Glossary Assignment-Understanding Key Terms

by Gracie Bain

Introduction:

I have used this assignment for both literature classes and composition classes, and I have found that it works with both! Often when I teach, I see confused looks when we discuss conceptual terms like “rhetoric” or “tragedy.” My classroom is often the first time that students have encountered these words that are difficult for me to engage with sometimes. So, in order to encourage students to actively learn these terms and how they influence their own writing and reading, I tweaked a “glossary” assignment that I borrowed from a friend’s gender class.

The Instructions: 

This is exactly what I give them on their syllabus if it is a composition class:

Glossary-Because the texts we are reading can be difficult, it is important for you to understand key terminology. I will give you vocab words with each reading. Each entry will be four sentences long. One sentence will be the definition that you find in your textbook with the correct citation. The second and third sentences will be your interpretation of the definition and how that term relates back to the reading in your own words. The fourth sentence will be how the term relates back to either what you have experienced in composition or what you have learned in this class. You will type this list on a word document and submit it on BB. You will do this twice in the semester.

            Example: Composition: According to our textbook, composition is defined as “the process of designing a text and its ideas…. or the product of that design proposal” (887). In other words, composition is the creation and construction of meaning. The term “composition” relates back to “I Stand Here Writing” because a large part of composition is invention—which is what Sommers focuses on. In my high school classes, writing was not about meaning and invention; it was about mechanics.

Reflection: 

I found that when I started assigning this, my students actually used key concepts in their papers and seemed to have a better understanding of them. With the assignment, they are required to go outside of the textbook definition and think about how the concept applies to their own learning. If you feel like this is too much for your students to be writing, you could always shorten it to just include their own definitions and how it applies to what you have read.