About this page
These recommended readings offer an opportunity to deepen students’ engagement with the module through coherent, topical essays. The essays are all Creative Commons licensed, which means they can be downloaded and presented directly in the LMS. (Note: The assumption is that not all of these readings would be assigned. The instructor could pick one to assign to the class, or students could be given a choice if the class format allows.)
The readings listed here pair well with the material in the module “Academic Argument.”
“Academic” Writing
- Reading: What Is “Academic” Writing?
- Author: L. Lennie Irvin
- Source: Writing Spaces
- License: CC BY-NC-SA
- Short Summary: Examines common college ssignments and how to approach them. Students will learn about common myths about writing and strategies for accomplishing assignments.
- Discussions and Approaches: There are discussion questions at the end of this chapter. You may also want to have students freewrite about their own definition of academic writing and what they have learned in other courses. Have students return to this freewrite to reflect on whether they have changed their minds later in the course.
Writing Workflows
- Reading: Find the Best Tools for the Job: Experimenting with Writing Workflows
- Author: Derek Van Ittersum & Tim Lockridge
- Source: Writing Spaces
- License: CC BY-NC-ND
- Short Summary: Includes short activities about the writing process using writing workflows and annotation.
- Discussions and Approaches: There are discussion questions at the end of this chapter. Ask students about their prior knowledge of the concepts “workflows” and “annotation.”
Experience as Evidence
- Reading: Weaving Personal Experience into Academic Writing
- Author: Marjorie Stewart
- Source: Writing Spaces
- License: CC BY-NC-ND
- Short Summary: Explores the use of first-person perspective in research writing. Utilizes the personal story as context, frame, example, and discovery.
- Discussions and Approaches: Stewart uses textile weaving as a framing device for discussing personal experience and research. Is this framework effective? Who is her audience? Ask students to share their experiences with using the first-perspective in writing.
Perspective
- Reading: “The Danger of a Single Story”: as speech / as essay
- Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- Source: TED / 88 Essays
- License: CC BY-NC-ND
- Short Summary: In this famous TED talk, Adichie describes the importance of considering multiple perspectives.
- Discussions and Approaches: Adichie’s text can be a great jumping-off point for a discussion of how perspective can bring new ideas to light. You might consider asking students to think about how their own story can add important perspective to the academic conversation. For instance, what stories (or perspectives) are we bringing to our reading of Adichie’s text?
