viz.

The group of assignments below present a number of opportunities to train students to think visually about the writing process. Although they are not explicitly designed to teach visual rhetoric, or to inculcate the skills of rhetorical analysis with visual subjects, they are nonetheless implicitly designed to offer students fresh perspectives on the writing process. "Perspectives" is a key term, since these projects ask students to use visual processes to reorient themselves to their writing, by producing visual objects such as annotated outlines, mindmaps, and other brainstorming projects that are more than text-based. The skills sets required here range from the simple (using the highlighting or track changes features of Microsoft Word) to the more complex (using NovaMind or OmniGraffle to conceptualize written arguments). These assignments are offered as a sample of the kinds of methods an instructor interested in visual rhetoric might adopt in the classroom in order to bring the techniques of visual analysis and visual processing together with writing pedagogy.

Organization Using NovaMind by Catherine Bacon (.pdf download)

Outlining Essays Electronically with bubbl.us – A Web-Based Solution by Ty Alyea (.pdf download)

Peer Review and Commentary with Microsoft Word by Michelle Jerney-Davis (.pdf download)

Text Coloring Assignment by Catherine Bacon (.pdf download)

Using NovaMind to Brainstorm for Papers by Liz Jones-Dilworth (.pdf download)

Using Track Changes for Peer Review Assignment by Lena Khor (.pdf download)