I somehow (I blame being sick) totally spaced on doing these with my comp students. I meant to have them do them Monday and Tuesday while I grade conferenced with folks, and I just plumb forgot.
My upper level classes DID all do them. I had the Brit Lit Survey and Shax classes do them a couple of weeks ago because I thought it'd be a good refresher as they thought through their unessays. For the class I ended up covering I did it the last day as a positive way to end the class.
Here's my I love One Pagers and why I think you should do them:
- It encourages students to go back through the syllabus, their notes, and the readings and reflect and consider these things through the perspective of big picture at the end of the semester
- You will be AMAZED at what sticks with students. For example, almost ALL my survey students mentioned that Norse =/= Vikings. Also, I apparently throw my hands up like Hell Elmo when I express to them what Hwaet means.
- Drawing is magical. Creating One Pagers is the most focused I ever see my students. They look up reference pictures, they agonize over choosing marker colors. They are INVESTED. I don't think we allow enough of this in classes in general, but especially in college classes.
- I only ask the students to create One Page that represents "what I learned this semester." There are no other guidelines or rules. Each student does it differently. Some prefer lists. Some collages. Some will densely pack their pages, while some like negative space. I think these types of assignments with few restrictions, where the students figure out what is needed, are incredibly valuable. I also think they're great for showing you HOW your students think. Who draws? Who looks things up? Who prefers to depend on text?
- Your students will reveal quirks you did not know you had. If there are phrases you use over and over, those will pop out. When I taught my fairy tale course the phrase "Everything's a penis" popped up again and again. In my defense, we were using psychoanalytic theory and Dundes a lot. The one below is from the class I covered the last two months, where I pretty much spent two weeks telling them all not to panic and that it was all going to be okay.
- It's also really helpful for seeing what students find the most helpful. I teach students to color code their essay drafts: yellow for thesis and topic sentences, green for evidence, blue for explaining how that evidence shows your thesis, and pink for citations. It helps them "see" what they're missing and not.
- Not ALL journalistic citation is bad. BUT my students often have a hard time standing strong with their statements. They couch terms, use passive voice, and emphasize their sources over their own arguments, "Dr. Smith argues that..." I work hard to get them to use and interact with their sources in order to make THEIR argument
- Something that came up again and again in the cover letters of the composition writing folders was some variation of "I learn better when the teacher believes in me." I think it can be easy for us to forget how much believing in our students, as people, and as learners, can mean to them. I think also stressing that their self-worth, and worth as a person, has nothing to do with what grades they earn is really important.
- And finally, it never hurts to hear this...
I think too it's be helpful to have them do them at the end of chunks/modules, to see what they got, what didn't, especially for filling gaps as we move forward. I'm thinking specifically of doing this in my Gender and Lit class in the spring.
While my composition classes did not do one pagers, they did cover letters for their writing portfolios. There were some things that came up again and again.
- They all recognized that the workshop time in class was key (even if they didn't always take advantage of it).
- The relationships I built with them, the class culture we had, was noticeable and appreciated by almost all
- They really "got" the grade conferences, how it helped, how to use it and really liked them
- They clearly understood the essential questions AND what genre was, and what elements made up genre, and rhetorical situations, and how tone, audience, and purpose changes depending on who you were writing for
- Their favorite assignments were:
- Analyzing "Apeshit"/"This is America" to write Rolling Stones articles
- Their final assignment, designing infographic of their choice on any topic they wanted
- A lot liked the historical marker memo, learning about the place they were going to school in
- Stress and require that they take notes on the feedback they receive
- Design like a cheatsheet for grade conferences. While I wasn't going to argue with a student about a grade there were a couple of times where I liked the work but it didn't do several key things. A checklist of some sort will help them prepare assignments AND provide clearer criteria for me
- As the end of the semester neared I slacked on putting material on class notes slides. I need to do better about keeping these up and being detailed
- I also want to do a better job of drawing connections between mentor texts and assignments
Like I blogged earlier, I think overall, given that it was my first semester and there were a lot of moving parts, that it was a good first semester. These results seem to bear that out. I'll be interested to compare the official university course evaluations with these.
Anyway, hand your students some crayons. Give them a day to draw.
Trust me, you'll thank me later.
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