Megan Fowler, Instructor Chloe Lane, Instructor University Writing Program the Selfie” “Composing Building strong criteria is one of the pillars of effective argumentative writing. As young writers, students often struggle to build criteria that effectively connects an essay’s argument and read evidence. The intuitive nature of critical thinking can make introducing this idea to students in a clear, concrete manner challenging. Often instructors find themselves constantly repeating, to make clear connections!” in the abstract without modeling an easy to understand “Remember application of these skills. To demystify this process, we advocate having students close an object that is accessible and familiar to them. For this introductory composition course [ENC 1101], students had to write definition arguments about fame. Therefore, we had students analyze the famous form of the selfie. Students uploaded a selfie to a class discussion post. The students and instructor examined the selfies as a class, listing details and specifics the photos had in common. From this list the class collectively created a list of criteria to define what types of photographs qualify as selfies. The use of students’ personal selfie helped to create a humorous and relaxed classroom atmosphere that effectively engaged and sustained students’ attention during the activity. Students’ familiarity with the selfie helped simplify the concept of building criteria in support of a definition and provided a memorable example to refer to in later class periods. ENC 1101-Expository and Argumentative Writing Freshman level composition course Theme: fame The Assignment-Definition Essay Second major assignment for the course Prompt: Construct an argument that defines a term related to fame Essay components: Identify term Establish criteria Close read at least 2 examples
Megan Fowler, Instructor Chloe Lane, Instructor University Writing Program “Composing the Selfie” Building strong criteria is one of the pillars of effective argumentative writing. As young writers, students often struggle to build criteria that effectively connects an essay’s argument and evidence. The intuitive nature of critical thinking can make introducing this idea to students in a clear, concrete manner challenging. Often instructors find themselves constantly repeating, “Remember to make clear connections!” in the abstract without modeling an easy to understand application of these skills. To demystify this process, we advocate having students close read an object that is accessible and familiar to them. For this introductory composition course [ENC 1101], students had to write definition arguments about fame. Therefore, we had students analyze the famous form of the selfie. Students uploaded a selfie to a class discussion post. The students and instructor examined the selfies as a class, listing details and specifics the photos had in common. From this list the class collectively created a list of criteria to define what types of photographs qualify as selfies. The use of students’ personal selfie helped to create a humorous and relaxed classroom atmosphere that effectively engaged and sustained students’ attention during the activity. Students’ familiarity with the selfie helped simplify the concept of building criteria in support of a definition and provided a memorable example to refer to in later class periods. ENC 1101-Expository and Argumentative Writing Freshman level composition course Theme: fame The Assignment-Definition Essay Second major assignment for the course Prompt: Construct an argument that defines a term related to fame Essay components: Identify term Establish criteria Close read at least 2 examples