Classes

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  • ENGL Internship Assignments, Spring 2026

    Standard Assignments

    • Memo (25%): Using a formal structure, compose a memo to outlining: 1) the expected tasks of your internship experience as you understand them and 2) your educational goals in the completion of that work (ie., how you hope to gain intellectually from your experience).
      • Requirements: business memo format and style (short paragraphs, efficient and direct phrasing), Arial, 12p font, 1-1.5 pages; submitted to D2L; due in Week Four (Fri, Feb. 6, or re-negotiated date).
    • Interview (25%): Compose a reflective interview of your internship supervisor or someone connected to your internship or field. We should come to agreement on the interview subject and the general questions at least one week before your interview. The interview trajectory should follow a specific skill you’re interested in developing during the internship or type of work within your intended field that you’ve not yet been exposed to.
      • Requirements: reflective/professional format and style (can refer to yourself but should abide by journalistic writing standards); Arial, 12p font,1000-1500; submitted to D2L; due in Week Six (Fri, Feb. 20 or re-negotiated date) 
    • Annotated bibliography (25%): Citations and annotations for trade or academic media sources that describe a conflict or debate within your field that you can see evidence of within your internship work. It should begin with a paragraph or two of context explaining your topic and analysis or connections from your research.
      • Requirements: academic format and style (MLA); introductory material 300-400 words; 10 sources in MLA citation format; 100-150 words per annotation (to include a summary, quote, and evaluation); due in Week Ten (Fri, Mar. 20 or re-negotiated date).
    • Reflective portfolio (25%): An organized document wherein you evaluate and narrate your experience, apply learning from your other assignments, and reflect on lessons learned for future professional development. This assignment can be composed of a) six journal-like updates, each at least seven days apart from each other or b) one reflective essay submitted at the end of the semester. Talk to me if you would like me to set up a WordPress publishing space to experiment with when building this assignment.
      • Requirements: reflective/professional format and style (can refer to yourself but should abide by journalistic writing standards); if journal entries, each should be between 150-200 words and submitted as entries in D2L — if submitted as an essay at the end of the semester, it should be 1500-2000 words and articulate 4-6 distinct observations/conclusions from your internship experience submitted in D2L; due in Week Sixteen (Mon, May 4, or re-negotiated date).

    Alternate Assignments

    You may choose one of the following alternate assignments to substitute for any of those above with the exception of the reflective portfolio (which is required). The submission date of these alternate assignments are flexible depending on the timing of the activity on which they are focused.

    • Mock interview and reflection: Schedule a mock interview with Career Planning and Development, complete the preparation materials that they require, attend the mock interview, and debrief with them afterwards to collect their feedback. Compose a reflection on the experience
      • Requirements: reflective/professional style (can refer to yourself but should abide by journalistics writing standards); 500 words; submitted to D2L in place of another assignment.
    • Project management reflection: A review of one of a complicated project you completed for your internship with reflection on your use of project management software (Trello or a similar kanban board application). This assignment works best when you choose a collaborative project that involves the work of other people.
      • Requirements: reflective/professional style (can refer to yourself but should abide by journalistics writing standards); 500 words; submitted to D2L in place of another assignment.
    • Annotated work artifact: Choose an artifact that you composed/constructed for your internship experience and annotate it (textually, visually, orally) to articulate 1) the steps you went through to complete it and 2) how the artifact connects to scholarship related to your intended field.
      • Requirements: submit both the work artifact and 500 words of annotations attached to specific components of the artifact.
  • WRIT 3152 | Communication and Collaboration Protocols

    WRIT 3152 | Communication and Collaboration Protocols

    Photo by “My Life Through A Lens” on Unsplash

    Communication Protocols (on Discord)

    1. Reactions/emojis for “I saw this” or “yes/no” voting.
    2. Use polls for standardized data collection that leads to decision making (picking times to meet, for example).
    3. Use threads when you’re looking to share resources or for more involved conversation.
    4. Remember @name usage; use replies when applicable. One or the other will alert the user (you don’t need both).
    5. Use pins (and turn them off when finished with them); look for pins if you’re uncertain/lost.
    6. Voice channels are useful; I’ve made three of them that any group can use at any time.
    7. Don’t forget the #help channel (both to ask and answer questions).
    8. Turn on notifications for at least: #announcements, @everyone, and your @ mentions
    9. If you get involved in a synchronous conversation (of more than a couple of real-time exchanges), avoid ghosting (leaving the conversation without an explanation).
    10. Thank people for help they provide.

    Collaboration Protocols (during activities)

    1. Give team members at least 24 hours to respond for short or expected requests.
    2. Give team members at least 48 hours for questions that are unexpected or require more thought.
    3. Ask directed questions instead of open ended questions (not: “when is everyone free?”, but: “what is your availability between 8a-12p on Friday, Sept. 12”).
    4. Provided requested answers instead of meandering feedback.
    5. Of course emergencies and unexpected events happen, but plan ahead, not behind by being clear and realistic about your schedule and boundaries.
    6. Don’t let something that is slowing you down slow down your team; briefly explain your situation and empower the team to move on without you.
    7. If you are falling behind in collaboration, reach out to notify me if you decide that you should not be evaluated the same as your team members; this may result in your being pulled from a team and/or given a different assignment, but it’s better for me to know this from you than from your team evaluation.
    8. Make an agenda for a meeting (even if it’s just three short bullet points) and share it; when there is time, it’s usually best to collaborate on an agenda (to invite others to add things).
    9. Identify a note taker for every meeting and post notes
    10. Do not count a meeting if more than one team member is absent.
  • Ethical Image Use for Blog Posts

    Ethical Image Use for Blog Posts

    Image courtesy of sagesolar via Flickr and Creative Commons

    Ethical image use is important for this class; it provides an important arena for distinguishing between what we can do and what we should do (with further connections to digital citizenship as an engaged practice). We’ll talk about the difference between copyright and the “copyleft” movement and the gray space in between.

    In terms of image use in a blog post for this class, by default use only images that are:

    1) owned by you (and cite yourself),

    2) in the public domain with citation (you can find some at Unsplash), OR

    3) licensed under Creative Commons with citation. See Wikipedia’s page on Creative Commons licenses for more on the differences between CC licenses.

    You can always search for Creative Commons licenses at search.creativecommons.org (I recommend using the Flickr database from that screen).

    The image on this page is an example of how to cite images ethically.

    If you would like to use/cite copyright protected images (or you’re not sure), check with me beforehand. Publishing some copyright material is protected under the Fair Use clause, and sometimes I will allow it for class, but I prefer our default practices to be ones that would be legal and safe outside of the university.

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