CFT Offers New Guide: “Beyond the Essay: Making Student Thinking Visible in the Humanities”
In August, the CFT announced a theme for much of our programming this year: Students as Producers. A new guide written by CFT Assistant Director Nancy Chick applies this theme to the disciplines in the humanities. “Beyond the Essay: Making Student Thinking Visible in the Humanities” explores assignments that fulfill three goals:
- making student knowledge and knowledge-construction visible,
- externalizing representations of personal understanding, and
- having students create, produce, or perform their own interpretations or conclusions.
The guide is divided into two sections. First, formative assignments such as concept maps (or word webs) and word clouds help reveal students’ thinking-in-process.
Next, there are alternatives to the final essay that effectively fulfill many of the learning goals authentic to the humanities. These summative assignments such as metaphor maps, student anthologies, and poster presentations can complement the traditional essay assignment.
To read the guide, click here.
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