Questioning Ideas:
Get out the syllabi from the courses that you’ve taken this semester and look at the readings. In the form of a love letter, write to the assignment strategies employed in these different classes. Feel free to make this a Taylor Swift love letter which has as much dissonance as consonance.
Now that you’ve written that letter:
- What are the biggest differences in reading strategies assigned across the courses you’re taking this semester?
- What are the biggest similarities in reading strategies assigned across the courses you’re taking this semester?
Reading like a reader:
- Get out a reading assignment from another class (reading being interpreted broadly). Skim through it and make a list of rhetorical features of the document. It will be helpful if it is a digital text, but you can use whatever reading you have at hand. (5 minutes)
- Once you’re done, turn to a neighbor and compare documents and features. What are the similarities? What are the differences? Why? Ask these questions from both a semantic and rhetorical level.
Reading like a writer:
- How do you think that these readings work together? How do they not work together?
- What worldview assumptions do the authors make in these texts?
- How much room do you have to question the ideas in these texts in regards to your coursework?
Getting beyond the text:
- With a partner, write your own syllabus for a course. Include the topic for the course, but focus on what texts and text types you’ll employ. How will you innovate on what you’ve seen in your classes? How will you adopt the patterns you’ve observed?
