Current Project: Reflections on a Semester of Weekly One Page Responses

Scattered papers; or, how your desk will look after a semester of one page reflections. 

Another end of semester comes with a round of reflections on what choices you made in the classroom. This was always true when I was a student--thoughts of the journey through a good class always left me sentimental on the last day-- and is even more so now that I am guiding others through the course.When I began developing my own version of Fiction and the Historical Imagination, called Fictionalizing US History, 1620-1920, I knew I wanted to shake up the assignment structure I had seen to this point in undergraduate history classes: a midterm, a final, some multipage papers. That worked well for courses that focused on periods, places, sets of facts, but I knew my course was going to be more about reflection than recollection. What kind of assignment would encourage them to sit with each week of material, turning it over in their minds, while still offering a bit of grace for weeks that did not appeal strongly to them? 

As usual, I looked to my own experiences as a student to sort this out. My advisor through my undergraduate and masters' program, Christine Ruane, had used two-page response papers for most weeks of the course. Every film we watched and article we read, I scoured, looking for material for those endless papers. It was supremely difficult to keep up, but most of us did it. As a result, we not only had great class discussions filled with details from the material and interpretations of its interaction with other parts of the course; I also continue to remember many of the things we read, watched, and discussed when many other details of my undergraduate career have fallen directly out of my brain. Furthermore, I've returned to those two-page papers years later, for comprehensive exam readings, course planning, and research help. 

I decided to do a variation-- one to two page responses per week. I quickly realized that although I had intended them as informal writing practice, I had to have higher standards than just "words about the reading" if I was going to use them as the main writing practice. I assigned no other formal papers-- just these, some group projects with varying levels of writing, and a flexible final project-- so I wanted to have some substantive grading criteria. 

What were my priorities? I decided I cared most about ideas and analysis, about incorporating the things we'd read, and about making connections between materials-- either between multiple things we'd read or watched that week, or between things discussed that week and in previous weeks. Structure and thesis statements would take a backseat to practicing the art of analysis-- what could a text mean, rather than articulating a sure argument every time. 

There were benefits and downsides to this assignment structure. First, the good-- students made connections which surprised and delighted me. They connected sources I'd never thought made a natural pair, or articulated interpretations of films that I hadn't considered. At times, they made great connections to the wider world beyond the classroom-- I got links between course materials and popular video games, other readings, and current events. [Naturally, as you might be able to tell by the mission of this blog, I was thrilled by this.] I also felt like it helped me figure out how everyone was doing with the material-- were the connections I was trying to imply clear, or were people struggling to understand what all of these things had to do with one another?

As might be predicted, the primary downside was the relentless pace of grading. Over the course of the semester I learned to do it more quickly, jotting down the three core elements desired for the reflection on the back of each paper as I read:

• Thoughtful analysis [did you grapple with the texts, pulling out your own thoughts about what they said?]
• Evidence [did you cite specifics from the reading/viewing for the week?]
• Connections [did you put sources in conversation with one another, either within the week or between weeks?]

I'd note the successes and absences of each in the paper, as well as taking a moment to summarize or highlight pieces I thought particularly interesting. At first, this took a lot of investment, but by the end of the semester we all grew used to the format, and grading went more quickly. Being able to isolate these three elements as the key to doing well on the assignment was helpful for all of us.

Overall, I think the short, frequent response is a great tool, though it should be applied judiciously and with a clear set of ideas about what you want to find in them. However, I have to admit-- I am gleefully anticipating a life without a stack of responses every weekend for a while!

What's your experience with short responses as a teacher or student? What kinds of courses or goals are they good for?