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: