Appendix B: More Activities and Assignments
There are no shortage of locations around CUNY where we can find model assignments and approaches that we can adapt to our courses. The Teaching and Learning Center’s Assignment Library is one such location, and it features assignments that have been developed and annotated by other Graduate Center students. The Office of Library Services maintains a repository of Open Educational Resources at https://opened.cuny.edu/ which range in scope from individual assignments, to course units, to openly-licensed readings, to entire syllabi. And, there are quite likely efforts within the program and campus where you’re teaching to preserve and circulate similar resources (look for your local Center for Teaching and Learning, and talk to your area librarians).
All this said, here’s a few more models that you might try and adapt to your teaching contexts.
Chapter Outline
Writing a Recipe of Yourself: By Anke Geertsma
Exploding the Text: By Wendy Tronrud
Digital & Multimedia Composition
First Day Approaches Expanded
Below are a series of activities to give you inspiration for your first day of class:
Writing a Recipe of Yourself: By Anke Geertsma
This semester I’m trying out a new first day of class activity. Rather than just asking for students to briefly introduce themselves, I want to ask them to write a recipe for themselves. I’m thinking of titles such as “Recipe for Sweet Steven” or “How to Make a Delicious Helen.” I’ll encourage students to be creative: tell what has gone into making them, such as personal or ethnic backgrounds, languages and experiences, but also what they care about and what motivates them. They can include a photo of what the recipe looks like when it’s ready (a selfie or something that stands for who they are).
I’ll explain the activity and ask them to write down some thoughts in our first class. During this first class I also plan to have them share some thoughts in small groups so that they can get to know each other already. I’m teaching a hybrid class with a course site, so I’ll ask them to publish their recipes online, but this type of activity would of course also work in a regular class by asking students to bring their recipes to the second class and sharing them (in small groups or with the whole class).
Beyond introducing themselves, I also hope to direct my students’ focus to different genres of writing, for, while most students won’t immediately think of the recipe in these terms, it’s a genre just like the essay or an epic poem. I’ll ask them to consider the genre’s components (list of ingredients, directions, cooking time) and mimic these features in their recipes for themselves.
Exploding the Text: By Wendy Tronrud
On the first day of class, I like to end with an “Explode the Text” exercise. As a strategy, “Explode the Text” requires all students to participate aloud and to collaborate in the meaning making process with a complex and challenging text; it opens up interpretive possibilities, rather than directing students to answers, and it builds in differentiation and student choice. Thus as a first-day exercise it models so much of what we want students to do for the semester as a community and as individuals, and it is perfect for a class that does not know each other yet.
Step 1: I begin with a poem that is complex but relatively brief (I’ve used Hayan Charara’s “Elegy with Apples . . .” or Seamus Heaney’s “Digging”). It is helpful to have a poem around twenty lines or so. As I read aloud, students should underline any line(s) that stand out or speak to them in some way. This ensures that students have a choice as to their entry point into the poem and allows them to appreciate and respond to a smaller section of language without the pressure of having to immediately grasp the poem as a whole. The goal is to open up the complex language and connotations of a given poem through the images, associations, and personal responses students bring to it. I encourage students to freewrite directly on the printed handout of the poem.
Step 2: I then read the poem a second time, and this is where the text is “exploded.” As I get to the line a given student chose, the student interjects his/her freewriting aloud to the class. When I get to the end of the poem, every student in the class has “exploded the text” with his/her associations, ideas, images, etc.
Step 3: After this collective experiment, students share observations or reflections they have about the process, experience, or poem. For instance, a number of students may choose the same line from which to freewrite or a number of students may bring similar or conflicting connotations to various lines and all of this makes for great discussion. This part can take a more directed exploration of the text (perhaps you have questions you want students to consider), but I think what’s important is to first ask students to reflect aloud or in writing about the process of this strategy and what they noticed and learned from it.
Activities Expanded
Below are more activity ideas to help you best utilize your class time beyond the first day:
The “Long Look”
A version of “close looking” drawn from Rika Burnham's "Long Look" gallery pedagogy. Essentially, you show students an image with little to no context, and ask them to observe the image and begin to construct ideas and responses. After approximately five minutes and initial responses, give the students some more contextualizing information, and ask them to view the image for another few minutes. Ask students as they are able to move around the space, to come closer or further away, to change their perspective. At the end of the close looking time, the class discusses their insights, impressions, and questions. The instructor guides the conversation towards the course objectives for the day.
Graffiti
Pull a relevant quote or image (or series of quotes and images) to project onto the board. Give students ten to fifteen minutes to write and draw on top of the projected quote or image. If you are repeating this activity, take a photo of each iteration. This can be a warm-up activity before writing or discussion time or can act as a way to conclude. Digital tools for doing this activity online, synchronously or asynchronously, include Padlet (you and students can post images/quotes and comment on them), DrawChat (you share an image/quote and students write or draw on top of it), and VideoANT (you share a YouTube video, students write time-stamped comments).
Sticky Note Check-In
Put up three to four posters (or write topics on the board) related to the class content or the goals for the semester. For example, the posters could say “What do you want to learn in this class?” “What do you think you could teach other people in this class?” “What are your strengths as a ______ student?” “What skills would you like to improve?” Each student gets a post-it note for each poster. They should respond to each prompt anonymously on one post-it note and place it under the question that it answers. Padlet is an ideal digital tool for doing this activity in an online format.
Hashtagging
Have students bring in an image, a sound clip, or a video link in response to a reading or cultural text that has been assigned. Mount these images on a larger white piece of paper, so that there is room for others to write. Post these on the wall and have students walk around and look at what their colleagues have brought, adding hashtags that identify themes and keywords. These ideas can then be used as the basis for a discussion. If you teach online, you can use a variety of digital tools for this, including Padlet or Evernote, or on social media, where hashtags will facilitate easy collection of all related content.
Figure 7. Guide to Hashtags in the Classroom.
Image created by Fernanda B. Vidal and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
Assignments Expanded
Below are more assignment ideas to help you best utilize your class time:
Scavenger Hunt
Description: Provide students with a list of types of sources or artifacts that they must locate. You may consider asking students to create a reference page or bibliography of their sources, and even annotating them if appropriate. This is a practical introductory exercise to academic research. By encouraging students to search intentionally for relevant materials, you provide the conditions for students to use library resources and the opportunity to expand their knowledge of the different types of sources and research available. The scavenger hunt also offers opportunities for collaborative group work.
Learning Outcomes:
Basic Research Skills
- Locate appropriate sources.
- Differentiate between primary and secondary sources.
- Cite in proper disciplinary style.
Collaboration Skills
- Communicate and coordinate with peers (either in person or virtually) towards a common goal.
Notes:
The scavenger hunt is suitable for the early part of semester in courses that might need students to develop academic research skills. It can be used as a primer for research projects later in the semester. It is also a good opportunity for early exposure to materials students might need to know later. Depending on campus or time constraints, some component of the hunt can occur during the class session if you have easy access to library and computers. Alternatively, you can adapt this assignment to use at a museum or another site that invites students to find particular artifacts.
Digital & Multimedia Composition
Description: Invite students to use an open, digital writing platform (ex: the CUNY Academic Commons) to express ideas and responses to course material. Digital composition offers the opportunity to task students with sourcing via hyperlinks and incorporating multimedia into their writing.
Instructors can use weekly prompts to engage students in weekly writing and reflection, or can assign digital and multimedia writing in place of, or to expand the boundaries of a more formal assignment. Journaling or blogging can function as a good low-stakes and informal platform for ongoing dialogue between a student’s own ideas and course material and remixing a final assignment or essay into a multimedia composition project can expand the ways students present and demonstrate their knowledge.
Learning Outcomes:
Narrative Writing/Creative Writing Skills
- Position one’s experiences within a larger social, cultural, or political context through writing
- Engage in reflection and storytelling as a space to learn and share ideas.
- Cultivate awareness of different audiences.
- Practice writing in a digital, networked environment about a range of media.
Reflexive/Critical Thinking Skills
- Develop appreciation for subjectivity, and position identity issues (e.g., race, ethnicity, class, culture, gender, sexuality, ability) within a political, social, cultural, psychological, or interpersonal context.
Digital Literacy Skills
- Engage digital technology to build a presence online.
- Develop skills for putting together and publishing a blog post or piece of online writing
- Develop aesthetic sensibilities about presentation of work.
- Cultivate an understanding of privacy issues related to sharing work online.
Example Assignments*
- “Music and...”: Playlist of 8 pieces that align with a social topic and a written paper that describes the musical characteristics of each piece.
- The Global Spanish Speaking Community: A multimodal essay about a students’ topic of interest related to the Spanish-Speaking Community
Notes:
Both of these example assignments are scaffolded throughout the semester. Students had time to learn the tools and develop ideas throughout the duration of the course.
Before asking students to engage in journaling or blogging, provide them with a platform to do so, and an overview on how to use available tools. We tend to forget that students have widely varying degrees of comfort and literacy with digital technology. Getting a lab space with access to computers for a portion of a class session and giving a quick tutorial could be extremely helpful for providing adequate support structures. Many professors throughout CUNY are now using the CUNY Academic Commons to host their courses and assignments. The Commons is free for all faculty and students at CUNY.
Timelines and Mapping
Description: Two free tools, Timeline JS and StoryMaps JS, offer students an opportunity to build and share an interactive timeline or map. The map and timeline tools allow a professor to create an assignment that both tasks students with sourcing information, putting it context, finding or creating media to support their argument or narrative, and developing digital skills in building out their artifact. Timelines are great assignments for courses tracing the historicity of a particular topic or event; maps can be used to plot points related to concepts in context, literature, or personal stories in the students’ own life. Visit the websites Timeline JS and StoryMap JS to learn more about the tools and to browse examples. There are many other digital tools that incorporate timelines (for example, Omeka) and maps (for example, Google Maps) into your teaching. See Chapter 8 for more information on digital tools and educational technology.
Learning Outcomes:
Intermediate Research Skills
- Locate relevant and appropriate sources.
- Source or create relevant multimedia to embed in the map or timeline.
- Use appropriate citations.
Collaboration Skills
- Work together on timelines and map tools to develop the digital skills needed to complete the assignment and engage in peer teaching
Writing Skills
- Summarize and synthesize relevant texts and materials into concise pieces of writing, on timelines in each slide for a different event, and in map short blurbs are required for each location.
Digital Literacy Skills
- Skills using free digital timeline and mapping tools
- Sourcing multimedia materials
- Public writing for an audience
Free Digital Tools:
Example Assignments
- New Media Artifact Timeline Prompt: Create a New Media Artifact Timeline, tracing your artifact through history. Be sure to cite/link your sources for both media and text portions of the timeline.
- Student Example: Amazon Timeline
- New York City Technology Infrastructure Map: Create an interactive map of Manhattan’s digital infrastructure. This assignment requires one on-site visit to each of the four designated locations as well as two on-site visits to two LinkNYC kiosks. During each visit you should take a photo of the building or kiosk and write a brief summary that answers the five corresponding questions listed below.
Autobiography/Autoethnography
Description: A reflexive personal essay can hold great potential for students to position themselves within a social, cultural, or political context. Both the autobiography (a narrative about oneself within a focused context) and the auto-ethnography (a research methodology that uses self-reflection to position one’s experiences within a larger social context) can be effective tools for empowering student voice and positionality.
Learning Outcomes:
Narrative Writing Skills
- Utilize writing to examine positionality and engage with a larger social, cultural, or political context.
Critical Thinking Skills
- Develop appreciation for subjectivity, and position identity issues (e.g., race, ethnicity, class, culture, gender, sexuality, ability) within a political, social, cultural, psychological, or interpersonal context.
Notes:
Writing an autoethnography or autobiography has been used across disciplines. Whether you are teaching in the social and behavioral sciences, humanities, arts, or in a STEM discipline, inviting students to reflect critically on their positionality within a specific context is a rich opportunity to engage them in the material, and for you to better understand your students. It would be helpful to hand out a few texts that model the assignment. You could also consider asking students to integrate visual media, whether on paper or on a digital platform.
Keep in mind as you facilitate the assignment that it is personal in nature, and consider how you will ask students to share their work.
Anthology
Description: Invite students to demonstrate their knowledge of a body of literature, and to formulate an understanding of key theories and debates within a field by bringing a collection of texts into conversation with one another. Have students curate book chapters, articles, poems, songs, letters, and other relevant items. Students must contextualize the collection by writing an introduction and conclusion that frame the themes and ideas they have presented.
Learning Outcomes:
Intermediate Research Skills
- Select and curate a collection of relevant literature for a project.
Critical/Analytical Thinking Skills
- Construct a claim or argument based on a careful analysis of a body of literature.
Digital Literacy Skills
- Engage digital technology to build a presence online.
- Develop aesthetic sensibilities about presentation of work.
Persuasive Writing Skills
- Present a compelling and cohesive rationale for the literature selected.
Notes:
This assignment works very well for courses that require a deep understanding of a body of literature. The anthology can function as an effective final project that asks students to engage with key themes, debates, and/or discourses in a body of literature.
You may scaffold the project by asking students to complete components of the assignment over the course of the semester (such as annotating one text at a time and creating a project proposal with a rationale for their collection). Consider bringing in one or two anthologies that can function as a model for the students. You may also consider asking students to use digital technology to curate the collection online.
Portfolio
Description: Asking students to produce a portfolio of their work invites students to construct, edit, and curate their work throughout the semester into a print or digital portfolio that can be shared or presented at the end of the semester.
Learning Outcomes:
Information Literacy Skills
- Select and curate a set of artifacts.
Digital Literacy Skills
- Engage digital technology to build a presence online.
- Develop aesthetic sensibilities about presentation of work.
- Cultivate an understanding of privacy issues related to sharing work online.
Notes:
If you decide to use the portfolio project, be sure to introduce it relatively early in the semester. This can be a great method to encourage students’ taking ownership of their voices and reflecting on their own intellectual development. This is also a wonderful option for summative assessment.