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EXAMPLE ASSIGNMENTS

For this assignment, I ask students to tag an image or a video of a poem with .gifs using Thinglink. Each tagged .gif illustrates how the student thinks the poet intends her/him to feel. Each .gif comedically displays these emotions in a project that journals the student's reading response to the poem. This activity is useful for charting the student's comprehension of the poem by asking the student to document their response. The assignment translates well to online classes, where checking comprehension through live discussion is not possible. 

 

As an example, I have annotated Orson Welles' narration of Rime of the Ancient Mariner. For students, I would choose a shorter text or video. Click on the accompanying image to watch my Thinglink video.  

This assignment asks students to create a themed pin board related to contemporary marriage and family formation in the United States. Students curate content from Pinterest to create a visual essay about American relationship and family experiences today. Students then share their pin board and explain their chioices in a prepared five-minute oral presentation in class.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
This assignment asks second-year writing students to create an adaptive response that re-imagines, extends, or supplements the first Hunger Games novel. This project is open-ended and is modeld on fan art or fan fiction. Students then justify their creative interpretations in a short paper. 

 

Students found the creative engagement asked for in this assignment fun. During class, we discussed and shared the students' creations. Then, we talked extensively about how each project used or relied upon textual evidence. Through "violating" the boundaries of textual evidence, students better understood where those boundaries were. For example, they realized how little evidence the text provides for a character's appearance when they actually had to draw that character themselves. Thus, the project actually strengthens the students' awareness of how fiction works. 

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