It donned on me recently that I have been discussing all the papers one writes in college with my ENG 103 students, but I hadn't actually written one yet this semester for my courses. Of course, the format and expectation for graduate level work is often in the form of discussion posts and presentations, so the absence of "official" paper writing is not to say that no work is being done. That's when I realized the very thing that makes paper-writing so elusive lives in the assertion that a paper is the "official" totem of knowledge. This being midterms week, I did turn in what I would consider my first "official" paper of graduate school. Because there is such an emphasis on the paper, I felt more proud of those 6.5 pages than I did of any contribution so far in the course. I think that's the other problem with deifying the Paper. Surely my participation, discussion posts, and readings accounted for far more than a 1,643 word essay. But in my mind, I couldn't escape that feeling that I had finally accomplished something.
While new methods and project ideas are produced constantly, the Paper will always wear the crown. And there are some logical reasons for that, but I'm wondering if taking the Paper of its pedestal could better engage students and make that incessant blinking cursor less of a villain.
Related to our discussion on multi-modality, I found myself thinking of the various ways to present and assess knowledge. The question I pose to the greater community is: What strategies do you employ to bring paper-writing down to a more approachable level? and How do you equivocate other methods of measuring student achievement, understanding, and engagement? Perhaps we must get back to our roots: Dr. Seuss. "Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!"
This is a really good think, Olivia, and your question is something I've been thinking a lot about lately as I mull over next semester's 104. I like what I've done--an IMRAD Paper, and like you and your Paper, my students were proud of their accomplishments, but I think I can do more. I'm kicking around the idea of an individual IMRAD that is then adapted for a group podcast/wiki/or TED Talks of a common topic, meaning students would have to plan their topics together from the beginning of the semester. We'll see what I think when I start trying to plan the semester. (And I enjoy your graphics.)
ReplyDeleteI don't think I have a good answer for the questions you posed, although I do want to think about them more. Lately, though, I've been thinking about paper writing in terms of tools. I don't think students are always exposed to all the ways they can go about brainstorming a paper, or organizing a paper, or revising a paper. They try to do it with whatever method they used in high school, but there may in fact be a better method they could use. What if one person's secret to organization is in using ten different-colored highlighters, but they are never prompted to try it, and so they decide that they are "bad at writing papers" as a rule? I like how the emphasis on multi-modality is in saying, "Hey, you have a lot of good thoughts about this topic. Try another way of getting them across."
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