WR 15x

Planning Peer-to-Peer Work: Groups, Peer Review, & Workshops

Writing classes are interactive, with students talking, writing, and collaborating with each other, in various permutations of pairs, small groups, and larger groups, nearly constantly. But how do you decide what kind of peer-to-peer work to integrate into a given class? This page offers some tips for instructors. You may also be interested in the […]

Framing a Conceptual Problem

This handout (inspired by the Little Red Schoolhouse approach) explains how to frame a conceptual problem in a paper’s introduction. Students may use this handout to consider the discrete rhetorical moves an introduction involves, especially when creating research problems of their own in WR 15x.  Objective To help students reflect on the key elements of framing a […]

Reading for Research

This handout prepares students for the different purposes and ways that they’ll use reading as they research their topic. You might start with a general discussion about reading practices and strategies before turning to this handout. For a greater focus on reading and analysis of exhibit sources, see this close-reading exercise. Objective To familiarize students […]

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 […]

Elevator Story

This assignment is especially effective if you assign it just after students write abstracts. Comparing the four parts of an abstract to the four parts of an elevator story (also known as an elevator speech or elevator pitch) helps students to identify the consistencies and differences between the genres and their audience’s expectations. Guide to […]

Close Reading Exercise

For this exercise, instructors should first select five key passages from their exhibit sources and type them up on a single sheet. Students will independently read and annotate the passages, and then, in small groups of 3-4 students, complete the exercise below. Assign each group one of the passages, and ask each group to introduce […]

Decoding a Public Genre

This exercise on public genre awareness has two parts. In the first part, “Decoding a public genre,” students begin to familiarize themselves with a new genre by comparing it to one with which they’re familiar: the academic essay. This can be done as homework. In the second part, “Preparing to write a public genre,” after […]

Use a Text as a Theory Source

The goal of this exercise is to teach students how to use theory sources to complicate and deepen their claims. Start by reviewing a sample paragraph that draws on a theory source in the service of making a claim about an exhibit source. Then, have students create their own paragraph in small groups. Because this […]