This exercise is fun for the students, and exciting for me. For homework, I have the students peruse the text wrestling book and find two essays they find particularly interesting.
At the beginning of the next class, I distribute magazines and journals to the students, having them pair up and examine what they were given. What is the target audience of the journal? How can we tell? What are the advertisements like? What kind of essays are included in the magazine? How is the magazine laid out? I bring in a variety of magazines and journals, including my mother's Opera News and my boyfriend's The Nation. The students get so into it they wish they had brought in some of their magazines!
After this discussion, I bring the students back to the text-wrestling book, and to the essays they each chose. We find common choices. There are usually two or three "favorites," and then other essays in which a few students show interest. I divide the class into groups, each group with a different essay.
I then make the students editors of and contributors to their own magazine. Each group must produce a magazine somehow pertaining to their essay of choice. If the group consists of students who chose a specific essay, then the students are asked to create a magazine revolving around that essay. I give them liberties and free reign - advertisements, letters to the editor, articles, quizzes -provided their work can somehow relate back to the essay.
The students become invested in an entirely new way with something they create from scratch. Again, they're forced to examine the essay in a continually changing light, searching for new facets and footholds.
The finished products are unique and often times very intriguing.
