Center for Writing Excellence

Mary Henry

Short Writing Assignment for Students

2003 Workshop on Improving Student Writing

Center for Writing Excellence

Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching

INTRODUCTION FOR FACULTY TO THIS SHORT WRITING ASSIGNMENT

Course

GEO 333: Geography of Natural Hazards

Instructor

Mary C. Henry

Students

Mixture of geography, urban & regional planning, and other majors (mostly Arts & Science majors)

Fulfills

Third level of GEO2 thematic sequence: Earth's Physical Environment: Patterns and Processes

Course Goal

Expose students to natural hazards as an intersection of humans and the natural environment, including ways that humans plan for and manage natural hazards.

Assignment

Part of the course includes students keeping a ‘hazard journal’. This journal is done in assigned groups over the course of the semester. Each group is instructed to monitor a different set of hazards in the news media. For example, the past two years there has been a ‘weather’ group, a ‘seismic’ group, and a ‘biophysical’ group. Groups are expected to coordinate outside of class and divide up the duties any way they chose.

The short assignment described here is an extension of the hazard journal, in that students will form ‘sub-groups’ of two (to allow all students a chance to do the assignment over the semester) to consider an additional article in depth. The idea behind the “Weekly Hazards” assignment is facilitate in-class discussion of current hazard events. While the students will be keeping track of their ‘type’ of hazard in their group journals, this assignment allows all of the students to keep up with hazards outside of their journal assignment.

The assignment has two sets of directions: one for the weekly leaders, one for the rest of the students. My goal is to improve student participation during class and encourage critical thinking about natural hazards and their impact on society.

Weekly Hazards:

They Happen All the Time!

Overview:

This assignment will be done in conjunction with your hazard journals. Every Tuesday, two members from one hazard journal group (a sub-group) will each bring a recent news article on a hazard event related to the week’s topic. The two group members will summarize the articles and the rest of the class will complete a brief in-class writing assignment reacting to them.

Learning Objectives:

The goal of this assignment is to help keep you on track with your hazard journals and provide your classmates with more detailed information on recent events that they may not be tracking. This assignment aims to:

increase your awareness of the prevalence of natural hazards in the world
demonstrate the relevance of course topics to “real life”
improve your understanding of the differing impacts of hazards in different places (e.g., more-developed countries vs. less-developed countries, regional differences in hazards, etc.).

The goal is to follow the syllabus schedule, so you may have to pick an article that is not as current (i.e., if there haven’t been any significant earthquakes during the week we are discussing earthquakes, you may have to use an older one). We will organize ahead of time, which students will present each week.

Order of topics from syllabus (starting with Week 4):

Tornadoes & severe weather

Hurricanes

Floods

Drought

Biophysical Hazards

Climate Change

Earthquakes

Tsunami

Landslides & avalanches

Volcanoes

Asteroids, meteors, & comets

Process for weekly leaders:

Find a recent article (preferably published during the last two weeks) from a newspaper or magazine (print or online) about a recent hazard event. Coordinate with the other weekly leader to select articles that are similar in some way (e.g., same hazard event, but two different sources).
Give me a copy of (or link to) each article (preferably digital) so that I can post them on Blackboard for your classmates to read ahead of time.
Read the article, paying attention to themes from class, such as disaster myths (as in de Ville de Goyet, 2000 and Jones, 1993), factors influencing hazard perception (from Smith, 2004), and any perceived reporting biases you notice.
Write a short (1-2 pages) overview of the article including discussion of the abovementioned links to class material.
Prepare a brief presentation (you may use overheads if you wish, but this is optional) to summarize the article for your classmates. Do not include any of your comments on disaster myths or perception in the presentation portion.
At the assigned class meeting, each of you will present the article overview and the remaining students will be asked to react to it in a 5-minute writing session.

Process for the rest of the class:

Go to Blackboard and read the two articles chosen by your classmates.
Come to class and hear the session leaders give their summaries.
Spend 5 minutes writing your response to the articles, considering issues we’ve discussed during the semester.
Get into small groups (3-4) and discuss your written comments.
We will then follow with a class-wide discussion of the article and related class topics.

Grading:

You will be evaluated on:

Picking an appropriate article- does it discuss a recent hazard on the topic for that week?
Writing a thoughtful commentary- does it tie together other reading & course material?
Summarizing the article in a clear and concise presentation- did you cover the important points in a brief time?
Writing a well-written overview- does it adequately summarize the article? Is it free from typing & spelling errors?
Non-leaders will be evaluated on participation- were you in class that day and actively engaged in the discussion with your classmates?

Each student will be responsible for completing the assignment once as a ‘leader’ and the other times as a participant. The score will be factored into your homework grade for the course. The assignment will be done in pairs to allow time for everyone to do it once over the semester. I will develop a preliminary schedule once the hazard journal groups are defined and we can later refine it to fit scheduling conflicts.

Miami University

Center For Writing Excellence