The Class Has Spoken: Teaching “Survivor” in the Writing Classroom

This past Monday, I had both of my classes of first year composition students watch the first episode of the 30^th season of Survivor (aka Worlds Apart aka White Collar versus Blue versus No Collar) entitled “It’s Survivor Warfare” to look out for ethical implications. Although the reception wasn’t as warm as when I taught the first episode of “Serial”, a lot of my students liked it. They had a “reading” quiz to prove that they watched it which also comprised a few questions of critical thinking. One question asked who would they have eliminated and why. Another question asked, with a sole basis on this episode, who would be the “Sole Survivor” and why. The results I got were interesting.

For the question on who would they have eliminated, here are the results:

So-13

Carolyn-8

Joaquin-4

Shirin and Max-3

The students chose the particular people due to lacks of strength, trust, and loyalty. Some were also chosen due to being considered too much of a threat later on in the game.

Here are the results to the question of who they would think is the Sole Survivor:

Joe-12

Mike-5

Tyler, Jenn, and Will-3

Max and Kelly-2

Joaquin, Hali, Vince, and Carolyn-1

These people were chosen due to strength, likability, strategy, and camera time, amongst other reasons.

Overall, I would recommend using the first episode of any Survivor season to teach ethics. After all, Survivor is a game that is fraught with so many ethical decisions. Who do I vote out? Who do I make an alliance with? By asking your students to place themselves in the role of the castaway (minus the starving), it is interesting to see how they react!

Out-teach, Out-learn,Out-write:A Preamble to Teaching "Survivor"

After my success with using the popular podcast "Serial" in the classroom, I have decided to do another experiment with multimodal texts. I had my students watch the first episode of the latest season of Survivor (available here until Wednesday, the 25th) and think about ethical issues that are inherent in the episode. Since my classes haven't met yet, I cannot report about the success or failure of this experiment just yet. I will be blogging later this week to talk about how "Survivor" went over for in the regards to their quiz and to their class discussion. If you have any suggestions, feel free to share them in the comments!

Which Assignments Would I Use in My Online Writing Course?

I have become used to teaching my two seated sections of Writing 1 since I became a Graduate Teaching Assistant. As a result, I am used to the standard assignments that come with the Writing 1 class like journals, quizzes, and peer reviews. But, as I am interested in teaching online sections of Writing 1, I have to figure out which assignments I would be interested in using for my particular class. As is my standard, I will be taking the advice that Scott Warnock gives in his book Teaching Writing Online about the assignments that teachers should pick for teaching online:
     The ability to use many informal assignments can create a risk-friendly environment in which   students can develop their writing, which is a function both of what the students are doing and of the way we look at and evaluate their work. Because they write so much online, we can free ourselves from tendencies to focus on error in our students’ writing, because each assignment itself is only a small piece of that monolithic grade we must administer (94).
With that in mind, I have to pick assignments that would be worthwhile to both them and me. I have already started to think about this crucial decision, so here are my tentative answers.
•    My absolute must-have assignment is the weekly journal. It works really well in my seated courses, so it is extremely easy to translate to an online writing course. By having the students keep up a journal about their reactions and comprehensions of their reading and writing assignments throughout the class, they will be able to see how they are progressing in their development of being a better critical reader and writer. This journal could encompass several avenues of thought. I like metacognitive journals that analyze how the students think about reading and writing. I also like the rhetorical journals to make sure that they are able to understand the rhetorical strategies that they will have to employ with their own researched argument.  
•    I will have to have message boards for my online writing course. After all, message boards are able to create a deeper sense of community. Due to the fact that they already have weekly journals due, I don’t know how many posts that I would require them to have for a grade because I do not want to weigh them down with homework for this class. However, with the message boards, I really like the homework assignment that Warnock mentions called “My Favorite Post” (97). This particular assignment has students designate their favorite message board post and then explain why they say that it is their favorite. By doing this particular assignment, students would be able to become better critical thinkers while also learning to use evidence to back up their claims, which will make the students better at writing argumentative and persuasive writing.  
•    My final must-have assignment would be peer reviews. Although peer reviews can be analyzed in its own special blog post (which may happen, who knows?), I think it is a must have for any writing class, regardless of the environment. It teaches students to not only give thoughtful feedback, but how to receive it as well. It also helps them to become better thinkers and readers about what they are reading.
Overall, the thought of teaching online writing is scary at times, I think that with the aid of these particular assignments, it can be extremely beneficial to both me and my students. I look forward to any comments about any additional assignment that I can use with my students of my hypothetical online writing class. 
Works Cited
Warnock, Scott. Teaching Writing Online: How and Why. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 2009. Print.