1. Academic Poster Projects for Advanced 2 Leor Cohen
An Exemplar
Academic Poster Projects for Advanced 2
Leor Cohen

2. The Mandate of Our Courses
Prepare for 21st century challenges
Real life skills and tools
Academic and Professional
Collaboration – Group Work
Construct knowledge through action
Take advantage of the opportunity
Communication skills
Engage in conversation – natural and academic contexts
Purpose – Missed opportunity
How to instill better writing practices in our classrooms
Not just speaking – also engaging with texts
21st century skills

3. Problems in Assignment Design
Traditional:
Develop a thesis statement and support it using items in the literature.
Cherry pick quotations
Westernized Cultural Framework
Prompts for plagiarism
Individualism → solipsism
Student’s voice
‘Dream-up-a-thesis-in-a-vacuum’ Pedagogy
Graduate school
If not responsive, not heard
Tree in the forest

4. Using the CEFR CEFR Learning Outcomes:
Reception/Reading – Can obtain and synthesize information, ideas and opinions from multiple sources...
Production/Writing – Can summarize and synthesize from a variety of sources…
Production/Speaking – Can give a clear prepared academic presentation…
Reception/Listening – Can follow the essentials of lectures, talks….
Not easy to do.
Easier said than done.

5. Rebbeca Moore Howard Patchwriting Plagiarism vs. Patchwriting
Intention
Teachable moment

6. Problems in Composition
Almost no Summary or Synthesis
Patchwriting
Sentence to Sentence match-up across source and student text
Jamieson & Moore 2013:
Little Summary / No Synthesis
List of Book Reports
What kind of thinking do students need to go through to produce such surface level use of source texts?
Inspired my pedagogy

7. Howard, Serviss, Rodrigue 2010

8. A Literature Review-based Research Proposal
The Poster Project
A Literature Review-based Research Proposal
((Introduce and move on.))
To alleviate and address the issues set forth by RM Howard.

9. The Poster Project Literature Review game Choosing Article 1
Summary Process
Choosing Article 2 + Summary
Choosing Article 3 + Summary
Synthesis
Describe Relationship
Dialogue
Project: Literature Review based Research Proposal - Poster
Purpose – get students to react to literature
Lit Review Game– Article Contest
Introduce Project – Form groups; Choose article
Notes, Paragraph, Summary, Gist
Advantages: cycles away, revision
Repeat. 2nd and 3rd article
Synthesis
Constellation Description
Dialogue
Bring 3 authors into one room
Pit contrasting positions against one another
Arrive at fresh insight
Logical next step – what to explore next?
Not an opinion; result of negotiation – not something invented, but found.
Trans-Genre exercise

10. Swales CARS Model

11. Dialogue from Physics

12. G1 – Smoking causes depression.
G2 – Smoking and Depression connected, but not causally.
G3 – Depression causes smoking.
Notice the various positions across these items of the literature!

13. G1 – Smoking causes depression.
G2 – Smoking and Depression connected, but not causally.
G3 – Depression causes smoking.
G1+2 – Causal vs not causal
G1+3 – What’s the cause of what – smoking or depression (chicken and egg)?
G2+3 – Age causes depression and depression causes smoking (they missed this at the end).

14. Generalized should be: Different opinions on relationship between smoking and mental illness.
Half the semester
Submissions – check + feedback (language)

16. Poster
Background and References
Gists, Syntheses, Dialogue
Motivation/Critique of Literature
Swales Move 2
Objective – Research Proposal FROM DIALOGUE
Rest of Poster
Method, Hypothesis, Implications
Now let’s look at some assessment tools.

17. Assessment: Rubrics

18. An Exam: Midterm

19. Debrief/Discussion
Listen in on a small academic discussion → contribute
Use one text as a lens to analyze another text
Not opinion – analyze positions → best way forward → find insight
See the big picture → Join the discussion
Labor intensive → Sociolinguistic Competence
Academic Communities of Practice
Use the wisdom in the CEFR – internalize its spirit for a communication-centered pedagogy.
Students’ voice
In Academia, Free Speech is not a natural and inalienable right
It is bought and paid for with Summary and Synthesis

20. Thank you!

22. Appendix