Assigning an Assignment

Lecturers! What do we have to do? Students might not realise! They just set an essay title and hope students answer it? Not quite, as lecturers we have to think over what will get a student to think about the module subject. There are learning outcomes that are officially listed and by which assignments are marked. At the start of another academic year we have to create the choice of assignment and they can't be the same as those of previous years! We don't want to let students succumb to the temptation to copy a previous student's work on the same title. So don't forget lecturers have to THINK as well as the students!

We have dealt with Thinking, and starting to Research the subject - on to the choice of assignment! Next - onto the plan and the structure for an essay!

An assignment title has several words that help your essay build a structure, form a plan! Lecturers look for a structure and it is easiest seen in headings. Wait a moment, back track, find those key words. Work out what the aim is. What is the lecturer looking for? Compare those learning outcomes.

Have you ever made a spidergram?

You may call them 'mind-maps'. They help to make you think through all the themes that you need to include. Then you might link one theme with another theme along the way. Add in the resources that match those themes, article tags or book page tags as you read. The mind map grows as you read various sources.

Thinking of it like a spider's web there are different sections but don't get caught in the web! Too many links and you're trapped in confusion. If you are finding overlapping themes that means you may need those web-links! No, not internet links! Just thematic ones. You need to rethink to which section 'that' particular theme belongs.

I have found that working in a linear way is a Western expectation and better marks go to assignments that build the argument that way rather than a faceted way of presenting ideas and then at the end drawing the facets together. A spider's web might give the impression of various facets to be tied together. In effect the Spider plans have to end up as linear plans since we write sequentially. However, some might try to write a middle section first and then topping and tailing it. Be careful though. I do think it is helpful to write something of a conclusion out at the start so you know where you will be going -even if it is edited at the end. Then it will also give you the introduction - a purpose, a definition or three, and an overview of the whole essay; it gives signposts for the reader to follow the argument. So in a web, the spider needs to catch the fly. The metaphor does not work completely as with 8 legs you can't always tell which way is forward! The body isn't as visible perhaps! And we don't like the way spiders move - or I don't! Once you decide which 'leg' goes first and where it is going, then you have the section after the introduction. Give it a heading. Gradually either the web facets, or the spiral it goes around, gives you the plan. Each section builds the argument from definitions and their controversies, the issue under debate, to how you can explain the subject matter. By the end the whole things should tie together with a conclusion, not just a summary of what was said. First things first: your aim. Get that straight and the goal might be yours. What a set of mixed metaphors!

Story time:

Mirabel again sat down to write. Now where should she start? She had done the reading and is still reading round the topic, finding resources suggested by the lecturer's book/article lists but she wanted to get something on paper - 'i.e. laptop file' - to start it? However, a mind map ON Paper might trigger the thinking. Starting with assignment title -Discuss critically the I Ams of John's gospel. She asked herself, "What do they add to the Christological picture of who Jesus is?" Put that in the Centre spot. Now start putting the 7 I ams in,... then the non-predicated I ams (no picture metaphor as in bread or light). note their contexts: who was Jesus talking to? What do they add to what his mission is? What does John present him as 'doing'?

Next? Are there any categories John is building up here? Is it 'Needs' that he meets- we all need bread and light literally to grow; life can't exist without light. Oh but what of the Philosophic light too. An overlap? Door, shepherd, resurrection and THE life way truth life... note all those definitive 'THEs'. Uniqueness. She could go on forever thinking through these picture words but she only had to write 2000 words. So next she needed to limit each section (200 words each I AM and 200 in the intro and conclusion gives 1800- a bit of leeway! "Ah!!" she thought, "and I ought to make enough room for the conclusion". Hence she could write that first and then rewrite it when getting to it and then write the introduction. "Oh my!", she thought, it isn't anything like what I thought writing would be like. But she would get used to it and write what the tutors needed to see she could write! Next time - how do I use the sources?

Adding ketchup might be the next topic!