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The importance of a little wiggle room
By elise heffernan
On the last day of our seminar, I finally asked the question that had been frustrating me for the whole seminar. How could we implement the lessons we had learned if we were TAing a class with a predetermined syllabus? Heidi responded with the advice I needed: it’s okay to stretch the limits of a set syllabus. As someone who chafes against being told what to do, this was the wiggle room.
In Fall 2020, I had the simple resolution: try to keep my class engaged. We were still learning how to teach and learn online, so I was keeping my expectations reasonable. I was still stuck within the syllabus, but I was able to add discussions and short writing for comprehension exercises. Our syllabus had two scaffolded scientific manuscripts and was supposed to be mostly pre-recorded lectures. I added journal article discussions thinking that the students could build up papers to cite in their manuscripts and at least (sort of) get to know their fellow students. The students struggled with online learning and the fact that the data we were analyzing was just given to them (the real fun of Ecology Lab is going in the field and collecting the data). But overall, I was as pleased as I could have been with my first steps to stretch a syllabus
Then in spring 2021, I got my chance to recalibrate the class. I took over as head TA, and the power to change the class was just too tempting. I had to find a way to meet the requirements of the second writing requirement class, while attempting to better adapt the lab to online learning. So, with the mixed enthusiasm from the professors in charge of the class, I restructured our lab and implemented many of the lessons we learned in the Teaching of Writing Seminar. We still did weekly article discussions and peer-review, but I took the two bulk labs (that the two manuscripts were about) and broke them into their non-living (soils and water quality) and living (trees and stream invertebrates) components. Rather than writing two fully scaffolded lab manuscripts, the students wrote a short (3 page) lab note on each of the four new labs. The lab notes were easier assignments meant to display their thinking on the topic and start exercising their science clear writing muscles. My fellow TAs and I focused on correcting the science and would give feedback on argument structure. The final paper connected the corresponding living and non-living labs (trees and soil or invertebrates and water quality) in a full scientific manuscript (abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion) that were peer-reviewed. The lab notes had served as a quasi-scaffolding, and the students were able to write up their rough drafts in no time.
The changes we made to the lab notably improved student writing. Previously, the students would get lost in the connection between the living and nonliving components of the lab. By separating the concepts, they were able to assess them independently, and the manuscript became an exercise focused on this connection, rather than understanding the individual parts. The adjustments also did not increase TA or student workload! We took a “work smarter, not harder” approach.
The 2021-2022 school year, we finally got to leave online learning and test out the new lab structure in person. Fully realized, the students were engaged and their writing improved dramatically from the original syllabus. The transformation of the lab is one of the things I am proudest of achieving in my tenure at UVA. We took an overlooked (and quite frankly boring) requirement and made it engaging and fun for students (and TAs) again.
I am not sure I would have had the courage, let alone the pedagogical arguments to restructure the class had it not been for the Teaching of Writing Seminar (TWS). As TAs, we are seldom given the opportunity to help to develop a class. The objective in the new version of the lab was to emphasize field work and the science within a logical flow of lab topics followed by shorter and more focused writing assignments. Since my decidedly lackluster initial meeting with the professors in charge of the class, our ecology lab is now well received by students and professors. The TWS taught me how to use writing to reinforce student learning and how to build a better class. But most importantly, it gave me the wiggle room I needed to change my class for the better.
2023 TA perspective addendum: From a student learning perspective, I have been confident that the changes I made were an improvement; but I had worried about making more work for my fellow TAs. The class has 5-6 sections per semester and most grad students in my department haven’t had the luxury of teaching the same class every semester (I have only because I unofficially/officially took over). Some steps I’ve taken to lighten the burden on my fellow TAs is to provide ppts and scripts for every week, a communal google drive with all the materials, a weekly touch base meeting to make sure everyone is on the same page and to go over pitfalls for the week, and a cheat sheet of article summaries for the papers we assign. I had assumed this was standard for a team taught class, but have been informed that Ecology lab is actually one of the best organized. The degree of organization means that I have lighten the pre-teaching burden, so the TAs can focus on their time in class with students and put their out of class TA hours into grading. I am definitely a biased reporter on this topic, and as Head TA spend an extra hour or 2 every week getting organized for everyone, but the benefit to balancing TA hours and effort while still improving the class has ended as a net positive. This semester I am stepping back as head TA as a light beta test to see how the class runs without me in charge, but the hope is that the legacy of organization can keep the effort low for all TAs in the future.
The Liberating Relief of Clear Expectations
By Carrie Cifers
My first semester as a TA, I was responsible for 60 students in a 120 student Religious Studies Introductory course. I was thrilled to step into the classroom weekly with 20 students at a time, and try my hand at lesson planning and implementing thought-provoking discussions on some of my favorite topics. Upon accessing the syllabus and speaking to a few colleagues, I soon discovered that this particular course was notorious among students for its academic rigor, and notorious among graduate students for its nearly full-time demands. For the students, not only were there 1,000+ years of historical content to absorb, but each week, “new” scholarly methodologies for studying the material were introduced and applied in the classroom. In addition to a midterm and final that included both short and long essays, the students were assigned eight essays over the course of the semester (but only the six “best” would count towards their grade). This meant that (in addition to my own course work, parental demands, lesson planning, teaching, and lecture attendance) I was responsible for grading 480 student papers, 60 midterm essays, and 120 final exam essays that semester. I tried not to think about it and take things one day, one week at a time.
By the third week of the semester, their first essay paper was due. While there were some guidelines offered, the expectations for the essay structure and content were mostly unstated. It soon became clear that the students—mostly first years—differed in their assumptions about what an essay entailed, what purpose it served, or—for those who grasped onto the unspoken expectation of argument-crafting—how to present an argument. The instructor sat down with myself and my fellow TA and indicated that we should be very, very harsh with this first round of essays. Vague thesis statements, thesis statements that showed up only in the conclusion, a lack of proper evidence or citations, and overall “poor writing” should be heavily penalized. We uncomfortably obliged. As you might expect, many students were incredibly frustrated and upset upon receiving their essays. While some made appointments for one-on-one meetings, others just stormed out of the classroom while shooting me dirty looks. I couldn’t blame them. They had written what had been perfectly acceptable in other disciplines or other academic environments. Some of them had never failed an assignment in their lives, and as I handed back their essays, I couldn’t help but feel that I was the one failing. Over the semester, the expectations for essay writing became more and more apparent to them through feedback, individual meetings, and a writing seminar led by us TAs when we were six weeks deep (!) into the semester. For the majority of students, their writing skills and essay grades improved. Yet, I couldn’t help feeling like other pedagogical approaches would achieve the same results with less psychological discomfort (for students and instructors, alike). As a hired hand, however, in a precarious position in which my employers determine whether or not I proceed in the program I had sacrificed so much for, how could I implement change?
In August 2020, I took part in the Graduate Seminar for the Teaching of Writing. At this point, I had been a TA for two years, and was starting my third. I was emboldened by my experience and by the experiences of others in the seminar to draft a clear grading rubric for use in the same course for the upcoming Fall semester. The rubric would allow the TAs to grade their student groups as equally as possible, and the course-specific expectations would be known by the students up front. I (humbly and graciously as possible) suggested we use the rubric, and used the clout of the seminar’s officialness to win over the instructor to the idea. It made a world of difference. There was still a lot of “fumbling” in the beginning, as what qualified as meeting the rubric expectations became more clear when students failed to meet them, but the teacher-student-writing relationship was, on the whole, far more positive. I look forward to sharing more details in the seminar about the writing rubric I developed and implemented!
Before the storM
by Evan Welchance
We assign essays and then we wait. While we harbor hope that our students grasp the task ahead of them, at the end of the day they must discover the unique rhythm of the long-form writing process on their own. That space between the beginning of the semester and the first stack of papers has special significance; it’s where we have the most control over the way that students engage with the writing process. During my time in the Graduate Seminar on the Teaching of Writing, I learned a number of concepts that allowed me to engage with students more effectively before that first flurry of major assignments.
Over the course of the seminar, we talk a lot about “scaffolding” – the idea of breaking up bigger assignments into smaller ones so as to help students develop the skills we expect them to display in their larger projects. That’s why I like to devote a session of class to longer papers as early as possible. Doing “paper day” early has multiple advantages. It allows students to spend more time on their papers, it allows you to integrate more writing activities into class before the due date, and it encourages a greater number of students to visit you during office hours.
For paper day, I draft up a document detailing procedural stuff like spacing, word count, font size, etc. (students always ask). In the document, I also try to give them pointers for writing papers in general. In philosophy, this might look like: “Pick a line in our primary reading that bugged you, and try to argue why you think it’s weird.” “Skim secondary literature when brainstorming paper topics.” And so on. I think that going over this document in class helps them internalize the structural features of their long-form writing assignments.
From the skills I learned in the Seminar, I developed a couple of in-class activities that help strengthen my students’ comprehension of these structural features. In most philosophy papers, we ask students to (i) explain a view, (ii) present an argument for or against that view, and (iii) respond to an objection to said argument. Learning one of these skills does not immediately enable grasp of another, and many students don’t know how to separate them conceptually at all. One thing I try to do, then, is to make such features as explicit as possible. When I discuss sample papers in class, I spend a lot of time clearly labelling which part of the paper falls under (i), (ii), and (iii), respectively. To reinforce this, one can then ask their students to categorize these features in other sample papers.
In another class session, I ask students to bring in the first paragraphs of their essays, even if they’re unsure how to proceed. (Note: It’s pretty incredible how many problems one can solve just by having students revise their introductory paragraphs.) I pair students together and have them read over their partner’s first paragraphs. After doing so, I pick out a few students and ask them what their partner’s papers are about; how their partner plans to argue for their thesis; and what kind of objection their partner considers. If one’s first paragraph doesn’t answer these questions, I tell them it’s a place on which they should continue working. I find that this exercise naturally directs students towards a clearer, more direct writing style.
I also encourage all of my students to stop by office hours if they’re struggling to pick writing topics. By starting early and encouraging them to chat with me, I think students start to see writing as a process rather than Something To Do The Night Before. In one-on-one conversations, it’s much easier to help students understand what a solid paper idea looks like, and how they can find one by paying attention to their own interests within the course. And by looking at particular chunks of their writing, one can also help direct their prose towards the genre conventions of one’s discipline.
Some of this is specific to philosophy, but I think that most of these pointers generalize to any course where long-form writing assignments play a central role. I owe these pointers to my time in the seminar; my experience here helped me understand how and when to engage with student writing in a way that facilitates stronger work.
ADAPTABILITY
BY LAUREN VAN DE HEY
*Examples of materials mentioned in this blog post are linked in-text and here.
I took the Teaching of Writing Seminar (TWS) in the summer of 2020—the summer before my first semester TAing. Even with the preparation I had because of TWS, my first semester was overwhelming. Trying to figure out how to TA and apply the TWS lessons to a content course was a lot and I can guarantee I spent too long on everything TA-related. Looking back, I am thankful that I struggled initially because I approached that course (Mass Media and American Politics) and every course since with the mindset of fitting writing in wherever I can.
Mass Media & American Politics—an essay-focused course
In that first semester, I implemented a scaffolding assignment, including peer review, for one of the two course papers and a three-week discussion post assignment that allowed the students to interact closely with the readings and each other through writing. Those two assignments made it into my sections’ 15% participation grade, but several other ideas I had did not make it in. I TA’d that same course again in Fall of 2021 and while I still did a version of the discussion post assignment (2 weeks this time), I decided to do an opt-in peer review instead of the full mandatory scaffolding assignment. As a supplement, I added a peer review/self-review checklist for each of the two main papers that gave examples of strong and less strong thesis statements and outlined common errors. In addition, I gave a not-very-polished hour-long best practices in writing video in which I pointed out strong and weak thesis statements, topic and concluding sentences, and integration of supporting evidence using parts of 4-5 anonymized essays from the previous year’s essays I had graded.
Was this better than the previous arrangement? I’m not sure; parts were better, but mainly this was an adaptation I felt best suited my current sections’ needs. The first time I TA’d the course, we were all still trying to figure out zoom and I had 3 sections, totaling 60 students. The second time I taught it, we were in-person and I had 4 sections, totaling 80 students. I was not willing to read and grade 80 scaffolding assignments, even for C/NC, for that many students. So, I made two peer review/self-review documents and a video instead. The interesting thing is that I only realized I wasn’t going to create the scaffolding assignment two weeks into the course when I asked them to turn in a freewrite they’d done in discussion and it took much longer to grade than I had anticipated. I had to think critically about what would be most useful for them but also balance that against what was feasible for me.
American Congress—a short-answer-focused course
I TA’d the American Congress in Spring 2022 and will TA it again this spring. Unlike Mass Media, the American Congress is not an essay-focused course. The midterm and final take-home essays in the Congress course are more akin to take-home exams with short answer question(s) and do not weigh essay structure or style nearly as heavily. This course also has five two-page reading response papers worth 50% of the grade (each worth 10%). Students could choose political science journal articles from a set chosen by the professor and analyze them. Since reading and analyzing the journal articles comprised a large portion of the grade, we did an in-depth causal inference and research design primer and I walked them through an academic article as an example. We had to do this several times both in section and in office hours. I paired these explanations with many small freewrites that asked them to think, pair, share analyzing particular articles they were required to read for class (with specific questions to prompt them!). In addition to these freewrites, we did a three-week discussion post assignment with peer review grading. We had even more writing activities to prepare for the midterm and final exams. To prepare for these, we had entire sections where I would have a single practice exam question that would focus on a different course topic that they would then spend 15-20 minutes writing on (and outlining what they did not have time to finish writing). We spent the next chunk of class time group outlining and at the end of section I would go through my own bulleted outline of what I would expect if I had been grading their responses. All of these freewrites were simply C/NC and went into their 20% discussion grade. Since I felt these in-class writing assignments were essential to understand the course material, I sent mass makeup work emails that students were required to complete to make up for their missed participation points—I made these distinct from attendance points. With many people quarantining with COVID for two-week long intervals, this provided much-needed structure, accountability, and helped people feel included who had to miss discussion sections. I had very positive responses to this for the most part and was able to course-correct on an individual basis through email.
While these courses focused on very different types of writing, writing was still central to both. Adapting my Mass Media material for Congress and other courses has been a very valuable learning experience in how to adapt to different writing course objectives. As a result, I now have a toolbox full of different assignments (and versions of those assignments!) that I can use for different courses and circumstances. TAing is a massive balancing act. The best thing you can do is to give yourself options, but don’t be afraid to chuck them or adapt them if you need to. Finally, cut yourself some slack because we’re all doing the best that we can.