Making citations fun (for real)

As we all know, it is incredibly difficult to make citations and attributions fun or interesting for students. More often they induce comas. I spend an entire day or week (depending on the schedule) on Quotations, Paraphrasing, and Citations. I want my students to understand how to cite and do not expect them to "look it up" on their own. (That's why I'm the "teacher.") It is a dense jam-packed, fast moving lesson, and I try my best to make it interactive and lively. 

We begin by covering definitions of plagiarism and the consequences (the dull stuff). I always start with the university definition of academic dishonesty and a fear-inducing outline of the consequences to communicate the importance of the lesson and instill terror. Then I explain the multiple forms of plagiarism in greater detail (directly stealing, changing a few words, missing or incorrect citations, and self-plagiarism). We look at examples of original passages and paraphrasing to determine which one is/is not plagiarized or bordering on plagiarism and why. I pass out a condensed Chicago-style guide that displays example citations of the most essential types of sources (books, journals, websites, etc.). I show the difference between bibliography and footnote formats. 

Next we learn how to quote and footnote. I explain the function of quotes is not restating information, but highlighting the most important details. We look at a passage and discuss which sentence is best used as a quote and why (i.e. essential information that should not be rephrased). Then we look at examples to see where the quotes and punctuation go (inside, outside, end), and when to block quote. I also show how to insert footnotes using Microsoft Word. I literally have a former research paper open on screen this entire time showing all these types of quotes and how to use the reference functions. (I have had some many students think that you make footnotes by doing superscript numbers and then writing those numbers in the footers, without knowing that Word does it automatically. At first I laughed, but why would they know that? Why would they know that unless someone showed them, because someone showed me.)

Next we do a paraphrasing exercise. The paraphrasing exercise ends up being really fun, too, actually. I explain the concept of paraphrasing and stress that it is difficult skill. I show a brief paragraph on the screen and I tell the students that we are going to paraphrase it. We read it as a group and then I switch to black screen and tell the class to paraphrase. It is a disaster, intentionally. None of them took notes so they barely remember it or they reuse all the words in the passage. It wakes them all up a little. Then I describe the steps to effective plagiarism - reading it multiple times, taking notes, stepping away, etc., and we try the same activity again. It goes much better the second time. To test their paraphrasing skills. I find one cogent two-page spread from a book with 4-5 clear paragraphs total. I divide the class into 4-5 groups depending on class size and assign each group a different paragraph. They are instructed to read their entire paragraph and condense it into one or two sentences that fully communicates the meaning without using any of the major words in the paragraph. It becomes a challenge to condense everything effectively, and there is a fair amount of debate and questions among the group members. Once the groups have written their sentence, we go around the room in order and read the sentences. It is amazing how an entire page becomes 4-5 sentences and effectively demonstrated the skills of paraphrasing. Sometimes I do this last activity twice sometimes depending on time.

Finally, class culminates with the Citations Game.  I divide the class into two teams.  I instruct students to use their condensed citation style guides during the game. I display a citation on the PowerPoint. I tell them that there is at least one error in every citation. The slide states what type of source the citation is (book, journal, newspaper, film, etc.) and students must search the citation guide to find right example. They frantically flip through the pages and scan the citation on the page and the one on the screen for mistakes. The first person to spot it correctly wins the point and prize. I give extra credit points to the team that wins. I also bring candy and prizes for correct answers.

Also, as a side note, many students say, what is the difference if you put one comma in the wrong place or forget one italicized/underlined portion. My response to this is that historical accuracy is crucial to our credibility. We want others to know exactly where we found our sources and evidence to prove that our research is accurate. Then to illustrate, I come up with a bunch of examples on the board where I misspell their names, miswrite rooms and times, or change their birth dates. I ask them if these mistakes matters and the answer is always yes, thereby proving my point. 

Anyway, I fill the lesson with energy and enthusiasm. I am over the top for citations. I act like citations are the best thing since sliced bread. (Because they are. Uh duh.) It seems dumb, but it works. Students learn citation styles inside and out. Their bibliographies are perfect. And they have a blast. Citations are made fun. Gasp!

Multiple choice, identifications, or essays?

Perhaps foolishly, this semester I decided to let my students choose the format of their exams (within reason).

I have always administered essay exams. I think essays are the only effective method to evaluate historical arguments and trends. I teach in broad strokes and concepts and essays are the only real way to explain big ideas.

But students HATE essays. They HATE HATE HATE essays. Essays cause fear and anxiety. They think essays are harder.

But they're not. Students never see that essays give them more leeway. I have explained over and over again that multiple choice leaves no room for negotiation. With an essay, I can interpret student nonsense. When they write that Teddy Roosevelt created the New Deal to end the Great Depression, I know that they meant Franklin.When they say Douglas MacArthur spread fear and paranoia about the spread of communism in the 1950s, I know they meant Joseph McCarthy. But if it was a multiple choice question and they circled A. Douglas MacArthur instead of B. Joseph McCarthy, they're fucked. Still, the message never gets through to them. Essays mean writing and writing is hard.

I decided to conduct this experiment knowing full well that I would have to include multiple choice questions. I loathe multiple choice. And I mean LOATHE. Multiple choice perpetuates every incorrect myth about historical instruction. That learning history is just about memorizing names and dates. (Which oddly enough, I am terrible at remembering dates.) Memorizing a bunch of random names and dates does not communicate the relevance of history. And truly, multiple choice does not accurately assess what I want my students to learn. I want my students to explain, not to recite verbatim. I would rather have my students tell me how the Great Depression scarred American families for generations than to know what year the SSA was passed.

However, students love multiple choice. They beg for multiple choice. I tried to bias them toward written responses. I reiterated over and over again that I cannot be lenient with multiple choice. Multiple choice is right or wrong. But here I am, writing multiple choice questions.

So to gauge student responses, I created an online survey that listed five types of questions and asked students to rank them in order of preference (www.surveymonkey.com/s/MQ7KBPC). And no surprise, multiple choice won. I decided to include a mixture of multiple choice, identifications, and essays, as a sort of experiment. I have a few findings.

First, I have literally never included multiple choice question on a test before. As a result, I had no idea how much work it was to write multiple choice questions. Turns out, I hate multiple choice questions even more than before. I discovered that multiple choice just shifts the workload. Writing multiple choice puts all the mental burden and work onto me up front. And writing the questions is tricky. They need to be hard, but not too hard. Complicated, but not too complicated. Clear and understandable but tough enough. It's a nightmare. But then in the end, the grading is a breeze. The work is all done up front with multiple choice.

Writing essay questions is tough, but different. When envisioning essay questions, you think about the huge range of information covered across multiple lectures and imagine how students can connect the material and concepts. The bottom line is, essays require them to explain the information. Essays put the onus on the students. Essays are harder for the students. It's true. Essays are harder because rather than simply guessing or picking whichever answer sounds familiar, the students need to show they understand the material independently.

But then, in the end, essays are more work for me too. Because of the grading. Ugh. The fucking grading. I have to read all those essays. And they are something. Some essays make me have that moment like the teacher in Christmas Story, while some make me question my entire career.

The other fascinating finding is that all the three types of questions scored exactly the same on average. Meaning, the mean of multiple choice questions, identification, and essays was almost exactly 44% in all three classes. This is not to say that all students scored the same. Some students BOMBED the multiple choice and NAILED the essays. Or vice versa. Or got equal grades among all three. It was just fascinating.

I guess the method of evaluation is all three. I do not want one group of students to fail because of the essays or another to fail because of the multiple choice. Multiple evaluation methods allows multiple methods of success for the students.