Staffordshire lecturer’s illustrated activity book introduces students to research techniques
Because of the time students get to university, it’s going to probably have now been a few years simply because they came across an activity book that is illustrated.
But Writing Essays by Pictures is not any activity book that is ordinary. With a theme that is nautical it casts essays as icebergs and sources as sea creatures in a forward thinking try to introduce first-year students to the practice of academic research and writing.
Author Alke Grцppel-Wegener, senior lecturer in contextual studies at Staffordshire University, based the handsomely presented book on the essay-writing sessions with art and design students.
The book was launched this week and it is hoped that wider distribution will follow after raising nearly Ј2,000 from supporters on the Kickstarter crowdfunding website to fund an initial print run.
It opens using the call for students to think about their essays as icebergs, with a focused argument “above the water” backed up by research and thinking below.
It then introduces students to reading, note-taking and critical thinking strategies, inviting them to undertake practical, creative activities as you go along.
It suggests that readers try drawing pictures while they examine sources, in place of taking notes, and encourages students to walk a familiar route at a quarter of their usual speed while taking notes on which they see around them, in an attempt to demonstrate the degree of engagement that texts require.
The book advises students to categorise sources by thinking of them as different sea creatures, also to judge their rigour that is academic in of this depth at which they live in the ocean.
Other suggested learning techniques include writing poems that condense source material and creating handmade cards as reminders of texts.
Dr Grцppel-Wegener said that she found in first years that she had developed her use of analogies and activities as a way to address, in an engaging and non-threatening way, the lack of confidence around academic writing.
“Giving students images them to remember what they meant and to understand the explanation better,” said Dr Grцppel-Wegener, a bookmaker and printmaker by training that they might remember better, like the fish and the iceberg, will hopefully help. “I thought that, if it was something students could add items to, it would not merely be something that is a reference, it will be their very own in addition they may wish to keep it.”
Dr Grцppel-Wegener argued that the book could prove useful across a wide range of subjects.
“People who like to think visually are not only present in arts and design,” she said. “There could be more in art and design, but I attempt to explain things for all of us and hopefully there are a lot of those who can react to it.”
Dr Grцppel-Wegener rejected the concept that creating a task book represented “dumbing down” of academic practice, arguing that she was simply “framing it in another type of way”, and therefore better critical thinking ability would flow from stronger research skills.
But she acknowledged that her approach will never suit every learner.
“When I am teaching, I am aware that this approach doesn’t work for everybody; some people don’t work with metaphors at all,” she said. “I always utilize this as one option.”
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