Unconventional yet Innovative Composition Assignments
Mentor 1
Conan Kmiecik
Location
Union 191
Start Date
24-4-2015 1:20 PM
Description
As a future educator in English, I wanted to create composition assignments for a middle school classroom that were unconventional yet still effective in a variety of ways utilizing the book Sold by Patricia McCormick. Taking into consideration a range of learning styles, the diversity of my hypothetical class, and the content and theme of Sold, I developed a detailed essay discussing these assignments. To accomplish this task, I researched and read Endre Szentkiralyi and Rose Reissman’s article “Teaching Ideas,” Nancy M. Bailey and Kristen M. Carroll’s article “Motivating Students’ Research Skills and Interests through a Multimodal, Multigenre Research Project,” Jessica Wertz’s article “Bitstrips and Storybird: Writing Development in a Blended Literacy Camp,” Mary E. Hocks’ “Understanding Visual Rhetoric in Digital Writing Environments,” Jane Krauss’ “More Than Words Can Say,” and John Trimbur’s “Delivering the Message: Typography and the Materiality of Writing.” In conjunction with these articles, I was able to create three composition assignments that would innovatively allow my students to understand and apply the theme of Sold to their personal lives. The three writing assignments were are a pop-up story research project, a personal narrative using Storybird, and a literary analysis using Piktochart. From my research, I found that students can accomplish the goals of a lesson, understand the central concepts, and do so in an unconventional manner. Each assignment could be effective with a range of learning styles and subject areas.
Unconventional yet Innovative Composition Assignments
Union 191
As a future educator in English, I wanted to create composition assignments for a middle school classroom that were unconventional yet still effective in a variety of ways utilizing the book Sold by Patricia McCormick. Taking into consideration a range of learning styles, the diversity of my hypothetical class, and the content and theme of Sold, I developed a detailed essay discussing these assignments. To accomplish this task, I researched and read Endre Szentkiralyi and Rose Reissman’s article “Teaching Ideas,” Nancy M. Bailey and Kristen M. Carroll’s article “Motivating Students’ Research Skills and Interests through a Multimodal, Multigenre Research Project,” Jessica Wertz’s article “Bitstrips and Storybird: Writing Development in a Blended Literacy Camp,” Mary E. Hocks’ “Understanding Visual Rhetoric in Digital Writing Environments,” Jane Krauss’ “More Than Words Can Say,” and John Trimbur’s “Delivering the Message: Typography and the Materiality of Writing.” In conjunction with these articles, I was able to create three composition assignments that would innovatively allow my students to understand and apply the theme of Sold to their personal lives. The three writing assignments were are a pop-up story research project, a personal narrative using Storybird, and a literary analysis using Piktochart. From my research, I found that students can accomplish the goals of a lesson, understand the central concepts, and do so in an unconventional manner. Each assignment could be effective with a range of learning styles and subject areas.
