Skills and advice for researching, collaborating on and writing academic books, articles, papers, reports and essays, from preprints to peer-reviewed journals.

Writing guides for academics

A vibrant student-centred learning experience with a range of classroom and online interactive experiences is an achievable objective. Transforming the joy of exchanging ideas with lecturers and peers into equally enthusiastic assessment outcomes is a bigger challenge. It’s a shame if the results of these dynamic activities and all that accumulated know-how stay hidden in the lecturer’s marking inbox, reduced to a grade on a spreadsheet.As blogs are routinely used as information and advice channels, it makes sense to allow students to exploit their familiarity with the format by using them for assessment, giving space for experimentation to those who feel alienated by the stuffy restrictions of formalised essay writing. They can then flaunt their knowledge and skills by showcasing them to each other and the wider world, including potential employers.Enabling students to embed relevant anecdotes and aspects of their own personality into a well-researched and accurately referenced text is refreshing and liberating for both writer and lecturer. Assessment criteria can therefore include their skills in engaging and educating others.Resource collection: Creativity in higher educationFour ways to engage students in bloggingKey tips from running a creative writing competitionMy third-year Language Debates module has evolved from experimenting with a cautious 25-per-cent-weighted 500-word blog combined with traditional essay and exam to a 50-per-cent-weighted 1,000-word blog that is uploaded to a public website.However, this does not come without its dilemmas and challenges. Here’s what I’ve learned from introducing these more creative blog assessments:Provide a range of examplesDon’t assume that all students are not traditionalists. Formal essays provide a stylistic comfort blanket for students happy with familiarity. The levels of informality involving, for instance, the use of first person and direct address to the reader don’t lend themselves so easily to guidance checklists. The creative freedom in which some students will thrive can leave others floundering.&nbsp;So, to counter the inevitable pre-submission conversations involving: “Help! I’ve never written a blog before” or “What does a blog look like?”, provide examples that illustrate the range of effective formats and styles available. Personalised recipe websites are a&nbsp;good starting point as they blend the essential step-by-step precision needed to cook a good meal with the personal characteristics of the writer. Celebrity recipes range from the wacky guy-next-door vernacular of Jamie Oliver to the measured, graceful serenity of Nigel Slater. Students shouldn’t feel trapped into thinking freedom from formality equals unfettered zaniness.Formative practice blogs will help students find their own voice. Advice workshops should emphasise the importance of crafting introductory paragraphs that instantly engage readers and, ideally, a conclusion that relates back to the opening for maximum cohesion.Referencing to maintain authorityInsist that all sources and page numbers are made explicit in the same way as any essay to maintain an aura of academic authority. In-text referencing can be deformalised with formulations such as “the renowned linguist&nbsp;X” or “Guardian journalist&nbsp;Y”. Hyperlinks can be inserted on citation points so that readers can use the blog as a starting point for further investigations.The route from submission to publicationTransforming submitted work into an active website is time-consuming. Decide well in advance who sets up the website, uploads the blogs and moderates the comments. Bearing the corporate stamp of the institution may mean wresting control from the module convener. Deciding on levels of accessibility to the outside world is a related dilemma. For instance, Language Debates operates on a free WordPress website and is open to anybody, anywhere. Others may decide to keep blogs in-house only.Don’t forget that the blogs must be assessed. In my case, students submit their blog and receive a grade and feedback in the standard fashion. Checking for factual accuracy, refining punctuation and expression glitches before uploading to the website may be your job. Headlines, the writer’s name, categories, tags and pinned blogs all need to be considered. I&nbsp;create hyperlinks for all sources referred to – a laborious but rewarding process as interactivity is key. Students whose blogs fall too drastically below par, which is thankfully rare, are given the opportunity to rewrite them if they want their name up in lights. The original assessed mark stays the same.Maintaining the websiteIdeally, to maintain a website’s vitality, upload one or two blogs at a time spread out over the life of the module rather than all in one go. Consider staggering deadlines across the student cohort if possible.Avoid gauging the level of engagement with blogs purely by the quantity and quality of the feedback posted in the comment boxes. This common functionality can encourage students to see summative assessments as a developmental, interactive process where they can ask each other genuine questions and offer additional or alternative perspectives. However, it takes time and inclination to craft a written response. Readers will happily enjoy and absorb educational material without feeling the need to start a debate. However, it is easy enough to boost blogger egos by making comment-posting a compulsory assessment element. To ensure that no&nbsp;one is left out, allocate a specific student to provide feedback to every blog, which also is a good way of getting the ball rolling for further discussion.Overall, publicly accessible assessed blogs encourage students to take greater pride in their work and up their game. Showcasing their efforts in the public domain helps to generate a genuine sense of achievement as well as to foster a collaborative learning community.Matt Davies is senior lecturer in English language at the University of Chester. He facilitates the Language Debates website and oversees the Chester English language and literature student online magazine C.E.L.L.MATES.If you would like advice and insight from academics and university staff delivered direct to your inbox each week,&nbsp;sign up for the Campus&nbsp;newsletter.

The value of assessed blogs to showcase learning

Assessed blogs can help translate the thrill of interactive learning into tangible outcomes that enrich and showcase students’ knowledge. Here’s how to do it

Students as educators: the value of assessed blogs to showcase learning

Critical thinking is a popular concept in higher education, mentioned repeatedly in university and course literature, but teaching students how to do it is not easy. For students, it’s a confusing skill to understand, let alone develop.Enter stage left: creative writing. Research shows creative writing brings students’ attention to the concept of perspectives, an important aspect of critical thinking.I’ve adapted writing activities from available research to enable students to creatively explore the concept of perspectives. The result has been an improvement in the students’ academic writing. A student who grasps the concept of thinking through, or about, other people can develop their academic writing in terms of stance, points of view or evaluation.Resources for fostering creativity in higher educationA translation exercise to improve students’ creative writingHow to use reflective journals to foster critical thinking skills&nbsp;Reflecting on your lifeDuring events in our lives, we act as participants and our perspective is limited to the moment. However, when given a chance to reflect on the event at a later date, we take on the role of spectator. This concept of spectatorship can be developed into a simple activity that allows students to look back at events, moments or problems in their lives&nbsp;and reflect.Students make a list of problems they have faced in their lives, how they solved them and how they felt at the time. This free writing phase lacks structure but is rich in ideas.Students choose one event and write a short piece in the past tense and third person.In the process of writing, they turn themselves into a character and reflect on the past. This allows them to explore different perspectives on their own life.Writing from a wider perspectiveThis activity invites students to write through the perspective of those marginalised in society. This activity raises students’ critical consciousness – the ability to take a step back from prejudices and observe situations from a wider perspective – according to research. The activity avoids the risk of controversy or tension by using a fictional being, in our case the Beast from Beauty and the Beast, instead of focusing on a marginalised person, such as a criminal or political outcast.Students read a short version of Beauty and the Beast.They break down the narrative into scenes and write about how they think the Beast feels. As in the previous example, free writing provides space to explore thoughts.They choose one scene and rewrite it from the perspective of the Beast in the first person.This encourages students to think from an unconventional perspective.A moral dilemma to tap into students’ empathyThis exercise involves solving a problem widespread in society. It leans on research into narrative imagination, which refers to empathetically understanding another person’s story in order to better understand society.Students are given a prompt such as “You are a woman interviewing for a job. You have recently become pregnant. The employer makes it clear that they have misogynist views on women and work availability. Do you tell the truth about your pregnancy?”Students ask the teacher questions in order to fully understand the problem.Free writing – students make notes on what the woman could do, including her reasoning.Students choose one scenario and write a short piece – this could be the interview scene or a monologue of the woman’s thoughts. The students could even include the perspective of the employer as another developed character.Roll-a-story to learn problem-solvingThis exercise is ideal as a short warm-up exercise, requiring the least amount of set-up. It allows students to approach everyday problems from a different point of view.1) Students are given a dice and the following table:
  
      
  
    Image
                



          

  
2) The student rolls a dice and finds the number corresponds to an item in the Character column. They repeat this for Setting and Problem You Have. For example, if a student rolls a 2, 4 then 6, they will write a short piece about a parent in a mall dealing with the problem of their child wanting to change their degree subject.The value of creativityCreative writing is often perceived as something fun to do on a Friday afternoon, once the important academic work is complete. However, creative writing can be a valuable component of academic teaching, aiding critical thinking across disciplines. In a wider societal sense, empathy with individuals&nbsp;or situations&nbsp;will better prepare students for the real world.Parag Dandgey is a language lecturer in the English Language Centre at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University.If you would like advice and insight from academics and university staff delivered direct to your inbox each week,&nbsp;sign up for the Campus newsletter.

Parag Dandgey shares creative-writing activities designed to improve students’ critical-thinking skills by developing their understanding of multiple perspectives 

Creative writing to hone critical thinking  

Skills and advice for researching, collaborating on and writing academic articles, papers reports and essays, from preprints to peer-reviewed journals

Writing guides for academics

Students as educators: the value of assessed blogs to showcase learning

Creative writing to hone critical thinking

Discover

More from THE

Sign up

Collaborate with THE

About

Legal stuff