History Research Paper Series--First Draft

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and are ready to start thinking again about scaffolding your research papers.

There are several different approaches that you might take with the next step which is composing the rough draft. You might suggest to students that they have peers, friends, and family read and review their rough draft. You might also suggest that they read the document out loud to themselves or a friend to start catching awkward phrases or mistakes.

I like to use an optional discussion where students post their rough draft for classmates to review and provide feedback. The advantage of this is that students get multiple perspectives from other students who understand the parameters of the assignment. I usually give bonus points (5 points) to the student for just taking the time to put their rough draft in the discussion and additional bonus points (up to 5 points) for taking the time to thoughtfully review a classmates’ paper. It is helpful to reviewing students to provide a rubric or other tools when evaluating the papers so they can provide the most useful feedback to their classmates without sounding overly critical or harsh. I announce to students that I will not read the papers in the discussion, so they feel less risk about showing work that might not be polished. However, I also state I will monitor the discussion for questions and positive, thoughtful correspondence.

Most students seem to understand that the rough draft is a first, second, or even third version of their final paper. They also understand that the rough draft should have citation, quotation, and basic grammar and spelling. However, be sure your students know that the rough draft is to have strong organization and is more than a free writing activity to get thoughts on paper.

For the purposes of this blog, the lesson below is for the student to submit the paper to the instructor to continue the feedback loop presented in other assignments. I do not think that this assignment should be graded except possibly some points for turning it in on time. This is the moment to help students struggling with the writing process and a graded assignment might be too penalizing at this step to encourage improvement.

Objective: Learner will compose a rough draft of their final research paper using the steps prior to this assignment. The rough draft should include a strong thesis statement, demonstrate research on the topic including a Works Cited or Bibliography section, and must be well organized with a concluding statement.

Assignment type: Formative

Assignment Details:
Student will compose a rough draft of their final paper. The rough draft must include the following:
1. Thesis Statement
2. Researched details as examples in the body
3. Works Cited or Bibliography and in-text citation
4. Strong organization of thoughts and ideas

Student will submit the assignment to the instructor for feedback and review. (In my courses the assignments can immediately be run through a plagiarism detector and can be marked up using that tool. Students can see the plagiarism report and this can save many students from accidentally plagiarizing on the graded final version. Additionally, this is a good opportunity to require students to submit some questions about their paper or to have a live session with the instructor to discuss areas for improvement.)

There is no rubric included for this assignment because the focus should be on encouraging your student to improve the assignment for the final version.

Games!

I freely admit that I have always disliked playing video games; however, in today's world with modern students, instructors can expect that video games will engage and teach their students at all levels of education in ways traditional education does not.

I prefer free games that are easy to access for me and my students. Some games are very simple crossword puzzles and matching games such as those found at one site for Elementary Children and this free resource. Others can be more involved like the ones on this BBC site where role playing and experimenting with different scenarios teaches about the past. One site with a wide variety of game types and topics is History.com.

A resource that I enjoyed included many games from several periods of US history including one two player game where you act as British or Colonials battling it out for control of the Colonies. Another role playing game at pbs.org tests if you can Strike It Rich in the California Gold Rush.

A simple five question game about myself that both my husband and I had fun taking was "Which Founding Father are You?" at http://www.constitutionfacts.com/. Surprisingly, this quick game got a conversation going in my house (He was Hamilton and I was Madison)... this game might be a fun way to engage or "hook" students in a more in-depth discussion about founding fathers.

You may be asking yourself "How can I assess learning from a game?" I know I have debated the use of games. However, I am beginning to realize that the rehearsal of information presented in new, dynamic, and interesting ways and the problem solving in these games has as much value as some other more traditional practice activities. There are, of coarse, games that are much cooler and detailed that are not free. But those are for another day...do you have any free games you like to use with your classes?