I recently tried to do a writing exercise with two groups of students that wasn’t as successful as I’d hoped, largely because I naively expected the students to have done the reading that their professor had assigned, and had based the exercise largely on this false assumption. “Whoa, I am really out of practice,” I thought to myself. “How could I forget that you can’t rely on students to do their homework?” Although these weren’t my own classes, I viscerally flashed back on the frustration I often experienced as an adjunct, when my own students came to class not having done the reading. I hear this all the time from instructors: “They just won’t do the reading!”
Although part of the problem of students not reading may be attributed to their busy schedules, poor time management, or mere laziness, when I try to put myself in my students’ shoes, and think about the times when I have slacked off on doing all of my reading, what it often came down to was that I did not do the reading when it seemed like it was a waste of time. I remember being frustrated when lectures seemed to merely repeat what the texts said, as well as when the readings seemed irrelevant to class discussions, exams, and assignments.
As an instructor, my gut instinct is to say, “But, but, it’s good for you! Trust me!” Or to explain the pedagogical relevance of all the readings on the syllabi. I’m not sure if that is the best strategy, though. I wonder: how can we better convey to our students that there is a reason why doing their assigned reading is important? I have a sneaking suspicion that the answer lies in the creative writing mantra “Show, don’t tell.” That is, rather than painstakingly explaining to your students why it is important for them to do their homework, teach in such a way that your students see for themselves that the texts you have assigned them to read have value.
In my duties as a Writing Fellow, I’d like to make a push for instructors to use writing as a means of “showing” the benefits of reading. According to WAC philosophy, there are numerous reasons why we advocate for students to be writing more frequently in all of their classes. Here’s just one: by writing about what they are reading, students will feel more invested in the texts their professors have assigned, and professors will have written proof that the time they spend putting together a syllabus is not a waste of their time.
I learned to make reading matter by telling students that they will be “quizzzzzed” at the beginning of class and that quizzes are a certain percentage of their final grades. They actually like that. Yes, I have been through it myself: hoping they will find the readings rewarding just like that; preaching about the value of reading in and of itself, switching off for the moment what I affectionately call their American pragmatism; wanting them to read driven by the desire to get a thorough education, etc, etc. No. I have had wonderful students and wonderful discussions, and in most cases the majority of the class did do the reading. Nevertheless, there were always the exceptions, so, I thought low-stakes exercises would be a better idea. And I warn them that even “low-stakes” add up….
Szidonia, did you quiz them at the beginning of every class, or was it random pop quizzes?