Why Are We Doing This?

Sometimes I think I might more accurately render it as Why Are You Doing This To Us? Well, here's as many answers as I've gathered.

Class Discussion

Occasionally students have wondered, usually on the course evaluation, why we spend so much time yakking away at each other in class. The primary purpose is to give students time to practice forming and supporting a thesis. This is, after all, what I will want to see in the written work, and you only have one chance to get it right on paper. In class discussion, on the other hand, you may free-associate and fumble without fear. This is why I often start discussion of a difficult text with the question, How did you feel about it? This gives students a chance to express opinions. Once opinions are out there then we have a chance to make theses out of them.

Another major reason for open discussion is so that students may compare their opinions and pool their knowledge. When it comes time to write the final, you will only have your own memory and analytical skills. You can supplement these with notes on what your classmates said about the text in question. Given the observations of several people, you may have not only an analytical position (we can't call Thoreau a feminist author because he didn't deal with the issue at all, for instance) but also some places to look for supporting quotes.

Discussion has an additional perk, from my point of view. It is a strange and wonderful fact that, if I let discussion run and only add the occasional leading question like What symbols did you find?, a lively discussion will almost always cover all the points I wanted to bring out.

Response Papers

Response papers are a different breed of creature than formal papers. Response papers, usually only one or two pages long, are intended to give students a forum somewhere between the freewheeling stream-of-consciousness analysis of class discussion and the rigidity of formal papers in which to express their thoughts. A response paper calls for focus; you only have one or two pages to make your point. At the same time, a response paper doesn't need complex arguments. There isn't room for them. Response papers call for the observations that will form the basis of complex arguments at some later date.

Besides, responses can serve the same review function as reading quizzes and they give us somewhere to start class discussion.

Group Projects

I do realize that very few students really like group projects. Personally, I always disliked them quite passionately when I was a student. So why, you ask, do I make you do them?

At the most basic level, I use these to lower the walls between students. After all, a class in which students talk exclusively to me and never to each other is unutterably boring. For everyone, I imagine. I find that after any kind of group work, be it presentations or role playing or even just making lists, students are more at ease interacting with each other.

This is all to the good, from my perspective, because nothing gets a class moving or is more productive of serious thought about arguments and evidence, than a debate between two students who disagree about something. I love it when this happens. In fact I have, on occasion, considerably startled my class by doing a dance around my desk to commemorate an especially good debate. I have no wish for any student to feel at all threatened, and I do my best to mediate if a debate starts to become personal or too heated, but you really do argue much more authoritatively with each other than you will with me. It doesn't really surprise me, but I believe strongly in the benefits of open, reasoned disagreement. I find this is much more likely to happen after I haul everyone through a group project of some kind.

Besides, you can't tell me that the Debates of the Revolution exercise doesn't liven up the class. Even if the Loyalists do nearly always win.

Oral Presentations

In some cases, as with discussion questions, these simply serve to get issues on the table. I also find oral presentations a good way to introduce supplemental historical or biographical information. The change of faces and voices seems to help, at least a little, to keep people from falling asleep during what amounts to an informative lecture.

Some classes, of course, require me to assign an oral presentation. In those cases, I simply try to make the format as interesting as possible. Using this assignment to let students present paper drafts for peer comment has worked nicely, as has the assignment to read a children's book--with voices. That latter, if it does nothing else, certainly helps to banish stage fright.

Reading Quizzes

The consistency of student reaction to quizzes is phenomenal. Invariably, half my course evaluations say they were worthless and the other half insist they were wonderfully helpful.

The quizzes actually serve two purposes. The obvious one is to encourage everyone to do the reading, since they will have to answer questions about it every week. Less obviously, the quizzes provide a review of that week's discussions. You see, I write the questions based largely on the particular texts or issues I want to (or have) cover(ed) that week. The quiz gives a five-minute refresher.

In-Class Writing

When discussion flags my first alternative is a bit of writing. It lets people get their ideas pinned down on paper, where they can be referred to. It also offers a situation of less pressure than being called upon to answer off the cuff. In addition, since everyone is usually writing on the same topic, it focuses discussion when we go on.

I've found that in-class writing also has an off-label effect, as it were. If I say that people can either talk or write, several students immediately put up their hands. It works almost as well as randomly calling names, though I admit the latter tends to reveal who hasn't done the reading better than the former.

Papers and/or Exams

This is the place where I ask students to show me what knowledge and skills they have acquired. The discursive assignments are where I expect to see the best example each student can offer at that time of a well supported thesis. This is where students can show me that they were listening to the kind of analysis and connections I offered during lecture/discussion and have learned to do things like that themselves. This is where the evidence gathering and analytical skills that (I hope) each student has practiced in class discussion can shine in a thoughtful and polished form.

I'm not indulging in sarcasm. That is precisely what I expect, because I damn well know you can do it if you really want to. I've seen it. So practice, and come talk if you need help, and go do it.

First Posted: 1/6/2002
Last modified: 08/23/08