QEP Home

Click photos for vignettes

Dr.Bob Bednarz,
Geography 306

Dr. Margaret Ezell,
English 481

Dr. Don Maxwell,
Engineering 111-112

Dr. Arun Srinivasa,
Engineering 111-112

English 481
Taught by

Dr. Margaret Ezell, Distinguished Professor, John Paul Abbott Professor of Liberal Arts, College of Liberal Arts-English

Overview

English 481 is a senior seminar that is a capstone course required course for all English majors. There are multiple sections of this course taught each semester with each professor focusing their section on a topic that they specialize in. The course featured in this vignette was taught by Dr. Margaret Ezell during the Fall 2006 semester and its focus was early modern women and the genres and modes they chose as avenues of expression.

English 481 is designated as a writing intensive course as students write and present multiple papers over the course of the semester. Because of the large amount of written work students need to complete, each section of English 481 is capped at 15 students so that each student receives personalized attention and feedback on their writing. Dr. Ezell treats her section of this course as an introduction to graduate studies in English and encourages her students to begin to look and think critically about both primary and secondary sources of writing while they begin to develop their own ideas and theories about them.

Details

Dr. Ezell asked her students to write 5 papers over the course of the semester: four relatively short “response papers” and one longer “seminar paper”. These five papers are sequenced so that they build upon one another in complexity, easing students into, what was for many of them, new ways of thinking. The first two of the response papers Dr. Ezell asked her students to write were focused on primary (or in other words original) sources of writing. These sources were written by the women focused on in the course, like Queen Elizabeth, Lady Mary Roth, and Margaret Cavendish. In these papers students probed their thoughts and developed questions about the women and the piece of literature they chose to focus on.

After the completion of these first two papers, students were asked to write a short abstract of what was included in their paper. These abstracts were to include the questions and possible avenues of further inquiry they were thinking of. The abstracts they handed to the class formed the basis of class discussion so students could see and learn from each other’s ideas.

The second two response papers students were asked to write focused on analyzing a critical interpretation secondary source, or in other words, a piece of literature in which a primary source was interpreted. In these slightly more complex papers, students needed to read the primary source that was the focus of the secondary source’s interpretation and the secondary source in order to critically analyze the secondary source author’s ideas and rational from their own perspective. These papers required some complex thoughts as students not only had to understand and form ideas about the primary source, but also probe and evaluate the interpretations made by the secondary sources author.

For the final seminar paper students utilized the ideas they had formed through the composition of the first four papers to embark on a deeper and more complex analysis of a topic of their choice. This final paper required students to consult at least three secondary sources on the topic they chose and form their own analysis and interpretation of the material. Before students began this project Dr. Ezell asked them to draft a proposal. These proposals gave Dr. Ezell important insight into the minds of her students so she could guide their analyses and interpretations before they got too far along.

Once all of the seminar papers were completed Dr. Ezell created a “mini-conference” in her class. During the mini-conference students were divided into panels which focused on different topics. Each student gave a brief conference-type presentation of the main points in their paper while other students listened, questioned and commented.

All of the discussions, papers and presentations of English 481 combined to give students a good idea of what actual English philosophers and graduate students do. They also taught students valuable critical thinking and analysis skills that would be beneficial to them in whatever career path they chose to follow. Because of these characteristics, English 481 as taught by Dr. Ezell was considered a wonderful example of inquiry-based teaching. What follows is a description of how the content and methods used in this course focused student learning in each of the ways outlined in the 7 characteristics of inquiry and /or research-based teaching promoted by the QEP Council.

Assimilation of Facts

Students in English 481 needed to not only memorize and understand facts about the era of history on which they were focusing and the types of literature they were looking at, but they also needed to be able to utilize those facts in their thinking and writing about various aspects of the primary and secondary sources they chose to analyze for their writing assignments. Because of this, assimilating the facts about history, genre, and how they play into the lives of the women they chose to focus on is essential to students writing sound interpretations.

Recognize Unanswered Questions

The focus of student’s first four short response papers in English 481 was on recognizing where the writing of the primary and secondary sources differed from their own thoughts. Utilizing their analysis of these disparities, students developed questions that could be further analyzed in their response papers and eventually their seminar paper. In order to accomplish this, students needed to focus their thoughts and efforts on understanding both themselves and the women about whom they were writing. From this understanding, students could begin to analyze how some of the new theories or paradigm shift that have occurred over the last decade or two influenced their thoughts and perceptions about the primary and secondary sources they were reading and decide what questions about them were meaningful, both to themselves and the broader research community to pursue.

Formulate Strategies for Seeking Answers

Learning how to appropriately seek answers to the questions they have decided to pursue is a large part of what students in English 481 focus on. Students’ abilities to ask and answer questions are developed as they write the four response papers. The response papers built in complexity, helping students to learn answer seeking strategies a few steps at a time. Students were also provided with copious amount of feedback and one-on-one instruction to aid them in developing the skills necessary to complete the complex final paper.

During class, Dr. Ezell tried to emulate the strategies researchers use when answering questions of their own. She encouraged students to share their ideas and questions and collaborate to generate better questions and answer seeking strategies much like real researchers do. She also demonstrated her own techniques of primary source analysis as she accessed original copies of sources through library data bases and projected them onto a Smart Board. All in all, this multi faceted approach not only helped students begin to formulate their own strategies for seeking answers, but also gave tem insight into the real world of research.

Investigate Appropriately

With the wide availability of interpretations of just about everything widely available on the internet, choosing which ones are valuable can be a challenging task for novice researchers, like those in Dr. Ezell’s class. One of the main ways Dr. Ezell tried to encourage appropriate investigation is by working with her students to identify characteristics of good secondary sources. Students learn to situate secondary sources in the time period in which they were written and recognize the influence many ideas that were prevalent at the time had on them. As students learn to critically look at the various interpretations of others, they begin to develop a sense of how to situate their own interpretations.

Draw Valid Conclusions

Helping students to draw valid conclusions is much aligned with their ability to investigate appropriately in this class. As students learn to recognize the traits of good interpretations, they are able to analyze their own interpretations more critically. The interpretations in this subject area are neither right nor wrong, but rather they are strongly or weakly supported by available evidence.

Communicate Effectively

Effective communication is central to student success in English 481. Being a writing intensive course, students must be able to communicate their ideas through writing. Secondly, students must also discuss their ideas and present their work to the class at many points throughout the semester. The mini-conference held at the end of the semester helps students condense their ideas into a widely acceptable professional format, which is a valuable skill for later life.

Critically Analyze

Critical analysis is the heart of Dr. Ezell’s English 481 course. The course focuses on the analysis and interpretation of various aspects of literature from both primary and secondary sources. Through their writing, discussion and presentation of ideas students strive to develop skills of critical analysis and communicate their interpretations effectively.

Vignette Home

Click photos for vignettes

Dr. May Boggess,
Statistics 407

Dr.Sandi Lampo,
Marketing 325

Dr. Sorin Popescu,
RENR 444