Creating Visual Assignments

• Don't get hung up on the fact that you don't have a vocabulary for working with/producing issues. Technology has made image production accessible and routine. Most students (and faculty) are already producing videos or 2-D images. And faculty do analysis all the time.The vocabulary isn't important--the thought process is. (Note how much analysis we did yesterday without a formal jargon.)
• Consider an assignment of re-design. If you have a hard time identifying visual creation assignments, ask your students to bring in examples of visuals that they found problematic. Then have them re-design the visual. Not only will they need to think about visual composition, they will have to learn the material so that they can do the design work.
• Frame assignment as a rhetorical task. Ask students what the purpose of the visual is. Who is the audience? What is your goal/argument? What evidence will you use? What evidence will you not share? What sources will you use? How will you introduce your argument? You and your students make rhetorical choices like this in every composition.
• Consider an assignment of multiple design. For instance, have a student create a composition for an academic journal, a popular press outlet, and a children's book. By forcing them to do the work in different contexts, you highlight the choice-making process and encourage student analysis. Make them name their choices and why they made those choices. If they can explain their own choices, they will be much better prepared to analyze others' choices.
• Audience and purpose are important. Without an audience and purpose clearly specified, you will get a huge variety of outcomes as students "choose" to do different assignments. And then evaluation will be especially difficult.
• Talk through the assignment with students in advance--including the assessment criteria. Come to a consensus of what this is about and to a common understanding about what matters.
• Emphasize the thought process. Evaluation of the critical thought is much less subjective (and more pertinent to your course) than the "aesthetic" component.
• Consider using groupwork to reduce technological barriers. While you may ask students to do individual conceptual work (and perhaps present a sketch in a paper), if/when you ask students to then produce the visual there may be some who are intimidated by the technology. Having them do the production in groups can reduce this anxiety and introduce them to the tools without relying too heavily faculty technology instruction.
• Don't forget to utilize staff resources. Reference librarians, academic technologists, and Write Place staff can help you design assignments, introduce students to data and technology, and help your students learn to use these materials.
• Use peer instruction. Have a student who produced a successful assignment the last time you taught to address the class. Their proximity to the struggles of the assignment can be useful.