Fitting into the arc of my course
In the assignment I have designed, I try to incorporate more mini-steps and be more deliberate in my planning: what they are doing and why they are doing the activity. Based on the readings and presentations from this class and the recent symposium on the connection between reading on writing by Dr. Ellen Carillo, I try to create multiple access points to reading and create a writing activity where multilingual students can apply the concepts and genre awareness on their writing (see also Tsygankova and Mesina, 2024). This mini annotation assignment on Crying in H-Mart is part of a larger literary analysis essay assignment, which I intend to be the first assignment for 2150T. There are three reasons for this sequence: my former 2150T students typically request more exercises on analysis, they need to revisit how to read texts critically, and 2150T students usually take 2100T with a different professor. Therefore, I need to ensure that students have similar language proficiency and critical reading skills.
Fitting into a hybrid course modality
I envision this assignment as part of the hybrid course, to be completed during the synchronous day. Prior to this mini-annotation assignment, students should read the story and answer a few discussion questions to understand the story before doing the language annotation. This assignment considers the affordances and limitations of hybrid learning, as students may need immediate feedback on their annotation and the sentences they have written to imitate the model text. Based on the online and hybrid seminar, I have taken the principle of being deliberate about my decision. I want my multilingual students to critically analyze the text and develop metacognitive awareness of its genre and linguistic features. Though I have used social annotation in the past and presented on the topic at academic conferences, I have added extra steps to my current practice. The online/hybrid seminar readings taught me not to assume that students understand everything and to break down larger exercises into smaller mini-exercises. In other words, online instructions need to strike a balance between literacy load and being explicit about what you want students to learn.
Goal of the assignment
The goals of this assignment align with the larger objective of a multilingual composition class, where students acquire literacy skills and address linguistic knowledge that they can transfer to future courses. Additionally, social annotation is a valuable tool for immediately evaluating students’ comprehension and fostering a sense of community within the classroom.
Instructions for the literary analysis assignment (2150T first assignment)
“So, here you are, too foreign for home, too foreign for here. Never enough for both.” – Ijeoma Umebinyuo, Diaspora Blues.
Whether as first or second-generation immigrants, living between cultures and languages can complicate one’s sense of belonging. In the first major assignment of ENG 2150T, we will read selected chapters from Crying in H-Mart, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, and Minor Feelings to explore themes of diaspora, cosmopolitanism, assimilation, and sexuality. In these semi-autobiographical works, the authors depict cross-cultural experiences and the feeling of not fitting in anywhere. As a class, we will examine this sense of alienation and the “forever foreigner” experience.
At the end of the unit, you will choose one theme and write an essay analyzing how it is presented in the works we have discussed (select no more than two out of the three to maintain focus).
Here is the breakdown of deadlines to help you reach the final product:
Week 1: Submit a rough outline on Brightspace, including the two works you will analyze and the theme you will focus on.
Week 2: Submit the first two pages and a detailed outline on Brightspace. Complete a checklist peer review for two classmates.
Week 3: Complete the draft and conduct a peer review of two classmates’ drafts on Google Docs.
Week 4: Submit the revised draft on Brightspace.
Target length: At least 1,800 words (including cover letter and references).
Different ways to annotate: Social annotation assignment on Crying in H-Mart
Platform: Perusall (a set-up tutorial; if you have not used Perusall before, click this LINK, course code:*****)
Modality: Hybrid (synchronous + asynchronous)
Assessment: low-stakes assignment, complete/incomplete. The activity is intended for the class to have a metacognitive awareness of its genre and linguistic features.
- Before annotating the essay during the asynchronous day, learn about different types of sentences to review your syntactical knowledge (LINK) (1).
- Exploring different ways to annotate:
Read the first three paragraphs of Crying H-Mart and annotate the following features.
- Sentence analysis: Identify the subject, main verb, dependent, and independent clause in a complex and compound-complex sentence.
- Creative use of vocabulary: Provide definitions of new words or creative use of words. Annotate the text in your first language if it is not English to enhance your understanding.
- Narrative writing techniques: Identify and explore the use of flashbacks, figurative language, metaphors, symbols, descriptive language, and sensory language.
- Writing inspiration: Identify elements or ideas in the text that struck you or could potentially serve as inspiration for your own essay writing.
- Write on a class Google Doc (don’t forget to write your name next to your sentences)
3.1 Pick one complex or compound-complex sentence from the essay and write one sentence of your own to replicate the flow of the sentence.
Example from the essay:
Sometimes my grief feels as though I’ve been left alone in a room with no doors. Every time I remember that my mother is dead, it feels like I’m colliding into a wall that won’t give.
My attempt:
Every time I sit down in my favorite spot in my neighborhood cafe, looking out at the open wide space with the humming sounds of the espresso machine and patrons, it feels like I am in the zone, realizing endless possibilities. I feel like I can accomplish anything in life.
Your turn: _______________________
3.2 Choose two words from the essay you have never used before and write two sentences incorporating both. Pay attention to the part of speech and how each word is used in the sentence.
Example from the story
You’ll know that you’re headed the right way because there will be signs to mark your path. As you go farther into your pilgrimage, the lettering on the awnings slowly begins to turn into symbols that you may or may not be able to read.
My attempt
My trip to China was nothing short of a pilgrimage. I felt at home, yet I was not at home; everyone looked like me, but all the writing was in symbols I could not read.
Your turn: ___________________________
Note
- Multilingual students often have varying levels of grammatical knowledge. Therefore, it is essential to review concepts such as parts of speech and sentence structure first. This ensures they have a meta-knowledge of language before analyzing content and theme.
Reference
Tsygankova, V., & Mesina, V. G. (2024). Teaching textual analysis through collaborative, online
annotation. In Better practices: Exploring the teaching of writing in online and hybrid
spaces (pp. 139–159). WAC Clearinghouse. https://doi.org/10.37514/PER-
B.2024.2241.2.06