Hunter Gosse

Language is Power

Part 1: Writing Prompts

Persuasive Writing Prompt:

“Your task is to construct a written advertisement for a fictional product of your choice which you
will sell to grade 7 students. Make sure to start with an attention grabbing lead, detail the
desirable features and functions of your product, explain why this product is better than other
products in the same field, and use language appropriate for your audience.”

This writing prompt is designed to develop students’ abilities to identify the language,
persuasive voice, and subject matter appropriate for a targeted audience. Students will craft a
product (topic) specifically aligned with their knowledge of their audience demographic. Once
their product is created, students will establish a persuasive voice using word choice and
sentence structure that is attractive, interesting, and understandable to their audience in order to
sell this product. The written advertisement that students craft will be in simple paragraph form
and will incorporate descriptive writing skills in order to convey what the product in question is.
Students are also expected to create an interesting lead/ topic sentence that will draw their
readers’ interest, describe what their product is, communicate its utility, and justify its desirability
for prospective buyers by the conclusion of the paragraph. Students are expected to create this
paragraph free of spelling and grammar errors so as not to undermine their persuasive
authority. Aside from utilizing intentional language, students are encouraged to have fun and
demonstrate their creativity in creating their product. This activity will be assessed as a “for
learning” formative activity, ideally around the beginning of a writing unit. As this assignment
involves multiple writing skills including use of descriptive language, use of persuasive voice,
use of proper grammar and sentence structure, and establishment of audience relevant content,
it may be used to create a diagnostic writing profile for students. With this activity, the strengths
and weaknesses of students as they pertain to these skills will become apparent. As such,
although all of these areas will be assessed for effectiveness, a grade will not be assigned for
this activity. Written feedback will instead be provided by the instructor which students will use
to identify areas of improvement in their writing for the future.

Creative Writing Prompt:

“Write a short description of a day in the life of your favourite food, imagining your chosen food
item as a participating member of human society.”

This prompt will likely be used in the context of a creative writing unit, allowing students
a chance to practice narrative writing from either a first or third person perspective. This activity
also specifically engages with students’ abilities to apply figurative language in writing as
students will bring their food to life via personification. A third function of this prompt is that it is
silly and should allow students to have a little fun during the writing process, hopefully
encouraging enthusiastic participation. Students will engage with writing concepts such as
sentence flow, word choice, and sentence transitions in order to create a cohesive narrative
framework through which their story will be understood. In addition, students will need to
incorporate proper use of personification and descriptive language in their story in order to
accomplish the task set out for them. As this assignment is fairly open ended students are free
to experiment with tone and atmosphere in this piece and may also choose to include other
narrational techniques such as the use of dialogue as they wish. This openness is meant to
encourage students to feel a sense of ownership and pride over their creative writing. This
assignment will be used as a formative writing assessment to determine the students’ level of
familiarity and proficiency when it comes to narrative writing. As such assessment of the
students’ use of word choice, ability to communicate narrative perspective, proper use of
grammar and spelling, and use of figurative language will indicate where their skills stand. For
this formative assignment, a mock grade should be provided to students based on the criteria
outlined above to indicate what level of proficiency they are currently displaying. This formative
information will be used to improve students’ writing in the future and assess their progression in
the course.

Visual-Text Prompt:

https://unlearn.com/

“Respond to the image above. Discuss what you feel the image is trying to communicate. What
makes you think this? How do the visual aspects of the image (colour, position, symbols, etc.)
contribute to the meaning you attribute to it? Who is this image attempting to speak to?”

Here students will receive handouts of the above image to which they are meant to
respond to in an informal but meaningful way. This is an open ended exercise meant to engage
students’ visual literacy skills, close reading abilities, and opinion based writing prowess. In
addition to providing an opportunity for students to demonstrate writing and reading skills, this
image is also designed to allow students to engage with important social justice issues such as
indigenious rights and environmental responsibility. While the image is direct enough to imply
the presence of a certain themes, it is still vague enough to allow students to find their own
meaning in it. Students exercise their critical thinking and visual analysis skills during this
activity by deriving meaning from the image based on the visual components it possesses and
by relating these findings to their own unique internal experiences. This allows students to form
unique abstract close readings of the image which may be compared and contrasted with their
peers. Students will express their ideas in informal reflective writing, focusing on ideas and
opinions rather than form. Students will however, be responsible for justifying their opinions by
connecting them directly to visual components of the image. Afterwards there will be a class
debrief of the exercise in which students may choose to share their findings. This is also an
opportunity for students to start discussions about the important social issues that arise in this
process free of judgement, in addition to developing close reading skills. As this activity is
largely subjective, students will be assessed primarily on their ability to justify their opinions as
well as their participation in resulting class discussions. It should also be noted that instructors
should be prepared to provide emotional support to students throughout this exercise as this is
an activity that has the potential to be quite impactful on students.

Part 2: Social Justice Engagement

Assignment Details:
In groups of 3 students will be asked to make a 3 component video project centred
around a specific social justice issue of their choice. It is important to urge students to choose
topics that they themselves are passionate about, as they will be creating a product that can be
realistically used to raise awareness for their issue and promote positive change in their
communities. As such it is important to convey that students are expected to engage with their
topics in a respectful and responsible manner.
In the first assignment component, students will be asked to research the circumstances
and complexities surrounding their particular topic. Research will focus on the following criteria
which must be incorporated into the students video project: information about what the issue is,
causes of or factors exacerbating the issue, current responses to the issue, Canada’s stance on
the issue, organizations associated with the issue, ways in which the public can contribute to the
resolution of the issue, and information as to why this issue is so important to deal with.
Students must compose a MLA style bibliography to credit their information which will be
included with the final project.
In the second assignment component, students will create a video in their groups with
the goal of communicating the information they have learned about their topic. Students will
choose to direct and film either a PSA commercial, mock interview, or short film which reflects
their passion for and knowledge of their topic in a creative way. Students will also be
responsible for editing their video using a software program such as iMovie or Adobe Premiere.
 For the third component of the assignment, students will include a collective write-up to
go along with their video, explaining the reasons behind the creative and practical choices they
made in creating their video. The write up should be no more than two pages and explain how
the groups use of medium, cinematography, dialogue, sound, and tone promotes awareness of
the topic and inspires viewers to engage in affirmative action. Students will also be asked about
some ways in which they think they may be able to use their video for good (ex. putting it on
YouTube, campaigning to have it played during a school assembly, showing the video to friends
and family, etc.).

I believe this assignment could be a good for combining the various skills and knowledge
learned from a media unit with the opportunity for students to speak out about issues they care
about. The assignment requires students to showcase their research skills while attending to
proper citation form, allows them to display technical media skills, emphasizes the use of oral
communication and persuasive writing skills, and encourages students to act as good global
citizens. I am unsure exactly how I would assess this assignment yet, however I know that I
would definitely pay specific attention to students’ aesthetic choices (video), adherence to
proper form (bibliography), information quality and presentation clarity (video), and persuasive
writing effectiveness (write-up). In addition, this assignment will be useful for observing learning
skills such as collaboration and initiative as students work within their groups. It is my hope that
this activity might serve to bring the students together on a human level and create a stronger
culture of understanding and compassion in the classroom.

Part 3: Option B → “Possibilities in Literature” (Ideally for a grade 11 or 10 applied

class)

To encourage my students to read I think it would be neat to incorporate an ongoing

class initiative for exploring possibilities in literature. Exploring possibilities in literature entails
discovering the different genres and mediums that literature encompasses in order to expand
students’ ideas of what literature can be. The idea is to expose students to a wide enough array
of different literature over a semester to stimulate their personal interest in reading. This activity
should also broaden students’ perceptions of the utility and real world applications of literature
as a whole. I would accomplish this by going over examples of different forms of literature with
students on a weekly basis. For example, one week we may look at comic books or graphic
novels, the next week we may look at a movie magazine or blog, and the week after we could
find ourselves analyzing a great work of poetry or a terrifying horror short story. These materials
will be viewed by the class as a whole during class time, after which we will engage with
activities relevant to our reading (ex. class discussions, reflections, writing reviews of the
materials, etc.). I would like the assessment of these activities to be conducted through
observation of learning skills criteria, revolving more around participation and engagement with
in-class activities than summative assessment. One aspect of this idea that I would like to
accentuate is that I would have my students dictate what type of materials we look at on a
weekly basis. I would do this by providing students with a list of potential mediums we can work
with and having them vote on how we schedule these materials into our course. My hope is that
by allowing students to exert some influence over what they learn, they will be more willing to
engage with activities and materials associated with their choices both inside and outside the
classroom.
Activities I would use to engage with material reviewed during our weekly “possibilities in
literature” discussions would depend directly on the text in question. For example, following
class discussion surrounding graphic novels, I would have students attempt to apply the close
reading skills they are used to analyzing written texts with to the visual components of comic
panels. For instance, after discussing sections of Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta as a class, I
would have students break into pairs to analyze specific panels from these sections. Students
would be implored to write down ways in which they think the visual characteristics and
techniques in these panels contribute to the overall meaning of the scenes. Afterwards I would
have students create a short 3 panel comic with their partners with the purpose of incorporating
visual cues that contribute to the comic's meaning. Students would then present these comics to
their peers, explaining how their visual choices come to convey meaning. This is a learning and
exploration activity primarily, and as such there will be no formal assessment component.
Students will use this activity to guide future creative writing assignments, as it offers them
insight into a potential medium they can work with. As always, in-class activities should be used
to observe how students engage with various learning skills such as collaboration,
communication, and initiative. I think removing formal assessment from these activities, allows
students to explore and develop relationships with new forms of literature in a low stakes, fun,
and stress free environment. These activities may range from analyzing and interpreting style
and content to dealing with thematic conventions of genre, it is important to keep these
exercises fresh and dynamic.