Better than the T & A You Were Expecting!One of the hardest things to do as a professor is to create my own theme for the first time. I had the idea, but I had trouble explaining it. To help others, I offer my T & A: Themes and Assignments. In case you thought of something sexier than more writing, the photograph to the right is a time-lapse of a nude ballet dancer, and there's a nude on a lion below. These themes have been developed with Rowan University's First Year Writing Program in mind, but they will transfer to any writing course. |
The Naked and the Nude |
The F-Word |
![]() I'll be honest:
The inspiration for this was my husband sending me a link to the viral video of Soroya Doolbaz and "Your Penis Pics are Bush League right before the start of the 2016 Spring semester. He wanted to know if I could teach a theme around it. Why not? The purpose of writing is to explore ourselves. I couldn't think of a better way to ask students to think outside the box. The semester requires 3 essays. This allows me to slowly bring students from thinking about clothes to thinking about the social implications of how we view the naked (or nude) body. We start the semester with Robert Graves' Poem "The Naked and The Nude" which proposes the idea that the two terms are opposites, the nude feel superior to the naked, but nakedness is actually the purer form of the two.
By the end of the semester, students leave the classroom with stronger writing skills, but also a renewed consciousness of how we perceive each other. Who Needs A HeroThis theme came to me at a friend's card night. We were playing SuperFight!, where we create a villain, super heroes, a situation, and argue who has the best chance of beating the villain and why. It's nonsensical, but would make a much more entertaining critical engagement activity.
I started with the "Who Needs a Hero" assignment developed by a colleague for a research assignment. I have taken that assignment and broken it down into 3 individual essays:
While the essays have usually been expository, this theme would work well for an argument based course as well.
Writing the Narrative![]() As a creative nonfiction writer, I seize every opportunity to listen to and and relate stories. On my blog, I tell stories or reflect on stories I hear.
This theme might be best fitted for a creative writing course, but a research component could be easily added so it fulfills the requirements of most first year writing programs. The three narratives would be
This theme is not fully developed, but I just wanted to get ideas down. |
![]() Teaching social justice courses is a current trend in Composition courses. While none of us are professionals in our topical cause, writing about something that is inherently interesting does make the semester more interesting. The hard part is getting students to "buy-in."
Conveniently for me, the 2016 election season created a current springboard from which to launch my theme: Feminism. I had other inspirations as well. When I first started teaching, I assigned Anna Quinlend's essay titled "Still Needing the F Word." The essay served two purposes. Most unexpectedly but entertainingly, it proved who was just bullshitting me during class discussions. I would ask, "What did we think of the F Word? Random student(s) would respond with, "I love it! I use it all the time. Actually, I used it just this morning." The students who had prepared for class would giggle. The "bad" student(s) would try to support their love of the F Word with additional examples of day-to-day use, but the peanut gallery would eventually get annoyed enough to accuse them of not reading the essay. "Bad" student(s) would of course be shocked and offended that we could make such terrible assumptions... Until they learn the F word is Feminism. I stopped using that textbook, and I stopped assigning the essay years ago. I didn't think about it until last year when a student told me she didn't think Feminism was needed anymore. It's 2016. Women can vote, drive, go to school, and get any job they want. Sure, if they are white and middle class, like she and I are. It stuck in the back of my head for a full year before I sat down and created a theme around feminism, meninism, and humanism. Comp II has three specific essays assigned:
Usually, the rebuttal is taught first, but I am going to try switching it for a semester to see if the transition from one essay to another is any smoother. This theme is not fully developed either, but again I just wanted to get ideas down. The Arguments in Humor![]() Comedians don't perform at schools anymore because they can't promise not to offend anyone. It's a shame.
The world is often offensive, but also often funny. My favorite stand up skit is Gabriel Iglesias's "Racist Gift Basket" sketch, but I think its the absurdity that makes me laugh. Or maybe I"m a closet racist (see also micro-agressions). This theme would explore the components of what makes something funny, what makes it offensive, and where the line between the two exists. It might even answer the question of whether or not we are all racists jerks or just regular ones.
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