Assignment Title: Children’s Book Citations
Authors: Megan Heise, Carnegie Mellon University (mheise@andrew.cmu.edu)
Date published: August, 2022
Class Info/Tags: Face-to-Face, Hybrid, Synchronous, Composition Studies, Multimodal Rhetorics
Course Motivation: This course (English 101) encourages students to develop genre and language knowledge, fosters academic inquiry and research knowledge, builds students’ argument knowledge, and stimulates students’ multimodal knowledge and collaboration.
Context of Use: This classroom assignment is utilized mid-semester, when students have learned how to find and assess sources through library databases and Google Scholar, and in advance of Double Entry Journal and Annotated Bibliography assignments. The goal is to teach them the basics of different citation styles, as well as to move from using sources for knowledge telling to knowledge transforming.
Instructor Reflection: “I have found the most success when I’ve done this activity in person with my own personal collection of children’s books, which some instructors may not have access to. I’ve found it challenging to find online alternatives that work in hybrid and synchronous online environments. What I love about this activity is that it is not only effective in helping students practice citations and move from knowledge telling to knowledge transforming, but it’s also a moment of fun and levity at a point in the semester (near midterms) when this lightness is very needed and appreciated by students. I also appreciate their nuanced analyses of these seemingly simple children’s texts, which always show keen insights as well as a sense of humor.”
