ࡱ> `b_@ >bjbj (luu6z~($RJSSS4SS} *2hi"J0z,,:td   Group Activities for the Writing Classroom While I integrate base group structure into my planning and find it very effective, I recognize that different teaching styles and teaching environments demand different pedagogical strategies. Therefore, because base group structure does not appeal to all teachers, I have described the activities below so that they may be deployed within any class configuration. Below you will find a list briefly describing some common types of group activities and seven self-contained examples with selections from Writing as Revision and The University Book which compliment the activity. Kinds of Group Work to Consider Introductory: students get to know their colleagues by sharing information about themselves. Cohesive: together students produce something which another group critiquesa summary, poem, paragraph or sentence, for example. Team Building: students define themselves and othersI am (not); We are (not); They are (not) Acting: students perform something together for the rest of the class; each group member should have a definable role. Presenting: students collaborate on a project complex enough to require the work of more than one person. Teaching: more interactive than presentations, students guide others through a review (e.g. grammar points, parts of speech) or introduce new material (explaining research). Individuals might teach something to their group mates, or groups might teach the rest of the class. Lead-in: students work from what is known to them (individually or as a group) towards what is less-known or unknown. From film-as-entertainment to film-as-cultural-sign for example. Generative: students produce language for the immediate purpose of producing language itselfa communal means of getting over writers block. Review: students discriminate between more and less important bits of information. Specific Activities Body Language Activity for groups of 4-5 people: Groups select a text from their life to perform for the clasship-hop songs, nursery rhymes, childrens books, fables and fantasies all work very well. Performances might be literal, narrative, impressionistic, or form a tableau.Purposes: Ice-Breaker to get students comfortable with each other; make conscious the always-psychologically-present implied audience of utterances.Text from Writing as Revision: Mother Tongue by Amy Tanthe essay explores different registers of language and serves as a useful introduction to discussions about audience and the language(s) of different groups.Texts from The University Book: A Contradiction in Terms; Things That Help Me Begin to Remember You Must Be Activity for groups of 8-10 people: For homework, ask students to come to the next class session with a word-processed anecdote about themselvesask them, in other words, for a short, typed autobiographical story. Insist that they all use the same font type and size. Also, ask them to fold their completed anecdote into quarters so that the text of their document cannot be seen. When they come to the next class session, have each groups make an anonymous pile with their anecdotes and shuffle them. Then ask one member of each group to select an anecdote and read it aloud to the group. The group should then talk about what kind of persona the anecdote createswhat kind of person wrote it? They should especially consider tone, subject matter, and pronouns. (The author, of course, should remain silent until the group develops a persona based on the anecdote). Purpose: Ice-Breaker to get students comfortable with each other; Introduce a discussion about the absent authorhow texts represent and fail to represent real people.Text from Writing as Revision: Days of 1981 by Mark Dotythe poem explores the memory of its narrative persona and serves as a basis for examining the (lack of a?) relationship between writers and the narrative voices they invent.Texts from The University Book: The Blue Room in Florence; Notes of an Emigrant Son;  Creating Characters Activity for groups of 4-5 people: This activity requires that students have had contact before; they need to know each other. Also, you should let students know that they will be sharing their results with the group, and that they therefore might want to think especially of positive attributes. Ask students individually to associate each of the other members of their group with an animal, or a car, or a food, or a tool based on that persons performance in the class: e.g. Jason is like a horsehe talks so fast; Susan is like a truckshe carries conversations. Once the students have the associations down, then ask them to articulate why they chose those associations. Next, they should share what they have written about the other members. Eventually, the group should collaborate on a list of characteristics that describe each member and they should assign a nick-name that either characterizes that person accurately or ironically (i.e. speedy for someone who is methodical and thorough). Depending upon the personalities of the class, you may need to carefully monitor this activity so the nick-naming doesnt get mean-spirited. After the students have assigned their own names to each other, then talk to them about common group roles. You may find the following list helpful: taskmaster (in a positive or negative sense); decision maker (or dictator); lieutenant; facilitator; contrarian (conflict producer); information gatherer; secretary; diplomat (conflict avoider); lost sheep; dead weight. As a follow-up, you might ask students to confidentially write about their self-perceptionwhat role does the student see herself playing most often in groups? For extensive lists of roles, see  HYPERLINK "http://www.abacon.com/commstudies/groups/roles.html" http://www.abacon.com/commstudies/groups/roles.html or  HYPERLINK "http://www.ubp.edu.ar/argentum/traducciones/roles_in_group.html" http://www.ubp.edu.ar/argentum/traducciones/roles_in_group.html.Purposes: Improve group functioning and participation; Provide functional names for individual membersTexts from Writing as Revision: What I Am; Yellow Woman; A Sense of Myself; Landscape and Narrative; Carbon Copy; The Man Made of WordsTexts from The University Book: The Good Drudge Habit; Composing the Self; Reconstructing Myself in an Academic Text: Making Amends; On Being a Cripple; Madonna Experts Activity for groups of 4-5 people: Divide up a text or a series of texts that can easily be read in class and are generally accessible: divide poems into lines or stanzas, and essays and stories into paragraphs for example. Assign each member of the groups a particular part of the text and tell them that they will now become the expert on that part of the text. Tell them that they will need to consider the following questions so that they can explain to the other members of their group how their section operates by itself and fits with the rest of the text: What are the most important words used in your section of the text? What purpose does your section serve? What kinds of nouns and verbs are used? How is your section different from the section before and the section after it; what is new and what is repeated? Once students have had a chance to answer these questions, then ask the groups to present their findings to the group. Insist that they talk first about how their section transitions from the one before it; then what it does on its own; and finally how it introduces the section that comes after it.Purposes: Diffuse power structures in groups; Increase participation of silent members; Generate discussion about written breaks and transitionsTexts from Writing as Revision: The Western: The Genre that Engenders the Nation; Speeches for Dr. Frankenstein; The Story of an Hour; The Ladys Dressing Room and The Reasons that Induced Dr. S.. to write a Poem called The Ladys Dressing Room; Happy Endings; Welcome to the Desert of the RealTexts from The University Book: Arizona: The Political Ecology of a Desert State; When Property Becomes Peril; An Analysis of the Economic Impacts of Indian Gaming in the State of Arizona; Ethical Dilemmas in Emergency Medicine Sources Report Activity for groups of 4-5 people: Before class, make five copies of the following questions and cut them out so that each slip of paper has only one question on it: What was the main point, idea, or thesis of the text? What was the authors attitude towards the subject? How would your parents/grandparents/ or younger cousin respond to the text? Why were you asked to read the text? What does this text remind you of? (An experience? Another text?). Distribute the 25 slips of paper out to the students on the class period after they have read the text. (If you are using base groups be sure that you distribute a different question to each of the members of the individual groups.) Next, have students interview their classmatestell them to start with the question you have provided and tell the students not to interview someone with the same question. Then tell them to be persistent with their interviewsthey should ask for clarification and elaboration to the answers given. You may even want to model an interview with a student in front of the class. Finally, tell them that they must take notes during the interview so that they can complete a write-up summarizing their findings. They will need to share with their groups the general impression they gathered from their interviews: how did people respond generally to the question? Was there consensus? Was there a wide range of responses? Why? After they have each had a chance to interview 3-5 students give them time to do the write-up. Then ask them to get into groups and report on their findings.Purposes: Practice interview skills; Synthesize information; Enrich readingTexts from Writing as Revision: Sonnys Blues; The Christmas Show; How to Watch Your Brother Die; The Border Patrol State; The Homeland, Aztln/El Otro MexicoTexts from The University Book: Health as Wholeness: Wholeness as Balance; The Great American Desert; La Crisis; The Case Against Babies More Please Activity for groups of 4-5 people: This is an activity that must be done over at least two class periods, though it wont take up the entire time of either. After students have read a text for class, ask them to get into groups and come up with questions that the text doesnt answer; the questions can be ones that the text itself raises, or simply things the students dont know much about. First you should encourage them to brainstorm a long list of possible questions. Then they should refine the list until each student is charged with answering one of the questions and reporting back. At a minimum, you should give students time during the following class period to report their findings to the group. If you have more time in the class period after that, then consider asking the groups to produce a companion or readers guide to the text. They will have to decide on the form and function of their guideone group might want to create a glossary with expansive notes; another might want to write up foot- or end-notes; yet another might want to produce an annotated section for further reading. Purposes: Negotiate tasks; Think of writing as always, in a sense, unfinishedTexts from Writing as Revision: When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision; The Brain of Einstein; Science, Literature, and Rhetoric; Space, Place, and Gender; Animal Rights and Beyond: The Search for a New Moral Framework and a Righteous GumboTexts from The University Book: Can this Campus Be Bought?; A Note on the Interface Between Science and Religion; The Myth of Beneficent Nature: The Risks of Herbal Preparations; We Must Stop the War on Medical Marijuana Review the Review Activity for groups of 4-5 people: The class before you want to use this activity, ask the students to write a one-page review of a film they have recently seen. Also, come to class with five copies of 5-6 brief, popular film reviews you have collected from a newspaper or online. When the students come to class, ask them to get into groups and share their reviews with the other group members. If others have seen the film a student has reviewed, encourage them to respond to the reviewer. Once everyone has had a chance to share their reviews with their group mates, pass out the popular reviews. Ask the groups then to consider the following for each of the reviews: Does the reviewer think the film is good or bad? How does the reviewer rate the filmare there stars or thumbs or what? What criteria, explicit or implicit, does the author use to determine whether the film is good or bad? Finally, decide if this review is good or bad and explain why you have categorized it that way. (The groups probably wont be able to get through all 5 or 6 film reviewsthe important thing is that they get to deliberate about that last question). Once all the groups have produced several reviews of the reviews, point out to the students that popular reviews tend to rely on the binary of good/bad because it is immediately understood and efficient. Next, talk to students about another way to review a filmwithout recommending or overtly evaluating. Talk to them about how academic reviews tend to explain, critique, and argue about a larger cultural issue, rather than simply evaluate the film in terms of good and bad. 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