Go Forth and Find

[#1]

Assignment by Sidney Blaylock Jr., Bedford New Scholar 2020

Overview

This lesson is designed to give students practice in finding examples of various genres in a fun, investigative manner. It has the secondary objective of promoting student autonomy and team-building and should be used fairly early in the semester. It is designed for 1st year (ideally first semester students), but can be applied to other levels as necessary.

Goals

1. This lesson is designed to give students practice in finding examples of various genres in a fun, investigative manner.
2. It has the secondary objective of promoting student autonomy and allow students the space to make critical observations on their own
3. To promote team-building and help foster a sense of a learning community within the classroom environment.

Assignment Specifications

This assignment is designed to allow students to practice finding various examples of academic genres around campus as well as help them gain a critical understanding of what constitutes a genre and some affordances (advantages) and constraints (disadvantages) of that genre. Students:

1. Pair up with a Partner; students choose their partners.
2. Take pictures of the examples for each category on their smartphones and be ready to post them to the group discussion board with a short caption about each.

• Information/Instructions/Directions (Classroom/Hallway): Students try to find one set of Information/Instructions/Directions. If it is a computer classroom, a set of instructions on how to turn on the computer would be an example. 
• Bulletin Board (Hallway/Building): Students try to find one example of a bulletin board/informational board (with postings) on the hallway where the classroom is located or somewhere within the building.
• Poster (Building/Campus): Students try to find one example of a poster somewhere in the building where the classroom is located or on the campus at large.
• Graphic/Image (Campus): Students try to find one example of a Graphic/Image on the campus at large.
• Sign (Campus): Students try to find one example of a Sign on the campus at large.
• Wildcard (Campus): Students should try to find one interesting thing that’s not on the list, if time permits. Include information on why it was included and what genre to which it fits.

Procedure

Set-up (10-15 minutes): Allow students to pair up in groups of two. Verbally (or on an instruction sheet), give them the above directions for finding various examples of genres about campus (will have already scaffolded genres). Ask them to use their cell phones to take pictures of the various examples. Ask them to return to the classroom in 20-25 minutes.

Assignment (20-25 minutes): Allow students to work on their own while remaining in the classroom. Answer any questions they might have, but allow them to freely circulate about the room, hallway, building, and campus environment without interference. Let them use their critical skills and teammates to decipher how to best accomplish the task and what constitutes an example of each of the 7 broad categories.

Discussion (10-15 minutes): Ask students to share examples that they have found for each category. As time will usually be at a premium, ask each pair to share one from a category and then move on to the next group and next category. Discuss how that example relates to the large genre as whole: how do you know it is a part of the genre? What are some deviations that made you unsure (if any)?

Reflection (5 minutes): Ask students to reflect on the assignment. What did they learn and how might they apply it in the future?

Grading

Informal: Participation. Informal Assessment where doing it earns participation points

Formal: Ask students to create a PowerPoint Slide/Discussion slide for each category. Each slide should include the picture, the genre, and what elements make it part of the genre and what elements (if any) deviate from the genre.

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