.

For todays post, you are going to find and analyze an example of a genre, or  kind of text,  with which you frequently engage.  Make sure to think about texts broadly::

“In academic terms, a text is anything that conveys a set of meanings to the person who examines it. You might have thought that texts were limited to written materials, such as books, magazines, newspapers, and ‘zines (an informal term for magazine that refers especially to fanzines and webzines). Those items are indeed texts—but so are movies, paintings, television shows, songs, political cartoons, online materials, advertisements, maps, works of art, and even rooms full of people. If we can look at something, explore it, find layers of meaning in it, and draw information and conclusions from it, we’re looking at a text. (https://openoregon.pressbooks.pub/wrd/chapter/what-is-a-text/)

For your homework, post an example of the kind of text you have chosen. Then below the example, answer the following questions about your text:

  1. Why do you personally use these kinds of text?
  2. What kind of people seek out these kinds of text?  Why? (Here you might think about age group, interests, profession or professional aspirations, etc.)
  3. What do you see as the main elements of this kind of text, including the length, tone, format, organization, and other key features? Make a list.
  4. Where is this kind of text found? How is it made available for consumption?

Devon Pizzino

The low-stakes assignments I have used to show 1.) what genre is and 2.) how and why we move between genres to reach our audiences and achieve desired outcomes have been the following:

  • I have students complete a few readings assigned and create an Audience/Purpose/Genre Journal (for online, this could actually become a discussion board forum) where they comment on who the audience is and how they know this using examples from the text itself, identify the purpose of the piece by writing a complete sentence that shows if it includes one or more purposes (ie: to inform about the problem and argue a solution), and finally identify the genre. If they keep this up, they can begin to see how different genres work on different audiences and that each influences the other.
  • I assign them a particular genre to review/read then ask them to complete this genre Analysis Worksheet:

    Download (PDF, 1.28MB)

  • I give them the option to choose one genre I assign and evaluate it according to questions below and then have them to find genres they are interested in either that they have looked at before and would like to better understand or genres they want to learn more about that they have not had much experience with such as this example below I am doing for their unit 3:

Step 1: Analyze multimodal models:

Due: 4/22 @ 11:59pm uploaded to Openlabs as NameStep1Unit3

Choose One:

Wait, But, Why? “Why Procastinators Procrastinate” Tim Urban

 “Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator” Tim Urban

“Alright” Kendrick Lamar

“Be Free” J. Cole

“The Opposites Game”

“Y: The Last Man”

“The Ballot or the Bullet”

After reading the chosen text from the list, identify the features of the genre, the audience(s) it appeals to, where and how it’s used, and how it makes its points:

  1. What genre is this text (e.g. photojournalism or fashion photography, romantic comedy film or horror film)?
  2. What conventions/characteristic/features are common to this genre (describe the text and what it includes)?
  3. How are the media elements and modes shaped to audience expectations?
  4. How does the time period during which the text was produced relate to the content?
  5. What values or opinions are being suggested by the author or implied author to the audience?
  6. Who is this composition for, and what are the signs that it’s aimed at this particular audience? What stakes does this audience have in the content of the composition?
  7. What is the purpose of this composition? Does it aim to educate, entertain, persuade?
  8. What is the context of this composition? Who writes/records/makes it? How is it distributed? What similar compositions exist, if any? How do these factors inform our analysis of this composition’s content?
  9. Where did you find this text and what is its purpose?
  10. What role does this text play in your life?
  11. Who or what is pictured in the text and why is this the focus?
  12. How did you react when you experienced the text?

Step 2: Find and analyze the model you want to base your own project on:

Due: 4/24 @ 11:59pm uploaded to Openlabs as NameStep2Unit3

Now, find and analyze your own sample of a multimodal text in the genre you will be working in, with particular attention to work you want to emulate (or avoid!).

  1. What genre is this text (e.g. photojournalism or fashion photography, romantic comedy film or horror film)?
  2. What conventions/characteristic/features are common to this genre (describe the text and what it includes)?
  3. How are the media elements and modes shaped to audience expectations?
  4. How does the time period during which the text was produced relate to the content?
  5. What values or opinions are being suggested by the author or implied author to the audience?
  6. Who is this composition for, and what are the signs that it’s aimed at this particular audience? What stakes does this audience have in the content of the composition?
  7. What is the purpose of this composition? Does it aim to educate, entertain, persuade?
  8. What is the context of this composition? Who writes/records/makes it? How is it distributed? What similar compositions exist, if any? How do these factors inform our analysis of this composition’s content?
  9. Where did you find this text and what is its purpose?
  10. What role does this text play in your life?
  11. Who or what is pictured in the text and why is this the focus?
  12. How did you react when you experienced the text?

 

Ait-Ziane Low-Stakes assignments

I actually really like the ones suggested in both readings, so I would probably steal those.  I did ask my students in one class to read a poem and turn it into a newspaper article.  We did it very quickly, but if I were to build it out into a more formal assignment, we’d probably read some poems and articles as mentor texts, then have a discussion about the elements that define each genre. Then, I’d give them a specific poem and ask them to proceed with the task of turning the content into an article. In the end, I might ask them to analyze what they did to translate one thing into the other. I think once we all figure out what makes a specific genre a genre, we could proceed with a weekly “show and tell”.  Students bring in something that seems undefinable and proceed with applying the criteria. It might be interesting to ask them to create their own genre, although that might turn into a bigger assignment than what is being asked for here.  Perhaps we could start the steps as low-stakes assignments.