In the week or two before Spring Break, it’s customary for lab chit-chat to turn towards what we look forward to on break. This spring, as my colleagues told me how they anticipated getting out of town or getting some writing done, I told them that I was looking forward to my students’ midterm. “I’ve never given a midterm,” was the repeated response. Before this semester, neither had I. So I’ve decided to write here about why I gave the midterm and how I used the Lab resources to enhance it.

This semester I’ve had my students teach each other key terms and concepts in rhetoric during weekly student presentations. After each presentation, I plan an activity designed to put the concepts just learned into practice, often using a text I provide or one from their research projects. I designed one such activity on “Ethos in No Impact Man” with specific attention to problems former students have had with ethical appeals.