Sequence Assignments

To reduce anxiety and frustration for returning students, instructors can structure assignment sequences to develop basic skills first and then progress to advanced skills; this applies to both writing skill and computer skill.  For example, as you progress through different genres, such as correspondence, instructions, and proposals, require students to choose a topic and a specific capstone document to work toward throughout the semester, and assign genre work that builds toward that final document.

Sequencing works particularly well in developing or updating returning students' computer experience.  For example, a unit on visual rhetoric and document design could begin with discussion of principles and specific examples, progress to a computer demonstration and a one-day “scavenger hunt” to locate and construct various types of graphic components (clip art, symbols, graphs, drawing, etc.), and then finish with an assignment in which students must design task-specific graphics and integrate them into a complete document that they must write.

Granted, students who have already mastered complex graphics applications may balk at revisiting the basics, but I have found that they respond favorably to the suggestion that their skills should earn them an easy “A” for that class, and they are often willing to assist classmates without being required to do so.

Review a sample Graphics Starter exercise.
 
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