activities to teach paper

Activity 1) The Candy Game (which I stole from Shelley Ingram, and which she got from someone else, who stole it from someone else, etc). I hope to try this in-class game about 2 weeks from the due date of the 1st submission of the paper, in order to teach analysis and argumentation. I've talked about this game on the blog before so I won't reiterate too much. The class divides in half, each half gets a bag of candy which they have to analyze for its qualities. After coming up with a (thesis) statement ("this is the best candy in the world"), each group pitches its candy to the other group, the other group argues back, and refutes claims, etc. This takes about 20 minutes, and allows the instructor to draw direct paralells between what the student did in class, and what the student is expected to do in the paper. My hope is that students will see the connections between word choice, talking points, thesis statement and claim, etc. After observing this assignment last semester, I do think it works.

Activity 2) Before assigning the first paper, I will ask the students to do an in-class writing assignment. Students will be instructed to take a position on an issue, explain what they think and why they think that, and then hand the writing in. After students hand in this paragraph I will assign their first paper and instruct them to argue a different position on the issue they have just written about. I hope that the in-class writing assignment will help students define a topic, figure out what they think they believe, and identify why they think that. I hope that this assignment will combine many of the advantages that Bean describes, as well as give students a focused assignment for their first paper. After peer-reviewing last week I have many questions (that I have to think on) about this activity but I think the basic premise will still be helpful.