This week’s readings were interesting to me in several different ways. The readings themselves resemble assignments that I have given in composition classes; they reflect the current method of research; they posed their own difficulties; and there was a discussion of a student’s work that could have been describing me.

To begin with the second point, much research, especially by undergraduates, and I assume high school students, is done beginning with a “google” search. Many of the sources that are found are hyperlinked documents that resemble the ones we were assigned to read for this class. They do not translate well to the more traditional extant, printed page. To print these documents for class required printing the main page, following the links and also printing those pages. Then there had to be a way to identify which “more” link went where. I resorted to the magazine/newspaper designation of “continued from…” This worked to print the document and allow me to navigate from main to secondary pages. However, it was not easy. The computer does not require that I turn pages, marking the one that I wish to return to. It simply, through a series of hyperlinks, allows me to choose pages and easily return to my starting point. This may seem obvious, off topic, and irrelevant. Yet there is a connection. This type of document illustrates both how students, and perhaps experts, read and possibly even how they think. It is a very non-linear way of approaching a topic, and it little resembles what we expect our students to produce in papers. Yet it does in some ways resemble the readings we assign.

This may be a more natural way of moving through information than we realize. Perhaps the advent of computers and hyperlinked documents has finally allowed us to have a more natural approach to reading and learning. Think about all those mind mapping diagrams we have drawn over the years. They rarely, if ever, proceed linearly. Instead they jump around with ideas linked in seemingly random fashion, yet all are connected in some way. So what does this have to do with my comments and reactions to the readings? Turning to my first observation, in recent semesters I have assigned my students to create a hyperlinked document. They first write a “traditional” essay following all the standard rules of chunking, support, and conclusions. They then turn this essay into a hyperlink document by determining what is important enough to remain on the main page, what is secondary and linked to the main page, what is of tertiary importance and is linked to the secondary pages. The students are initially hesitant about this assignment. They have become so accustomed to writing traditional essays that they cannot think outside of that parameter to actually rank the importance of the information they are presenting. Once they move beyond this hesitation, they seem to really enjoy the exercise. At some point, I would like to reverse this assignment, giving the hypertext first and then moving to the linear document. What do you think?

Finally, I actually saw myself in one of these documents. Sherry Linkon tells of a student, Rikki, who began her work by focusing on the writing style of Okada. At first not finding the direct answer she was seeking in her research, she never-the-less moved to a fuller understanding of the effect of Okada’s style on his meaning. I experienced a similar occurrence last semester. I was required to write and submit a proposal for my projected final paper. At that point I was sill struggling to build a comprehensive understanding of all the readings we had done in class. Needless to say, the proposal received less than stellar comments from the instructor, who shall remain nameless. At this point, with a vague feeling of desperation, I began the research for the paper. It was through this on-going, long term reading that the entire class began to gel for me. As the deadline for the paper rapidly approached (as they always do), I actually resented writing it because I was learning so much through the new readings that I was doing. I didn’t want to stop reading, and learning, to write the paper. It was through the additional readings that my vague proposal solidified into a more concrete topic that allowed me to write and submit a paper that was much better, and on an entirely different topic, than the dismal proposal. Until reading about Rikki’s experience with Okada, I had not realized what I had done; it was just the “natural” next step to “read more about it.”

Though I have turned to research for a deeper, fuller understanding of what I am studying, I have never really thought about explaining it to my students in this way. It has always been “support” for their claims. It seems that I have been cheating my students out of a necessary step to understanding and integrating what they are reading. I will try to do better.