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Cutting Edge Issue
Brief Description: This assignment asks students to research and discuss the most (or one of the most) exciting, potentially revolutionary, cutting-edge developments in their field.
The student's task is to research and discuss the most (or one of the most) exciting, potentially revolutionary, cutting-edge developments in her field. The designated audience is a group of high-school students who are considering majoring in the student's field; the rhetorical task is to get these prospective students excited about the knowledge they can make in the field.
In my experience with this assignment, it's often been necessary to point students toward the disciplinary faculty in their fields for some initial guidance on possible topics. (This can be useful to the students in itself, because many students, I've found, are so concerned with putting out immediate fires that they seldom speak with their professors about big ideas in their fields.) Deliverables for this project can vary; I generally have the students do a brochure in Microsoft Publisher or Quark, but oral presentation or poster presentation can also work well.
