Teaching Writing with “A Cyborg Manifesto”: Using One Conceptually Rich Common Text as the Basis for an Engaged Classroom Research/Writing Assignment

Amira Pierce

doi:10.31719/pjaw.v9i2.257

Prompt: A Journal of Academic Writing Assignments Aug 2025 Open Access

Teaching Writing with “A Cyborg Manifesto”: Using One Conceptually Rich Common Text as the Basis for an Engaged Classroom Research/Writing Assignment

Amira Pierce

Abstract

Historically, in NYU’s Expository Writing Program, we tend to use a pre-selected array of texts as a basis for major essay assignments, to allow students a variety of choices of style and subject matter to engage while maintaining control over the selection. Here I show how using one rich text as the foundation in a major first-semester-writing assignment is useful and interesting for teaching reading and maintaining an overall sense of cohesion and centeredness to the course, and I also demonstrate my process of asking about and exploring this particular practice. My own writing process for this piece – inductive and recursive – mirrors the process I have scaffolded for my students; my own essay – driven by idea more than thesis, structured in conversation with my idea – also mirrors the kinds of prose I encourage my students to craft. It is my hope that the culmination of the following progressive sections shows possibilities for using one foundational, rich text to teach a classroom of students to write an essay that is truly driven by inquiry rather than thesis, one that highlights the process of discovering and creating ideas and thrives in doubt.

Journal: Prompt: A Journal of Academic Writing Assignments
Published: 2025-08-15
DOI: 10.31719/pjaw.v9i2.257
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Topics: writing pedagogy teacher development
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Teaching Writing with “A Cyborg Manifesto”: Using One Conceptually Rich Common Text as the Basis for an Engaged Classroom Research/Writing Assignment

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