Genre
Why It Matters
Gen Ed courses ask students to engage with a wide variety of assignment genres. Being clear with them about the expectations and norms around form, content, and process that come with the genre of your assignment will help:
- you plan ahead in terms of any additional support the genre might require (e.g., trainings for genres that work with online platforms or other technologies)
- you think about how to plan individual sections and when/how to provide feedback to students throughout the assignment, and
- your students know how to focus their energy and ask for the support they need.
More on "Genre"
Every writing assignment unfolds within a genre, and every genre brings with it certain expectations about form, content, data, evidence, process, style, and so on. Even more so than in departmental courses, those expectations might not be intuitive or at all familiar to many students in Gen Ed. With that in mind, making sure the expectations are laid out clearly for students in your prompt is a really good way to do two things at once:
- Unpack disciplinary norms. First, it makes sure that more discipline-specific genres, e.g., policy briefs or close readings, aren’t presented to your students in ways that naturalize them, i.e., in ways that make their features and conventions harder to recognize by not acknowledging them directly and explaining them.
- Plan to teach what you plan to grade. Second, it makes sure that you are unpacking for yourself which forms and conventions of a genre need to be taught, and to what degree mastery of the genre is important (e.g., should students focus their energy on the ins and outs of audio editing for a podcast assignment, or is the priority to get them thinking about audience and narrative within a medium that isn’t confined to words on a page?).
What It Looks Like
In the tabs below you'll find annotated examples of “genre” in assignment prompts, drawn from recent Gen Ed courses across a range of Gen Ed categories.
Calligram Design
Description:
The calligram assignment is intended to introduce you to an important Islamic religious art form; it is a simple exercise and has proven to be quite enjoyable even for those who think they have no artistic talent [1].
The project consists of learning to write “Allah,” the Arabic word for God, in the Arabic script (there will be a brief tutorial in class) [2].
الله
You are encouraged to browse through the many different calligraphic interpretations of Allah [3] posted here on the course website as well as examples of styles of Arabic calligraphy. You may also browse through the various examples of the Bismillah in Arabic calligraphy.
In addition, further information and examples [4] from previous years can be found here.
__________
[1] Emphasis is placed on getting to know and appreciating the genre, rather than mastering it.
[2] Before ever engaging with the assignment, students know that the course will introduce them to the genre.
[3] Students are pointed to lots of examples and styles of the genre.
[4] Links to additional resources aimed at making the genre more familiar and the assignment more approachable.
Adapted from Gen Ed 1134: Understanding Islam and Contemporary Muslim Societies | Spring 2021
Professor Ali Asani
Purpose and organization of a Policy Memo
A policy memo provides busy policymakers with information they need to make decisions. It aims to: [1]
• Break down complex issues into essential facts
• Evaluate alternative courses of action
• Provide recommendations for action
Policy memos should focus on a policy recommendation. In general, they should be organized as follows: [2]
- Statement of topic with a brief (no more than one sentence) statement of the central policy recommendation
- Brief overview of issue area
- Overview of the array of possible policy(ies) or policy discussions
- Pros and cons of possible policy(ies) or policy discussions
- Recommended policy
- Arguments about why this policy should be adopted.
A good policy memo [3] focuses the reader’s attention at all times and starts off with a clear statement of the topic with a brief summary of the recommended policy position. The memo is neither a list of unconnected points nor a piece of advocacy that argues for only one side of an issue without acknowledging its limitations or liabilities. Qualify your thesis or recommendations when necessary, but stick to essential information or arguments that grow out of your introduction and that lead inevitably to your conclusions.
__________
[1] Defining the genre and laying out its purpose
[2] Clear overview of how the genre is typically organized
[3] Best practices for the genre, including specific tips and things to avoid
Adapted from Gen Ed 1008: Power and Identity in the Middle East| Spring 2020
Professor Melani Cammett
from FINAL ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS
STEP 1: PROPOSAL AND ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Begin to research your topic and include the following in your proposal [1]:
- A preliminary description of your topic, and why it is significant
- A brief description of the historical context of your topic
- A brief description of the scholarly context of your topic (what has been discussed by scholars?)
- An existing or past intervention related to your topic
- How a biosocial perspective will help you reach an original analysis of your topic
Your annotated bibliography [2] should follow this format (for 5 references from outside the course):
- Full name of source
- What type of source each source is
- Why you chose it (i.e., why do you think this specific piece of literature is appropriate?) What questions you intend to use the source to answer
Example of a source [3] for your annotated bibliography:
Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow. New York: The New Press, 2012. Book. This book is important to my paper because it describes racial discrimination in the justice system and provides statistics on the disproportionate incarceration of African American men. As my thesis is that mass incarceration is a public health issue, this book helps me argue that these health impacts will affect one group of Americans more than any other.
__________
[1] “Proposal” might mean different (and more or less specific) things in different disciplinary contexts. This list of what to include makes sure that students are focused on the content of the proposal—which in the case of this research paper is what they should be focused on—rather than on the form.
[2] While annotated bibliographies might be familiar to many students, the prompt offers clear guidance about format.
[3] Guidance includes an example modeling what an entry for an annotated bibliography might look like in this particular course for this particular assignment.
Adapted from Gen Ed 1093: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Cares? Reimagining Global Health | Fall 2020
