Resource Author
Penuel

Assignment Author
CWRL Assignment DatabasePedagogical Goals of the Assignment
RATIONALE:
This assignment is a good one for the following reasons:
• It fosters collaboration.
• It provides students with an opportunity to learn about usability by both analyzing usability problems and by providing solutions in their re-design.
• It provides students with an opportunity to develop a skill that they could use in their profession (95% of all large scale web design is now web re-design).
• It asks students to consider the relationship between graphics and content on a web page.
• It challenges student’s critical thinking skills.
• It provides a clear reason for learning HTML code instead of relying on Dreamweaver.

Assignment Author
Emily BloomPedagogical Goals of the Assignment
Moving from rhetorical analysis to argumentation, this assignment aims to shift class discussion so that students can begin looking critically at rhetorical techniques and make good choices for their argument paper. They will analyze, critique, reconstruct and rebut a bad argument from the movie "Clueless."

Additional Tips on Leading Discussions Compiled from TAs (by Todd Onderdonk)

Tips for generating discussion/engagement:

Discussion Section Advice
(by Colleen Hynes)

Although you might have more than enough to do in your discussion sections, some of you might be interested in some ideas to get discussion going. It’s always a good idea to start class off by asking for questions about the lecture whether your professor has requested that you do so or not. Those questions might start discussion. If not, try some of the ideas listed below and check out the list of additional suggestions compiled by Todd Onderdonk. (Those additional suggestions are appended below.)

Notes on TA-ing for 316K

In teaching we began with the assumption that every student at some level is capable of engaging the text at hand. One of my colleagues after having had a series of poor discussion sections, drew the conclusion that his students were lazy or stupid, decided that there was no point in trying to cultivate discussion and proceeded to lecture most of his discussion section. We may sympathized with the problem but, being a democratically minded, cannot but assume that such students have been failed in their literary education by someone, and it is irresponsible to contribute further to that failing. So, we must insist on taking responsibility. If students are not talking in class, we have to get them talking, using the carrot (making the discussion more lively) and the stick (participation grades). The alternative is to tacitly accept that most of our students are innately ill suited to the study of literature.

Attribution
Nate KreuterPedagogical Goals of the Assignment
To get students thinking on their feet in a combative/dynamic debating environment. To get students to advocate for positions they may not believe in, simply as an exercise in effective argument. To take up time at the end of the semester and give students something to do in class while they work hard on papers outside of class. To provide a cynical reminder that, for all our talk about middle-ground and ranges within controversies, our culture tends to unnecessarily polarize most issues.

Attribution
Posted to the Feminist Pedagogy site by Amanda MoulderPedagogical Goals of the Assignment
The aim of this series of questions is to solicit information about each student as a writer.