If You Cant Think of Anything Better to Do (Rose Burt)

The following are ideas for activities you can engage in at any time during the semester. They
build skills in using rhetorical vocabulary and analysis and encourage students to both
personalize and internalize the writing experience. Some might take 5 minutes, others might be
developed into an entire class section. Explaining the learning goals and outcomes of each
activity is a good way to also include students in the process.
Self-Analysis and the Rhetorical Triangle
All authors have audiences and devise the best ways of reaching these audiences. Encourage
your students to consider their anticipated audience(s). Some questions:
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What kind of writing will you be doing in the future? (workout plans, business plans,
investment portfolios, magazine articles)
How will you be trying to affect your audience? (What is your purpose?)
What will your audiences demographics look like?
What kinds of skills will you need to affect the audience? (tone, level of authority,
length, prior knowledge)

For example, one student might want to be a personal trainer. Her audience might be mostly
young adult men, and her purpose will be to educate them on exercise and nutrition techniques
and to adopt and adapt a workout plan. She will need to be able to be both professional and
personal. She will likely be writing brief workout plans and handouts. In a writing course, she
will need to master the skills of writing concise, convincing prose and to exhibit that she is both
trustworthy and knowledgeable without sounding harsh or making her readers feel defensive.
The Big M: Metacognition
Building metacognition is one of the most important skills students can gain. By becoming
consciously aware of how we think and how we learn, students will be able to reflect on more
than just individual writing assignments they will be able to practice and re-use the thinking,
speaking, and writing process that applies to all forms of communication.
There are several ways of engaging in activities that promote metacognition and metalinguistic
awareness. Here are a few:
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Reflect on own writing strengths and what s/he would like to improve
Reflect on own most significant improvement
Reflect on the learning outcomes of the course and how s/he may have demonstrated
these objectives in the class to date
Reflect on own strengths
Reflect on the writing process which elements is s/he best at? worst at? comfortable
with? would like to practice? (be sure to write out all the elements of the writing
practice for this one so students have lots to choose from)

Metacognition can be built through just about any activity. Sometimes, it might be as simple as
asking students to take one minute at the end of class to journal.

Freewriting
When in doubt, free-write! Students can learn a lot just by practicing writing. Sometimes the
best way to go is just to get into the habit of writing at length, not caring about style or grammar.
Introduce students to two kinds of free-writing: open and directed. In an open freewrite, students
can write about anything they choose. The point is to keep pen to paper, so even if its just blah
blah blah (literally) thats ok. In a directed freewrite, students will write for a set period of time
about a topic or question chosen in advance. Again, students are not to labor over the logical
development of the argument but rather just to get ideas onto the page.
Students dont usually understand or like freewriting, so it is very necessary to explain the
objectives of the assignment. If students are so worried about crossing the ts and dotting the is
they wont ever be able to develop their arguments!
Pre-writing
Introducing students to many forms of pre-writing will give them options for customizing their
own writing processes and practicing using many approaches to a single assignment. Some of
these include:
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Brainstorming (making a list)

Mind Maps
Outlining
Writing a thesis statement
Writing a Prospectus (research papers especially)

Analyzing Arguments
In a class about argumentation, it cant ever hurt to practice analyzing arguments! Build a
collection of short clippings, advertisements, articles, or other examples. At any time, you can
use one of these for a class exercise or have students choose something individually to analyze
the argument to write a prcis, identify the purpose, identify the rhetorical strategies and appeals
therein, etc.
A second option is to have students create their own arguments. They might have a prompt (for
example, Who is the best singer alive today? Convince me.) or they might create an
advertisement, short editorial, etc. Once theyve done so, other students can analyze the
argument.
To expand this assignment, students might later exchange their analyses and then do peer review
and feedback. In this way, students can practice both creating arguments, analyzing arguments,
and developing confidence in their ability to advise others on how to do so effectively.