In a humanities course, how do you ensure that a majority of the students are doing the assigned readings for a majority of the class meetings? Here are some common methods:
- Compile a reading list of young adult fiction such as Harry Potter or Twilight
- Give quizzes on a daily or unpredictable schedule
- Call on students randomly to answer questions about the reading
- Make class participation (read discussion) a significant part of the grade
- Assign written responses on the readings
In my experience, method #1 is not always applicable. Method #2, meanwhile, is somewhat effective but can lead to resentment when students who believe that they are doing the reading are not doing well on the quizzes, which will happen if the quizzes have enough specificity to stump all of the non-readers. As for method #3, it will probably be effective for the first half of the term, after which point the shame of botching an answer is likely to wear off. I find that method #4 is not effective even in a discussion-based class because, for most students, grades only work as a motivation when they can be tied to some specific performance or effort, such as a test or a paper.
The final option, “assign written responses on the readings,” is well suited for instructors looking to increase the amount of writing in the course. The fundamental question is whether the response should be prompted or unprompted. Sometimes the choice of medium relates to this question. In a forum or learning management system, instructors can post a question or a set of questions to which students can respond and these responses can be either private, visible to the class, or public. On the other hand, if students maintain their own blogs, then in keeping with the authorial and creative spirit of that medium, their posts will likely not be written in response to specific questions from the instructor but rather to share their own insights and connections.
I first assigned reading-blogs in my Winter 2012 Internet Culture course, where students were asked to post twice a week. Their posts, for the most part, consisted of mere summary and personal reaction, so for the Fall 2012 section, I reduced the frequency of assigned posts to one-per-week and increased the value of each post. This time, the posts were more comprehensive and inspired. This success cemented my plan to make a weekly reading blog part of my Winter 2013 Introduction to Writing and Digital Publication class. Although the students had roughly the same credentials, the posts improved again, often incorporating critical insight and drawing connections between class readings or to outside examples. The improvement in the quality of student posts over these three courses can also be attributed to the gradual refinement of the Instructions and Rubric as well as the growth in the number of good examples. The links below are portals to the student blogs.
Introduction to Writing and Digital Publication
How do reading blogs impact class discussion? Blogs are similar to forums in the sense that students may be weary of the reading and/or the topic by the time they get to class. It takes effort and engagement with the material to write a solid post. But unlike forums, individual blogs do not provide for a discussion with other readers on an equal footing. Even though I require students to link to each other’s blogs and comment on each other’s posts, the blogs implement a divide between authors and readers. So I find that I often have to ask students to briefly present their posts during class. This approach usually gets students talking and sometimes even debating.
Another positive aspect of blogs is that they are public and thus the students know their posts can be read not only by their classmates but by anyone who happens across them. The greater visibility persuades most of the students to shoulder a greater responsibility for the quality and accessibility of their writing even when the choose to write under a pseudonym or anonymously.
Accompanying the benefits described above, there are at least a couple drawbacks to reading-blogs. First, they are a major investment of student time and writing energy so they are not a wise addition to a class that already has a full complement of projects, especially writing projects. Second, assessment of blogs is also time consuming and because students are writing posts periodically, instructors should ideally give them feedback periodically.