Activities

This assignment should come early in the semester and be presented, at first, like a standard argumentative essay. Each “segment” of the exercise should be spaced apart over a space of days or a week to allow students to discuss, critique, and engage with one another’s topics. The goal of this assignment is to “trick” students into working with a variety of different perspectives: First to affirm their own, second in opposition of someone else’s, and finally with the space between differing perspectives. If done properly, this first activity should also help to build an online community and give students a space to become comfortable with their online personae.

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• Students will start by choosing a topic to write about. This may be from a list assembled by the instructor, or proposed by the students themselves. The choice will be made by anonymous vote after a period of discussion on the forums.

• Once the topic is chosen, the students will write and workshop a standard argumentative essay, using scholarly sources in support of their argument and keeping an annotated bibliography. The sources must all be online or easily accessible to the other members of the class.

• After a period of discussion and workshopping, the students must choose one of their peers’ essays that they have worked with. They must then write an opposing argument using only the sources in the chosen paper’s bibliography. The goal of this is to encourage deeper reading of sources and to foster an understanding of different perspectives. Throughout the process, students should be encouraged to ask questions and advice of their peers.



​Ultimately, the goal of this assignment is to introduce the students to the democratic, collaborative, and potentially agonistic nature of online discourse. By limiting their intellectual resources to the work of their peers, and by forcing them to defend not only their point of view but an opposing point, they will be encouraged to discuss and exchange ideas amongst themselves and develop a sense of differing voice and audience.