Identify where you think students may fail in an assignment
in your syllabus, and how you will use that at a teachable moment by design. If
you didn't produce a syllabus, discuss the relevance of this week's readings to
your future workplace.
I included a Current Events presentation in my syllabus in
the hopes that it would help both the student giving the presentation and the
students listening to the presentation the opportunity to become more aware of
the current state of the world and things that are going on, as well as the
controversies we are faced with. I wanted them to read about an event from two
different sources and analyze the differences. The description I gave in my
syllabus is as follows:
Current Events Presentation (5%) Presentation dates will be assigned
Choose any current event that is being discussed in the news
today. Select two articles that cover the same event but are from different
news sources. The news you consult can be paper or online. Note the differences
in the way the event is portrayed in both sources. What does each seem to
emphasis? Does one leave something out? For class, prepare a five minute
presentation on this topic. You may use a PowerPoint but this is not required.
Take into account the audience of each news source and what the purpose of the
journalists was.
Ideally students would be able to find a controversial topic
and analyze it objectively, but I can see the assignment going wrong in several
ways. Perhaps the greatest danger might be a lack of objectivity among the
student giving the presentation. Depending on the topic they choose, there
might be a tendency to let their presentation become emotionally charged and
speak in absolutes regarding either the event they were covering or the news
source they were analyzing. Given the conservative bent of many students at
Texas Tech I can see more liberal news sources tending to take a beating, but
the opposite could easily be true at an institution with a more liberal
population of undergraduates.
The students also might find their emotions getting in the
way of the presentation of a particular news event, depending on what they
chose to cover. So the presentation might become less about analyzing the
rhetoric of the two different news sources they have found and more about them
speaking their mind regarding whether one or the other was “right” or “wrong”
in what they said, not meaning that one news source was inaccurate but rather
that they gave the story a slant that the student did not approve of.
I hope to use this, should it occur, as a teachable moment in
that it would allow me to talk about the importance of stepping back and
viewing things objectively in order to properly analyze argument. It might
therefore provide the opportunity for discussing the differences between
rhetorical analysis for the sake of analyzing an argument versus analyzing
something to find out if you agree with it. I might even be able to talk about
the believing and doubting game and how to consider someone else’s ideas even
if you know you don’t agree with them. Ultimately I think that I would still be
able to accomplish my initial goal of encouraging my students to broaden their
worldview and decide for themselves whether or not an argument is valid.
Kelly Gallagner, a renowned reading and writing teacher does this with his high school students in the classroom. He has students pick an article on Monday, write about it during the week, and then students will bring the article and written response to class on Friday to discuss.
ReplyDeleteHe likes to do this because it teaches students real-world writing because it makes students relate to topics going on in the world right now. These articles can even be used in the classroom as mentor texts, which serve as models for students of good writing.
Great idea! The students will really learn with this assignment.
Mary, I'm really intrigued by this assignment, as (as Ira said above), it seems to connect students to real world writing.
ReplyDeleteI am wondering about the rhetorical analysis part of this assignment. Will be they be selecting a specific text and analyzing it, or will they be analyzing an issue in current events? These seem to me to be two completely different things, and something I might consider. If they're analyzing a text, they're actually looking at the rhetoric involved, but if they're analyzing an issue, they'll be looking at many texts and presenting more of a synthesis assignment. In any case, I really like the idea behind this, as it gives students a chance to talk about something relevant to their lives.
Also, just ps, your background photo is incredibly soothing to me.
Mary,
ReplyDeleteI think it is very important that you have considered the possible directions in which this project could yank the classroom. I think it would be interesting, to teach students how to speak about controversial issues civilly, that it might be beneficial to have the students choose new stories from two opposing news sources, but within the same medium. This would enlighten them as to how different information is presented when different political views are held, but you could use this moment as a grounds for discussing the difference between them objectively, without fire in their eyes. I like the nature of this assignment, nonetheless, it merely sparked this idea in me!