Job Discussion Forums

[Yu]

I am assigned the task of teaching students how to write research papers. Which is not a big deal... except I have 120 students, and I am not thrilled about reading multiple drafts of their 10 page papers. They are all English majors. The have to write a research paper (term paper) for their degree.

For most of the students, it is their first time to write a research paper. They are allowed to choose topics related to English/English speaking culture comparisions.

Most topics I think I can give them useful advice about researching. There are two exceptions: Literature and Translation. Literature is my main concern. I do not have a clue as to what a person would write about literature. I have tried to do a search on the net, but it seems you have to pay to read these types of papers. I guess I am just looking for some way to guide these students as i have no idea. I did ask them to talk to their literature teachers as to what kind of projects are appropriate to pursue.

Any tips on how to help students with lit. papers or how to minimize my work load of having to deal with teaching writing to 120 students?

[joe greene]

Before they submit their first draft, tell them to proofread to make sure the English makes sense. After they plagiarise their Chinese sources, they'll run it through some translating software, and just turn it in. Tell them to smooth out the language to make it readable.

[Yu]

Um, thanks for that.... It was so helpful.... Perhaps I can even find the Chinese sources for my students to plagurize.

[no_exit]

Are you grading these papers yourself? If you suspect plagiarism, take a sentence from the paper at random and google it. If it has been ripped directly from an online source, google will reveal it. A few semesters ago had my college level writing class write a short story as their final exam. I figured by making them write fiction, they could practice some of the literary devices we had studied that semester, and moreover, it would be much harder for them to cheat, or so I foolishly thought! I had students who totally ripped off already published short stories, as if I was such an idiot that I wouldn't be able to tell the difference from literary quality writing and the work of Chinese English majors. What egos!

Point is, be prepared for cheaters, and don't let them get away with it. If they are writing literature papers, I assume they'll be taking a book, short story, or an author's body of work and interpreting it in some way. Make sure that no matter what kind of paper they are writing, they are clear about what the point of their paper is. Chinese students often write papers that dance around an issue and never actually get anywhere, so make sure they have a clearly stated thesis and support it in the body of the paper.

Cut out work for yourself by having them revise and edit each other's papers during classtime. Break them into groups and have them swap papers, give them red pens, and let them correct. I had my students do this and it was surprising how many errors they were able to find in each other's papers that they didn't see in their own. You obviously are not going to be able to look at every draft of every student's paper, so encourage peer reviews as much as possible.

Grading final exams for writing classes is a ton of work, I totally sympathize with you. You have even more students than I did, I only had about 80 writing students total. On the upside, some of your students will surprise you and come up with some really interesting ideas, which makes the whole thing more enjoyable.

[Yu]

I am not naive, and I know that plagurism run rampid on college campuses. I am just not going to worry about it right now. I will address the issue to the students, and deal with issues as they come up.
One student said she was surprised by my approach to writing. She said Chinese teachers usually just give students topics and ariticles to summarize. In other words, teachers dont think students can handle the research of the paper, so they are not expected to do that. Also, undergraduate students are not really supposed to be able to come up with their own ideas. I am going to see what I can help them with. i know it is not going to be an easy task.
Also, my real question is more what to expect from students who want to take a literature based topic. What I want to know is what are suitable topics? I mean what kind of papers do you write for lit classes? There has got to be some lit majors out there who can give me some feedback, right?

[hilary]

A student who wishes to write a paper on literature will have to select
an author or a genre (novel, play, poem...). They will then have to decide on a critical perspective.

(sociohistorical;feminist;psychoanalytical...) They may wish to compare and contrast two texts by the same author or from the same period or genre.

They will need to be very very familiar with the text - to have read it several times. If they have any kind of critical skill they will find the topic for themselves.

Are you expecting to have to detemine the research topic? If so, you will have your work cut out.

[Yu]

I fortunately do not have the task of assigning topics... and that is a good thing as I know very little about literature.

Many students are choosing the same topics. Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice; Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights; the Call of the Wild; are some popular choices.

I feel like too many students are choosing the same topics, but they are not literature majors and they likely have not been exposed to very many authors.

[hilary]

The first three novels are all good choices with plenty of meat on their bones. I've never even heard of the other one. There is likely to be a ton of critical analysis available on the internet - though some of it will be of an arcane nature. Try Google. I don't know what resources are available to your students in the way of critical textbooks - not much, I imagine. There are a number of films and TV adaptations of all three texts, so these will help them with understanding the plot and the historical context and with revision.

I imagine that showing some understanding of the primary text will be enough to get them a decent pass, and having a bash at lit. crit. will ensure them a high mark, especially if you help them with editing and proofreading. Have fun.

[joe greene]

[Roger]

the question needs to be answered first: what knowledge of English Literature do your students actually possess?
Did they really study any of Jane Austen's works? I doubt it, and if they did, how much did they understand?
My guess is they came across Wuthering Height or Pride And Prejudice in their Intensive Reading or Extensive Reading classes. These classes are intended to serve as a basis for later literature classes but they are hopelessly inadequate.
Personally I favour authors such as Jack London - to stay with those mentioned in this thread! - because writings such as his are more immediate, less abstract, on the whole easier to understand and don't need any human-cultural/national context (Jack London's Call of the WIld, as far as I remember, was about the lives of wolves).
Still, if your students chose Austen, perhaps you can ask them to re-read her novels with a view of finding evidence to support certain inferences or conclusions about lifestyles then and lifestyles now, the role of women in then Britain.
It will be an arduous task both for you and for your students; the latter haven't learnt to relate to tpics beyond their kennel, and historically speaking, they cannot identify the 19th or the 18th century by any hint other than the mention of a year. Thus I suggest they try to find lifestyle differences - did women work? What obvious class strata existed then? Comparisons of rural and urban life... the influence of religion or superstition. Do you find any concrete evidence of what used to be British humour (more likely in Charles D.ickens).

As for reading 120 assignments: you can either stagger their assignments over a certain period of time, or you can halve your workload by ordering them to pair up and co-author a piece; the latter might be a good exercise for them to learn to proofread and to rely on other students' help. Actually I often force them to correct each other's writing so that they become aware of their own problematic handling of English.
In doing this, you must instruct them on how to quote from the text and what constitutes plagiarism.