Sir Mix-a-Lot: Hybrid and Anti-Genres
Purpose of Exercise: How to push back against existing genres. How to compose an anti-genre. This will help students see genres as being...
Peanut Butter Jelly Time
Purpose of Exercise: To show students how they might consider audience in how they choose to write. Also, to help students see how...
Genre Speed Dating
Purpose of Exercise: To get a series of investigative questions that help students interrogate their specific, chosen genre. Description:...
Can You Write a Cat: Genre Alphabet
Purpose of Exercise: This exercise is designed to discuss the difference between topic and genre. Description: This is an exercise for...
Hook Me In! (or: How to Be Specifically Indirect)
Purpose of the Exercise: Students learn about the benefits of drawing a verbal picture in the first paragraph of a composition....
Abstract Shapes: The Importance of Visual Description
Purpose of Exercise: This exercise shows students the complex relationship between an object and the language we use to describe it....
Repainting Starry Night: Visual/Textual Remediation and Analysis
Purpose of Exercise: Allows the students to look critically and interpretively at visual images as well as practicing close reading of...
Play It Again, Sam: Summary vs. Analysis in Movie Clips
Purpose: To help students differentiate between analysis and summary and then apply that knowledge to their own drafts. This works in...
Lunch: Thinking about Generalizing and Stereotyping
Purpose of Exercise: This exercise challenges students to think about how they (over) generalize or stereotype groups of people through...
Exploring Culture: The Influence of Ads
Purpose of Exercise: This exercise works well with an Ad-buster paper or project, or other cultural analysis/textual essay. It considers...