Sample Assignments

English 1101-English Composition I

• “Making Memeing: Arguing for Social Change with Visual Images and Limited Text.”
  • Using “story-based strategy,” an approach to social justice designed by The Center for Story-Based Strategy (https://www.storybasedstrategy.org), I redesigned the course to capitalize on students’ existing knowledge of technological communication and to hone that knowledge as a tool for empowered visual and written communication strategies.

English 1101CO-English Composition I with Co-Requisite

• “How to Read Like a Writer”: Reading and Annotation Practices
  • In order to incorporate integrated reading and writing practices into the class, I assigned “How to Read Like a Writer” by Mike Bunn, a text that was given to participants of the corequisite professional development group. Rather than assigning the entire text in one or two sittings, I broke up the text into 2-3 page portions and paired each with an additional reading, asking students to apply the advice outlined by Bunn to their other reading assignments. We used Bunn’s guiding questions to structure reading, annotation, and discussion of all assigned readings throughout the semester.

English 2180-Studies in Identity and Orientation

• You Become the Teachers!
  • With the goal of “flipping the classroom,” I redesigned the final essay assignment to be a group project in which students teach a lesson addressing a course learning outcome.
• Collaborative Glossary
  • To help students take ownership of difficult material, we worked on a collaborative glossary of terms throughout the semester using Google Docs. Students annotated the reading assignment with questions and suggested terms that should be included in the glossary. We then worked together in class to add definitions.
• What Does 21st Century Liberation Mean to Me?
  • I obtained free copies of a broad sheet entitled “What is 21st Century Liberation?” published by the art and activism group Visual AIDS. Visual AIDS created the broadsheet to “address the complex intersectional issues that link AIDS activism with LGBTQI+ activism, and with all forms of social justice activism, both historically and today” upon the 50th anniversary of Stonewall. I asked the students to read and respond to the publication by writing a paragraph modeled on those in the broadsheet about what the word “liberation” means to them personally. This activity asked students to use critical reading and writing to engage with an intersectional analysis of thier own social location and to take a position on the meaning of a term that is used in social justice and political contexts. They posted these reflections on the class OpenLab site and engaged in a virtual discussion with each other.

English 2400-Films from Literature

• Formal Essay Prompts: Fidelity and Meaning and Social Text
  • “Fidelity and Meaning” asked students to analyze the degree of fidelity in a cinematic adaptation of literature and make a claim about the effect of any changes made. “Social Text” asked students to analyze an element in a literary/cinematic pairing and place each text’s treatment of that element within its historical and social context

English 3407-Gothic Literature and Visual Culture

• A Gothic Lesson
  • With the goal of more frequently “flipping the classroom,” I took a more creative approach to Essay 3 and the Gothic Spaces presentation by asking students to identify a Gothic space and create an online, asynchronous lesson to teach their classmates about it.
• Discussion Leadership
  • I designed a “discussion leadership” assignment to flip the classroom and encourage student leadership. In this assignment, each student was asked to sign up for a date on which they would be in charge of leading the discussion of the assigned reading. I asked students to come prepared with detailed notes and at least two thoughtful discussion questions. They then had to facilitate a discussion (15-30 minutes) about ideas and concepts that appear in the reading by asking follow-up questions, offering thoughts, and engaging with classmates

Women’s and Gender Studies 81000/Psychology 80103-Foundations of Queer Studies

• Scaffolded Professionalization
  • I collaborated with the co-instructor, Dr. Justin Brown, to design assignments with the goal of professionalization and integration of each student’s research focus, from discussion leadership to abstract creation in response to an active CFP, to a publishable book review, to a final project/presentation in the student’s area of interest. All materials were designed to help students both achieve the goals of the course as well as develop familiarity with various professional genres.