What's History: Time Enough at Last

At every progressive academic stage, someone tells you to enjoy the one you're in while it lasts, because things are different in the next and you won't have as much time. This is both true and unhelpful while you're in it, because you can't quite see your way to the next stage and don't know how to implement the advice.

The research year of a PhD, which I am currently in the midst of, is one of those times. You get the blessed freedom to direct your efforts in whatever direction you like, which is lovable in theory and anxiety-producing in practice. This week I've been struck by how hard it can be to just sit and work on something, because you are unprepared to do the creative work of writing, and the unstructured work of research has not yet been completed. To find your best ideas, you have to spend at least some time looking at things without knowing quite what you're looking for. Sure, poking around can be a form of procrastination. But it's also frequently the only way you get to a topic that really needs to be explored, or a question that needs answering. 

As a result, I'm invested in coming up with ways to incorporate this kind of time into the courses I teach: time which students can spend unstructured time wandering around the edges of their projects. I think in the next course I teach, I will assign students to spend a half-hour each week poking around a topic discussed in class or a larger final project topic that they're considering, depending on the structure of the course. I'm also considering opening up a class period or optional weekly blocks of time in which students could gather and perform this research or get individual help with the resources available for this sort of exploration.

Why bother assigning unstructured research time? First, I want students to have a chance to realize the importance of this kind of time through practice. Even if you're aware of this, and sit down to write an entire blog post about it, it can be hard to convince yourself that this time is worthwhile. Years of primary and secondary education can have the effect of making both unstructured and creative thought difficult even as the brain is active and learning. This is partially because assignments in high school and college are so focused on deliverables: Create a poster. Write a five page essay. Introduction with thesis, body, conclusion. And these deliverables must be delivered on time: Due Thursday, by 5 pm, in my box, or by midnight on the 23rd, by email only. Add the pressures of taking four other classes, having a job that pays for your food and housing, and engagement in campus or local groups, and it begins to seem like any poking around without a specific goal is a luxury. Why would I take a stroll through the LibGuide for the class when that won't put words on the page? If I had time to wander around the internet, I'd do it recreationally!

I also want to give students as many opportunities as possible to figure out how to use the research resources available to them. It's often fairly late in the game that students get a handle on the kinds of tools available for academic research, even though in my experience they are told frequently about them. I remember a great number of library field trips in my undergraduate classes, but I didn't truly use and appreciate the resources explained to us until I wrote my master's thesis. I still learn of new resources that make me wonder how I did anything before I knew about them. Also, every institution is different, and their practices can make the problem of knowing how to look for things better or worse. For example, the Proquest newspaper database allows the user to search articles from a wide variety of papers from the past several hundred years. To find this from the homepage of the UIUC library website, there is a circuitous path of clicking through LibGuides and headings, and truthfully I think I find it a different way every time. Without the specific link, it's unlikely for someone to stumble upon it. This is where the optional gathering or consulting research periods I mentioned above are particularly helpful.

I also think the time gives students permission to invest in the course in ways that many of them would like to do, but feel that they shouldn't. In undergrad I was, like many students, locked in a battle between my interests and my obligations; I was glad when an assignment gave me an "excuse" to look further at texts that I wanted to understand better, not because I loved to write papers but because, if I had to write one, I wanted to make it service my interests and my development as a person. I wanted to know what I thought about things that I knew I should have thoughts about, and having an assignment which allowed me to explore that made that goal somehow more legitimate in a college culture focused on deliverables. 

This kind of unstructured exploration of a topic has broader applications than just historical research. A similar process can help with all sorts of writing-- my sporadic attempts at keeping diaries and writing fiction have also often faltered because I sat down to write without bothering to reflect on what I wanted to write about. I hope that students will be able to carry the skills they learn from weekly unstructured research to other parts of their lives. 

I wish I had more links to share on the topic, but unfortunately my attempts to search for people discussing this strategy haven't turned up much. If you have any recommendations of other discussions, or thoughts on your own experiences with unstructured research time, I'd love to hear about them.

Related Links: 

Title Talk-- Time Enough at Last.