Writing Activities

Welcome back to standard time. As most of us were sleeping at 2am on Sunday morning, our computers and smartphones magically jumped back an hour. This magical leap was due to the use of a Standard Network Protocol that digitally connected devices follow to coordinate time. The machines were synchronized through a protocol—“an established set of rules that determine how data is transmitted between different devices in the same network.”

Networked information technology has made this the best and the worst of times for literature review assignments. Positively, information science experts continue to refine our understanding of literature reviews, highlighting how systematic and rigorous review essays can provide crucial clarity in an age of widespread misinformation. Less positively, those promoting AI tools claim generative artificial intelligence technologies can produce ‘literature reviews’ from nothing more than a well-designed query.

In March, our Teaching with Writing Blog addressed the complexities of documenting how Generative AI might be used in students’ writing processes. It provided suggestions for creating an Acknowledging AI assignment for courses where AI use is allowed.

Welcome to the last two weeks of the semester! Amid the rush of completing and assessing final projects and navigating end-of-term challenges, we invite students and instructors to pause and reflect on positive writing experiences—perhaps even milestones—from this semester. Doing so can provide a much-needed dose of motivation and gratitude during these final days of shortened light, dropping temperatures, and fervid intellectual labor. Looking back can also inspire us as we begin to look ahead to the Spring semester: “Blue skies, nothing but blue skies from now on….”

Our first blog posts of the semester have suggested how we can effectively engage students by providing multiple pathways and trailheads to writing in course documents and how different

This blog post, including examples of practice for suggestions 1 and 2, draws on the insights of Leah Senatro, an English PhD candidate at the University of California Irvine whose research explores the rhetorical consequences of the body and sensorial experience as well as digital multimodal composition. 

The ability to paraphrase is a pivotal skill for writing and learning, but our tacit understanding of the complex purposes of paraphrasing is often clouded by its apparent simplicity. We may tell students that paraphrasing is simply “restating information from a source in your own words,” but choosing to include restatement from sources involves a much more significant set of questions about purpose, audience, writing task, and form.

Last month’s Teaching with Writing blog focused on strategies instructors can use when providing students with feedback on their writing. This month’s blog turns the tables by describing tools students can use when providing instructors with feedback on their writing instruction. Yes, this sort of feedback is routinely gathered at the end of the semester, but getting it at a semester’s midpoint is even better.

In recent years, instructors have heard a great deal about the benefits of fostering a positive classroom climate. Not only does a positive classroom climate help boost students' performance in their assignments and assessments, but it can also encourage students' persistence with challenging courses and topics.

Co-written by Kate Peterson