Original Assignment Concept Created by Prof. Ellie Bunting and Prof. Martha Ambrose (Shared with Permission)

FSW's online LIT 2000 course features an infographic assignment in which students have an opportunity to strike out on their own and apply poetic concepts to a poem of their choice that has not been read up to that point in the class. Students conduct research on the poet, making use of class and library resources in the process, and then create a visual analysis and analog of the poem through an infographic. This approach provides students with an easy avenue for accessing a type of writing that they often find extremely intimidating. Aside from some basic parameters, students also have complete freedom when they choose their poet, poem, and project tone and layout. Because poetry itself is a form of writing that calls so strongly to an individual's own values, beliefs, lived experiences, etc., students instinctively move to poets and poems that speak to them. In this way, the project quickly changes from an intimidating assignment to one that students enjoy and dedicate a great deal of time to. In short, the infographic effectively tricks students into learning more about and demonstrating their knowledge of an important and challenging form of literature, and it can have similar applications in courses of all disciplines.

 

I ask students to use Piktochart to create their infographics. Piktochart is a free online program that is accessible and easy to use and allows for a number of different data visualizations. Teachers can also have students create infographics with Word (the original program used for this assignment) or Canva, among other programs. 

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