Day 7 of Classes

Research Cartography

That's what I call it for my research writing class this semester. I designed the class to be a quest for knowledge, with a path through the land of Hysonia. 

Linear planning for writing has never felt comfortable for me. Outlines of the sort I had to create starting sometime in elementary school and all the way through high school - you know, the ones that use Roman numerals and Arabic numerals to provide an orderly plan for a paper - always felt unnatural. Creating them was a chore. My brain wanted to skip ahead, to dance backwards, to jump from one spot to another.

The first time I created a concept map was wondrous.

So, as I taught research writing semester after semester, I had my students writing literature reviews - using just two or three articles. I provided those standard linear outlines - two of them with different ways to organize the writing, expecting that most of my students had linear ways of thinking, that it was the dominant form of thinking.

Only they rarely managed to create synthesis - which was the whole purpose (or a primary purpose, anyway) - of the assignment. I wanted to see them question the prevailing ideas on their topic, making connections, finding contradictions, but seeing that in student writing was rare. It was frustrating, but rather than getting irritated with the students, I looked at my own practice. After all, when most of your students are failing to accomplish the task you set for them, it is probably not their fault.

I examined how I was teaching them synthesis and experimented a little. I brought in Epic Rap Battles of History. Using this to demonstrate the concept of synthesis was fun, for me and my students. They got it, they could replicate it, but they did not fully transfer the knowledge to their literature reviews. More showed synthesis than before, but they were still in the minority.

So I scrapped the assignment and decided to approach this an entirely new way. Behold, the Literature Review Poster! I collaborated with my library partner-in-crime Amy Pajewski, and we found a succinct 6-step method for creating literature reviews. I took that and made it a visual project. Students met at the Innovation Media Center (IMC) instead of the classroom. There, we had access to crafting supplies and could stretch out and use large tables for our work.

I had students find the primary themes in their peer-reviewed articles, print the articles, play with scissors (cutting out quotes which they found important), gluing the quotes to large poster paper, then writing and drawing all over it. I had them choose one color for writing connections, places where articles agreed with each other. Another color was for differences, conflict. Yet another was for the questions that came to their minds while comparing the articles. They repeated this with the thesis or purpose statement of each article and their methodologies. Essential in the process - keeping track of which quote came from which article, as they would likely use these in their writing later and would need citation.

A few professors in the English department have seen me working on this project with students, primarily when they come in for observations for my teaching evaluations. At least one asked if they could steal the idea for their classroom - of course! Use it. If you are reading, you have my full permission.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that when we started working on a literature review in my doctoral courses and they told us to map our review with the emerging themes, I was amused. I had even starting my own mapping in advance, as it was already forming in my head and I needed to make sure I captured those ideas before they ran away. I used the concept I created for my students, with only an inkling that this was pretty much what we would be doing for class.

And here I thought I had so been original in my idea.

Unlike the work I am engaging in now, I do not then have my students write a full literature review. They demonstrate their grasp of synthesis and their understanding of the articles by creating the poster. Sometimes I have them create it digitally - pretty easy on Google Slides.

As I gazed around the room last night, seeing my classmates work on easel paper on the walls, I thought of my own students, and how fascinating parallel development is.

By the way, if you want to work on digital mind mapping, I highly recommend LucidChart. My Literature Review mapping in progress:

An Aside - An Ode to Research Writing

 I am in my class right now, modeling writing while my research writing students write. The English department asks students in the course to write their own definition of research writing which evolves over the course of the semester, becoming more detailed and nuanced, including references to what they learned in class and read.

Rather than engage in other writing of my own, I decided I would contemplate what I am asking them to do - create a personal definition of research writing which references all I have learned in the various courses on writing that have been part of my education.

Students are often amazed when I tell them I struggled with writing when I was their age.

Creative writing was never a problem. Tell me to write a poem, a story, a personal essay, and I could always jump right into drafting. Research writing though... that was another story. (see what I did there?) I could do the reading, find quotes, paraphrase, summarize, but then putting it all together was where I came to a screeching halt. Sometimes literally. I am sure my mother and husband can both recollect times when I knew exactly what I wanted to say, or had some idea anyway, but could not get that from my brain to paper or screen.

It was easier when I approached it creatively, but that would sometimes result in an instructor handing back an initial draft with a B or C in bold red ink at the top, telling me that I needed to write more professionally, more academically, that research was not the place for this voice, this style.

Respectfully, I disagree, my instructors of yore.

While there is certainly a time and place for me to pull out the academic voice buried deep within my head, there is always room for my creative, weird self to come through. After all, this is my writing, right? It should sound like it comes from me.

My students quickly learn that I am weird and that I embrace my quirkiness and put it on full display in and out of the classroom.

And there was the root of my initial struggles with research writing. Teachers, instructors, were asking me to deny myself, to take what for me is an intricate weaving, with all the messy parts on the back, and translate it into a linear structure which is anathema to me. Nothing about my brain is linear. Ask me to write a concept map of what is going on in my head and I will fill every blank part of the page with tiny writing, lines connecting, overlapping, twisting to show how thoughts emerge from odd leaps in logic.

Granted, I did have instructors who embraced my weird, quirky self and marveled at what my brain produced. It was a poetry professor who talked to me about the leaps of logic she would see on the page which were unique and wonderful, like no one else's writing. I have Laura to thank for allowing me to write my Philosophy of Teaching as a poem rather than an essay. Now a colleague, she still remembers that and we have talked about that choice we both made to allow me to express myself the way my brain works.

What works for me? An amalgamation of the creative and the academic, finding joy in data and delving into the rhetorical significance within an interview or in autoethnography.

I am not saying that I see research writing as poetry - or perhaps I am, though in a metaphorical rather than literal sense. There is a delicate dance in research writing, in weaving together my thoughts and their thoughts and new observations and data, of discovery and sharing what so fascinates me. It does not have to be dry and dull, like many of my students expect at the start of the semester. 

The most effective research writing expresses passion for answering a burning question. It wedges its way into an existing conversation and yells out, "but what if....?" Research writing has the potential to change the world.

When I became a teacher, that was my goal. I wanted to change the world. I wanted to open my students' minds to their potential to be kind, thoughtful, critical thinkers who could assess information and ask those burning questions. This has not changed. If anything, it has grown stronger, sharpened to a fine pencil point which I can use to sketch out a future unlike the world we now live in. 

Research writing and poetry. Creativity and quantitative data. They can coexist on the page. They can take the weird quirkiness of my brain and form a new portion of that ongoing conversation which invites you in to see the world as I do and leap through logic with me.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ewian/25390760215

Day 6 of Classes

 It is almost mid-term, but I find that this is not the stress-point of the semester. Week 10 is when the semester becomes really difficult. That is the week when it feels like the semester will never end, when there are so many assignments and so little time, and still five weeks to go. This applies to students and professors both - the writing and the grading. It piles up and this is when the pile teeters and threatens to fall over, burying you in words.

The Simpsons: Season 3, Episode 4

This episode of The Simpsons comes to mind, with Principal Skinner in his garage, trapped under fallen stacks of newspapers. To keep his sanity intact (it is almost a week before anyone finds him) he bounces a basketball, counting the bounces, and then tries to beat his score.

While it is a digital stack of writing looming on the horizon - now both writing that I have to produce and writing that I have to grade - this potential exists. Historically, my two reactions to being overwhelmed by either sensory input or tasks which I have to complete were to lash out or become paralyzed. I've done some serious self-work to stop lashing out. Among other reasons, I did not want to lash out at my children, or at students. Paralysis is still out there, though, where my mind freezes and I cannot focus on anything.

So, what have I done to ensure that the Week 10 peak does not deprive me of oxygen? 

One way I am taking care of myself to make sure I do not spend all of Thanksgiving break ignoring my family and working intensely has been keeping on top of grading. This semester has been better than any other where that is concerned, perhaps because my workload is much heavier.

I am also making sure that I enjoy time with my husband and children. I remind myself to connect with them in a significant way every day. One of my high priorities is to make sure that doing this doctorate does not result in me disconnecting from my family.

Luckily - or not depending on how caught-up on work you are - once Week 10 passes it is like time speeds up and the end of the semester is there before you know it.

Day 5 of Classes

 (Sorry - no entry for last week, conferences with professor and asynchronous class)

But while those conferences and distance learning were going on, I was creating this image in my head as I thought about gathering information.

You stand in a vast field which has been planted with many types of grains. All around you there are tall stalks of wheat and rye, sorghum and corn, barley. Some of it is easy to recognize - separating out the corn is easy - but others are similar in appearance, especially if you are not accustomed to identifying grains. You only need one type of grain, though. So, how do you find it and separate it from the others in this vast field? Taking a scythe to the field, cutting it all down, and sorting by grain would not only waste a tremendous amount of time, but what are you going to do with all the grain you do not intend to use?

Eventually, after considering several different methods, you realize you entered the field without enough knowledge. So you retreat and find all the identifying characteristics you need to know which stalks of grain to cull from the field.

Research can be like that.

There are vast databases of articles. You can wade into them with a question, and in return get flooded with thousands of articles, many of which are irrelevant to what you really want to know. This is why it is so important to have a clear idea of what you want when you go searching for articles. If you know the terms which apply to your articles, then you can sort through that mass of articles to find those which you need.

This usually happens for me without much thought. I mull over ideas for weeks, months, before I go into my university's library system to find sources. That mulling refines my thinking and gives me narrowed search parameters. I still end up with more articles than I need, or sometimes with not enough from a search to confining, but I am ready to redefine and continue.

Some call that mulling procrastination.

I have been prone to procrastinate throughout my years of schooling. I can recall many all-nighters full of anxiety, frustration, and sometimes tears. It took years for me to reconcile myself with procrastination, to stop condemning myself for a pattern of behavior which I could not break.

Eventually, I learned to embrace the procrastination and see the value within it. All the time I am putting off a task, my mind is working on it, mulling, tumbling it about like rocks to polish them into a beautiful shine. All this work makes the task ahead easier to accomplish.

With this knowledge and acceptance of my thought and work patterns, I came to understand that I could put off tasks without anxiety, so long as I assure I have a block of time to complete them before I need to pass them over to someone else.

Instead of, "Why did you wait so long, don't you know it's due tomorrow?" I can tell myself, "Okay, you've been contemplating this for days, weeks, and now it is time to commit the hours you need to complete the work."

It has been freeing, beautiful.

It allows me to pour over the mass of articles early in the process, get them ready, and set them aside until I need them.

It helps me plan ahead, knowing how much time it takes me to write a given amount of text.

Cross your fingers that it continues to work with this doctoral process.