In my previous praxis post, I talked about an unsuccessful attempt I made at implementing The “Three Perspectives Guide for Writing” (The Expander) into my ENC 1101 classes. Here I’d like to go into some detail about what I attempted, what happened, and what I think I could improve upon next semester.
I was already struggling with how to get my students to write original and compelling thesis statements when Dr. Mason provided us with The Expander during one of our meetings of ENC 6700. At the time, it seemed like the perfect cure for my ailing classes: a workable heuristic that encouraged expansive thinking and made the brainstorming process more directed and comprehensive.
I introduced the Expander as a mandatory part of the writing process for my students, a worksheet that was due along with their Reading Responses for every paper. The first time I brought it out in class, there were no questions and no complaints; however, what I got back from the students was a hodge-podge of generally misguided attempts. Many of the students believed that the Expander was a tool to help them make sense of the articles they were reading, and so their ability to brainstorm was severely hampered by the topics discussed in the articles. For example, in the first Expander, one of my students listed an article by Matt Richtel as her “topic,” rather than her paper topic. As a result, when she got to the cultural assumptions portion of the Expander, she was unable to brainstorm beyond the assumptions she was able to identify in the article itself.
For many of my students it was very unclear what they were supposed to be doing and why this worksheet would help. I wish I could say that after the first failure I willing threw the heuristic away, but I continued on through two more essays before I finally understood that it simply was not going to work in this context and for this class. By the end, I do think they had a better understanding of what the heuristic was, but they were uninterested in using it in the way I intended. Instead, a few expressed confusion that I was asking them to NOT use the articles, as they actually found the exercise helpful.
One thing I learned, then, was that many of my students were still struggling with feeling like they had a handle on our readings. Next semester, I plan to put a bigger emphasis on understanding and analyzing our readings. Another thing I learned from this experience is that I will need to introduce the Expander from the very beginning (I found this out with the Error Tracking Log as well) if I want it to have any real impact on how the class composes. Finally, I learned that heuristics should be treated more adaptively. I said in my last blog post that I wanted my students to learn to be more adaptable this semester, but I also needed to learn adaptability. Instead of forcing resources on my students, in the future I will make the boundaries and limits of my resources clear. Hopefully, the students will then be able to better understand the heuristics’ purposes and further be able to contextualize their choice to use them.