Pedagogical Probe (Annotated Assignment)

Develop a major assignment for a “writing” class (based on White’s definition) of your choice. The assignment should engage students in making meaning via multiple genres and in multiple modes. You should envision the assignment (and its components) as spanning three or four weeks of a course. Make sure that your description

• Ties the writing task to specific pedagogical goals.
• Notes rhetorical aspects of the task, i.e., audience, purpose, writing situation.
• Makes all elements of the task clear.
• Breaks down the task into manageable steps (i.e., scaffolds the assignment).

As part of the scaffolding for this assignment, develop a short example or model that corresponds to each assignment step. So, for instance, if you want students to develop a pecha kucha as a way to present a visual analysis they’ve completed, you might want to provide an example of the opening paragraph of the analysis (including a thesis), a body paragraph in which you show how students might analyze a visual exhibit, and a series of three slides that show how a student might zoom on various aspects of a visual text during a presentation. You should include at least one brief example for each stage of the assignment. You do not have to complete each stage of the assignment in its entirety.

Preface this assignment with an orienting annotation that provides information about the course for which you’re imagining the assignment; background, exhibit, argument, and methods texts* you might use (or texts that might serve more than one of these purposes); and how our course readings/activities thus far have informed the assignment you developed.

*So, if you’re having students develop a script and make a brief video, a methods text might be a documentary you observe with an eye toward technique. That same video, though, might serve as an argument or background text if students choose to make their video in response to themes forwarded in the documentary.