Some Select Comments About Favorite Assignments
One of the assignments I've been using several semesters now--one that seems successful--is a collaborative on-the-job training one. Students form a partnership (preferably of two but it can be three if there are an odd number of students attending) in which they devise a multi-document project/packet that is driven by some kind of on-the-job training scenario that's the result of a perceived problem.
Part of the assignment's handiness (for course objective purposes) is that it's fairly easy to work in an international element as part of the situation. I've had students "travel" to Paris to teach French film critics how to write to American audiences in a collquial vein; I've had students fly to South America to teach health food store owners how to set up an attached restaurant; I've had pretend State Farm managers conduct training for field workers whose main responsibilities include disaster relief in an area with a high Cuban/other Hispanic/Native American population; and so on.
The students must include several documents--handout-types, etc.--that actually aid in training; they also include a few pieces of correspondence (for example, memos/letters that deal with the perceived problem, provide background, contact consultants or visiting experts, or some such). I also schedule the required power point presentation about this time, which may grow out of this collaborative training project if they choose to go that route.
One of my favorite assignments involves watching the video "Tupperware!" (available from PBS via pbs.org) and having the students address some aspect of it to fulfill the "regular ENG145" requirement of an across-the-curriculum assignment, since "Tupperware!" contains History, Women's and ethnic Studies, Art-and-Music, Psychology and Sociology issues, medical issues, chemistry, and others. I have the students select one of the other academic disciplines to relate to their business interests. The PBS website has companion pages (for the video)with all sorts of ideas for discussion and/or essays, and the students find it amusingly entertaining to boot.
My favorite assignment is a capstone unit where I have each of my students create a website of the discourse conventions of their field (e.g., business or political science). Most of them have never built a website, so I do have to provide some minimal instruction. However, the students come through with their website and demonstrate their understanding of discourse conventions.
My favorite assignment is the third Unit called “Addressing a Local Audience.” For this assignment, students situate themselves as professional consultants working for company of their choice. I encourage students to choose a company that reflects an interest they have for a future job.
Students research and choose a problem or issue affecting a local community, business, or group and then choose an audience for this issue. Students must draft a report to their audience addressing the problem and proposing ways to solve it based on their research. In this assignment, students gain experience analyzing their audience and writing formal reports.
In my favorite assignment, I set out to help my students learn how to connect their projects to concrete issues by analyzing speech acts, particularly request-making. This assignment challenged the students to do many things in one - research, audience analysis, data analysis, and writing (paying attention to tone, especially).
I made them identify websites of their own choice to find out what sort of writing the website portrayed. By analyzing features there, they were to identify what business/economic interests might have motivated the creators of the website.
Next, they were to write to the writers/designers of the Web sites to make inquiries in terms of issues, among which were:
- What sort of writing was usually done at the company that owned the Web site;
- What mostly influenced the way the writing was done;
- What influence(s) the company's clients had on the style of writing.
Eventually, the students used their findings to do oral presentations and to write papers discussing their research findings.
The upshot of this project was the diverse experiences that the students had. While some of those writers they contacted were quick to answer their requests, others failed to respond. When the class discussed the approach to making the requests, it emerged that some of the students framed their requests as if they were commands - some face-threatening moments that everyoine whould learn to avoid!