After listening to Bonnie and Aaron, I toyed with the idea of handing out a survey questionnaire to my students. I thought of asking questions such as: Do you feel more comfortable writing open form prose or closed form prose? How easy or difficult is it to follow the rubrics mentioned in your syllabus when writing a) open form essays b) closed form essays? Is it easier to have a guideline in the form of rubrics or would you prefer to write down your thoughts/opinions on the topics/subjects your own way? Having considered these questions, I realized, these are exactly the issues I discuss with them in every class, albeit in a different way, when I explain the essay topics to them, help them brainstorm through discussions and offer them answer prompts. I also realized that their answer sheets are in themselves the best possible answers to my queries. If they are collectively (and not as stray or exceptional cases) conforming to rubrics easily when tackling a certain genre of writing and not another, then that in itself answers the research question.
I also realized that it might confuse and perhaps scare the (mostly) 17-19-year-olds in my class if I ask them these thought-provoking questions which are, to my mind, more suitable for slightly older students (graduate students would probably provide more fruitful answers if they were surveyed). Keeping my student profile in mind, I finally decided that textual analysis of assignments is the best method to adopt in my research. I plan to use every student in my class as a case study and analyze their writings closely to identify areas where they find it most challenging to meet the demands of rubrics. So I think my heuristic is: How to customize rubrics for the different genres of writing?
Regarding biases in research, being a new teacher I suppose I had entered the classroom with fewer pre-conceived notions than I will when I walk into the same room next semester. In fact, I had unquestioningly accepted the department's "trait analysis sheet" which describes the grading rubrics. It was only through the experience of grading that I discovered the challenges mentioned above. I did speak with a few of my colleagues on the subject, and they said the best way to deal with it is to just turn in the grades without getting into these details. "That is how it has worked for years," said a colleague. So why topple the apple cart? Well, that's another research question right there. Does it sound like this question is more suitable for a survey if I were to send it to other teachers?
Footloose and Shutter-happy
1 comment:
Your instinct about audience appropriateness might have more to do with language and terminology choices than with content of the questions. I think students can and should think about their own comfort levels with writing and certain forms of writing, but thinks like "open form essay" might not be their preferred terms, but then again they might if that's the language of your classroom.
The real issue then might be in giving them a survey when they might already know how you'd like them to answer. There's a power inequity and a personal relationship in play that allows for some problems.
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