Blogging Pedagogy

As this will be my final blog before leaving UT, I thought I'd interview myself just so I could say good-bye. I have thoroughly benefited from reading through each lesson plan, and from each interview response -- I hope that these interviews have proved helpful to all of you as well. I especially hope that any new AI out there struggling through their first semester in 306 finds comfort and helpful ideas through these blogs -- I chose the plans to highlight, and the questions to ask, with you in mind.

Ty Alyea's lesson plan involves using discussion boards to facilitate classroom conversation. Ty takes on the challenges of discussion boards, and presents strategies to pull students away from simply answering a discussion question, and instead push them towards placing their ideas within the academic conversation established by the other posts. Read on for Ty's adventures in using this assignment.

Q. How did your students respond to the assignment?

This week's interviewee is Lena Khor, discussing her lesson plan that involves asking her students to "appeal to all the senses" by creating a multi-media argument pertaining to their chosen 306 controversy. It's a very creative addition to the usual 306 fare. Read on for her comments on student reactions to this assignment.

Q. How did your students respond to the assignment?

Liz's lesson plan covers 3 class periods, and takes students through the process of revision as a group. The lesson serves two purposes: First, it takes the students through a practice rhetorical analysis, allowing common mistakes to come to light and be discussed before the Unit II essay. And second, it demonstrates honing a paper through revision. In the end, the students produce a coherent sample paper as a group. Read on for Liz's comments on her experiences using this assignment.

Layne's lesson plan focuses on helping students understand rhetorical appeals through use of political ads and charts. Assignment focused on the 2008 Elections, but could be easily adapted to current mayoral elections or any other political ad.

Q. How did your students respond to the assignment?

Dale's lesson plan uses Politicalcompass.org as a start point for classroom discussion. The classroom conversation helps students understand how political and social ideologies are created and expressed. Read on for Dale's comments. You can access the lesson plan here.

Q. How did your students respond to the assignment?

This week's lesson plan interview is Eileen McGinnis, sharing her use of research and debate to practice constructing arguments and the planning of rebuttals and counterarguments. Her lesson plan was inspired by the 2008 elections and Science Debate 2008. You can access Eileen's lesson plan here.

Q. How did your students respond to the assignment?

In the spirit of last week's theme, this week's Lesson Plan Interview is Michael Widner discussing rhetorical analysis and Mr. Rogers. Michael's Lesson Plan can be accessed here.

Q. How did your students respond to the assignment? How effective was it for teaching rhetorical analysis?

This week's Lesson Plan Interview is Susan Gayle Todd. Susan's assignment offers help in teaching the concepts of ethos and context -- exactly where most of us teaching 306 are right now. Read on for her comments on using the film Gettysburg in the classroom, and check out her lesson plan here.

Q. How did your students respond to the assignment?

This week's Lesson Plan Interview is Megan Little, discussing her use of ecomma in the classroom. Click here to see the full lesson plan.

Q. How did the students respond to the assignment?