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Paper Structure Exercise

 

When students are in the revision stage of their paper, Jerusha Achterberg uses fruits to teach students how to structure their papers so that the organization coordinates with the thesis.  The idea behind this activity is to break the 5 paragraph mold students bring from high school. 

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handout.pdf

Pre-Texts Poetry

 

In this activity, students appropriate and manipulate the words, grammar and themes of a “classic” work in order to develop their own styles as creative writers. By turning an iconic medium into a popular genre, students learn that classic writers have done the same thing, borrowing and stealing other people’s words.  

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Reasoning to the Best Conclusion

 

Students are asked to write down a weird or random fact about themselves on a sticky note and to pass it to the person to their left. Each student is then asked to brainstorm logically possible explanations of the fact he or she has received. Through this activity, students learn to distinguish the best or most likely explanations from all the logically possible ones.

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The Beauty Contest

 

John Maynard Keynes classic "Beauty Contest" had people choose from a set of faces which they thought would be considered the six most beautiful. Winners were chosen from those who chose the most popular face. This easy task replicates the experiment with a simple numbers game.

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