First-Year Writing Seminar
Assignment Sequence: WR 120
These assignments and assignment templates are meant to offer new Writing Program instructors an easily adaptable overview of the WR 120 assignment sequence. They refer to sources using the BEAM/BEAT framework, which we recommend but do not require you to introduce to your students in WR 120. Opportunities to specify your course material and alternative […]
Remote Learning Expectations & Etiquette
Overview In our class this semester, we will be using various technologies, including the Zoom video-conferencing platform. Zoom is designed to enhance our educational experience and to help us meet our course goals. However, as with any other tool, technologies like Zoom can also be misused and become a distraction or even an obstacle to […]
Active Learning Strategies in a Remote Environment
This “Quick Guide to Converting your Face-to-Face Pedagogical Approaches to the Online Environment” from BU’s CTL offers a comprehensive table with tips and suggestions for adapting your typical face-to-face classroom approach to an online synchronous or asynchronous modality Adapting Active Learning Strategies to Remote Environments Active learning strategies involve planning activities in which students are […]
Community Building in a Remote Environment
Creating a sense of community is important for any course and in any modality; however, instructors often find it more challenging to build a strong online community in remote courses. The resources below offer some practical tips and suggestions for building a stronger community in your online courses.
Further Reading: Teaching Writing in a Remote Environment
The theoretical and practical resources linked and annotated below offer an overview of teaching writing in online and hybrid environments. It is important to note that while there is plenty of research and examples on the teaching of writing in an online format, there are very limited resources for and research into the teaching of […]
Strategies for Engaging with Critics
In this exercise, students practice engaging with critics (argument and theory sources in the BEAM/BEAT framework). The templates provided scaffold students’ responses to the critics before students need to engage more deeply with critics in an essay. This exercise can be done individually or in pairs. Objective To use templates to practice different strategies for […]
Sample WR 120 Assignment: Rewriting a Fairy Tale
For this non-academic genre assignment, you will research a traditional fairy tale and then write a version of that fairy tale. You will also write an analysis of how and why you wrote your version. In the creative portion, you will need to reimagine the fairy tale you have chosen. In the analytical portion, you […]
Inner Critic
In the first half of this reflective activity, students give voice to negative self-beliefs in the form of an uncensored personal letter from their imagined “Inner Critic” to themselves, listing their shortcomings, expressing anxieties, and identifying the perceived consequences of failure. Some instructors assign the first letter at the start of the semester, while others […]
Write the Title First
In this in-class exercise, students create genre-appropriate titles to generate potential topics and arguments for their alternative genre assignment. Writing the title first helps to narrow their focus and think in the way the genre necessitates. This exercise works best after analyzing a number of genre models and identifying the genre’s conventions. Objective To begin […]
Developing Key Terms
All good arguments draw their strength from strong textual evidence and analysis. This exercise has two parts. In the first, which can be done for homework, students select passages from shared readings, closely analyze them, and then examone their responses for key terms. In the second, which is an in-class exercise, they use key terms […]