Course Schedule
This archive collects assignment overviews, sample prompts, and implementation notes for instructors looking to adapt or remix the core writing projects of this course. Each assignment emphasizes transfer, reflection, and rhetorical flexibility and is adaptable to a range of teaching contexts, including composition, digital media, first-year seminars, and interdisciplinary courses.
Literacy Narrative
- Assignment Focus
Students write about a time they were new to a space and confused by it, then remediate that story into a multimodal format (e.g., podcast, video, infographic, comic) appropriate for a chosen audience.
- Assignment Sequence Overview
- Narrative Draft: Students describe a “newcomer” experience—moving to a new city, joining a new team, learning an unfamiliar cultural or digital practice, etc.
- Audience/Medium Selection: Students choose a target audience (e.g., future students, peers, family, professionals) and a medium (podcast, comic, video, etc.).
- Multimodal Remediation: Students recreate the narrative in a new form, making rhetorical decisions based on mode, purpose, and audience.
- Reflection Essay: Students reflect on the changes made and how those changes shape meaning.
Resources
Week 1
Overview: Introduction to the Course/Syllabus; Course Expectations; Myths about Writing; Introducing E-portfolio; WP0
- Key Source
- Watch: 10 Myths about Writing – This video introduces common misconceptions about writing and helps students reframe their expectations for the course.
- Alternative Source
- Watch:
- Debunking Writing Myths – An alternative video that explores similar misconceptions in student-friendly language.
- Read
- Watch:
- Key Sources on Reflection
- Watch: Why Reflection? – Introduces the purpose and value of reflection in writing.
- Read: The Digital World: Building on What You Already Know to Respond Critically – Includes key concepts such as critical response, rhetorical thinking, and an annotated student sample.
- Alternative Sources on Reflection & Critical Thinking
- Suggested Materials on Prewriting
Week 2
Overview: Introducing the First Writing Project; Introduce Remediation and the Process; Analyze a Model Narrative; Introducing Genre.
- Key Source
- Read: On Genre
This article emphasizes that genres are socially shaped responses to recurring situations. It provides them with the vocabulary to discuss genre purposefully in their reflections.
- Alternative Sources
If you want to teach rhetorical strategies separately in your class, here are some materials that you can use.
- Key Source
- Read: Remediation
This reading outlines both challenges and opportunities of multimodal composition. It helps students understand that they make new rhetorical choices based on medium, audience, and purpose.
Week 3
Overview: Remediation, Proposal, Writing Project Draft, Reflection Practices, Completion Draft Due Date.
- Key Resources
This short video introduces students to the connection between reflection and transfer.
- Alternative Sources
Week 4
Overview: Introducing Reflection Rubrics; Practice on effective Peer Revision; Practice Peer Revision on Students’ Projects
- Suggested Material on Peer Revision
Some videos and texts might be useful for your class depending on your needs.
Value Analysis
- Assignment Focus
In this assignment, you’ll explore a digital community to identify what users value in communication by analyzing patterns in language, genre, and interaction.
- Assignment Sequence Overview
- Selecting a space – Students choose an online community to study (e.g., subreddit, Facebook group, forum). It must be small and active enough to analyze meaningfully.
- Observing the space – Students spend at least 5 hours across days watching how users interact, focusing on patterns of genre, language, and response.
- Identifying values – Based on their notes, they’ll formulate a claim about what users value in communication within that space.
- Curating evidence – Students choose strong, relevant examples that support their claim and help explain how value is expressed (posts, images, titles, tone, etc.).
- Analyzing and drafting – Students write a short analysis supported by their curated evidence.
- Reflecting – Students reflect on how they selected their space, made their claim, chose their evidence, and adapted their writing for their audience.
Resources
Week 1
Introduction to Value Analysis
Week 2
Overview: Discussion of Discourse Communities; Choosing a Discourse Community; Class Discourse Community; Good Collaboration Groups; Making Arguments
- Key Source
- Read: Discourse Communities
This article introduces discourse communities as groups with shared goals, conventions, and communication practices — a useful concept for assignments that ask students to analyze how writing works in real-world settings.
- Alternative Sources
Here are some materials that you can use as an alternative to the main article.
Week 3
Overview: Finding Evidence; Incorporating Evidence; Curating Data; Responding to Different Audiences
- Key Source
- Watch
- Alternative Sources: Here are alternative sources that can be used as an alternative or as complementary parts to the key source.
- Key Source
- Alternative Source
Week 4
Overview: Observation Swap and Discussion; Checking claims & evidence; Reflection Practice; Putting All Together, Peer review Workshops