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.

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