Stanford
TeachingWriting

TiC Activities

Tweeting Your TIC

This invention activity uses social media format to help students begin to put different sources in conversation as a prelude to drafting their TiC essay.

Explore this activity

Mapping the Conversation

In this activity, students put three texts in conversation through using a creative activity involving different colored post-it notes.

Explore this activity

Accordion Prewrite

As a way of giving students practice in developing productive research questions along with enhancing their understanding of how research questions guide the initial research process, this activity directs students to craft a range of questions about their topic.

Explore this activity

TiC Idea Map

This invention activity asks students to visually map the connections and conversations between their sources as a way of preparing them to write their Texts in Conversation essay.

Explore this activity

TiC Recipe

This asynchronous activity asks students to reconceive the sources they have gathered for their Texts in Conversation assignment (T.i.C.) as “ingredients” and explain how they will combine them in order to develop a deeper understanding of their research topics.

Explore this activity

TiC Playlist

This asynchronous activity prompts students to engage in artistic innovation by combining their music and research interests. By pairing their favorite songs with sources they have begun picking for their Texts in Conversation (T.i.C.) assignment, students begin to see their sources working “in concert” with each other.

Explore this activity

Jumbo 'Spectra' Worksheets for Narrowing Topics and Locating Positions

In this activity, students use a pair of worksheets to create a visual mapping of research questions to help them focus their topic and their inquiry and identify positions beyond "yes" and "no."

Explore this activity

Synthesis Brainstorm

This asynchronous workshop contains a set of activities designed to help students synthesize the conversation between the sources they are examining in their Texts in Conversation essay. It invites them to move through a variety of different activities, including a map, a dinner table conversation scenario, and a mad-lib style exercise.

Explore this activity

TiC Peer Review on Canvas

This asynchronous peer review assignment pairs an instructional video about using Canvas for peer review with clear instructions for students.

Explore this activity

Scholars Scholarship and Scholars Converse

This activity helps students prepare for the Texts in Conversation by writing a fake TiC through a combination of individual and group work.

Explore this activity

Addressing Audience

This activity prepares students for the Texts in Conversation assignment by inviting them to practice critical reading, summary skills, and rhetorical strategies through creating summaries of an academic article for different audiences.

Explore this activity

TiC Festival Poster

This asynchronous activity encourages students to use graphic design to outline their Texts in Conversation assignment (T.i.C.). By arranging sources according to theme and sequence, students can envision how their sources work “in concert” with each other.

Explore this activity

Mapping Intellectual Trust

This exercise provides students an opportunity to think about how, as researchers, they evaluate the relative credibility of different academic as well as non-academic genres and media. Students complete this as a homework (“asynchronous”) assignment individually at the beginning of the TiC unit.

Explore this activity

Searching for BEAM (Background, Exhibit, Argument, and Method) to Guide Research

This activity, derived from Joseph Bizup, teaches research by helping students understand their sources through a rhetorical framework.

Explore this activity

These activities are licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Please remember to attribute all activities to their original authors (even if with an “adapted from”) on any handouts, webtexts, slides, or assignments sheets you generate from them.

If you have any activities of your own that you’d like to share, please send them here.