Oral/Signed Communication
Interview a Professor
In this exercise, students interview another professor about writing in their field and then reflect on what connections they might make between writing in different contexts. Guide to Oral/Signed Communication in Writing Classrooms Objective To learn about the role of research and writing in different disciplines and professions; to learn about how research and writing […]
Video Presentation and Reflections
For this assignment, students work in small groups to create and edit short video presentations (flexible in genre) to recast their research for a new audience. Students then reflect on their presentations. Guide to Oral/Signed Communication in Writing Classrooms Objective To remediate the findings of a research project into a different genre; to work […]
Dork Short Oral Presentations
“Dork Shorts” are a form of presentation popularized by researchers in the Digital Humanities. They combine a formal structure (a specific number of slides) with a short time limit that keeps things light and allows the audience to learn a lot in short period of time. They’re sometimes also called “Lightning Talks.” Guide to Oral/Signed […]
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 […]
Class Participation Rubric
This activity is especially useful for those who grade their students’ class participation. Asking students to collaborate on participation criteria gives them a sense of agency and makes tangible a facet of their final grade which might otherwise seem subjective. Guide to Oral/Signed Communication in Writing Classrooms Objective To reflect on your participation in class […]
Debates
Each Flipped Learning Module (FLM) is a set of short videos and online activities that can be used (in whole or in part) to free up class time from content delivery for greater student interaction. At the end of the module, students are asked to fill out a brief survey, in which we adopt the […]
Advice to Students on Preparing for Oral Presentations
Instructors may want to share this page with students as they are preparing for a presentation. What would they add to this list? What has their previous experience been? You may want to ask students to write a reflection on one or two items here that they have had strong positive or negative responses to, […]
Teaching with the WR Journal: Volume 10 (2018)
Read all of Volume 10 of the WR journal, the CAS Writing Program journal of excellent student writing, or browse the following notes to think about how you may want to teach selections from the journal in class.
Leveling the Playing Field for Class Participation
In general, our writing classes are discussion classes, and students are expected to participate in active class exchanges. Sometimes, faculty may feel frustrated if discussions are slow to get started, or if students don’t speak up. This page compiles selected strategies for effectively facilitating class participation from all students. Scaffolding up front in order to build […]
Oral Presentations for Multilingual Students (ELL)
Each Flipped Learning Module (FLM) is a set of short videos and online activities that can be used (in whole or in part) to free up class time from content delivery for greater student interaction. At the end of the module, students are asked to fill out a brief survey, in which we adopt the […]