Thesis Workshop

Goals

The content-based purpose of this assignment is to gain insights on your thesis topic by leading a class session focused on several primary and secondary sources that are fundamental to your project. The skills-based purpose of this assignment is to gain experience: (1) selecting essential materials for group study; (2) communicating effectively with members of a team; (3) preparing supplementary materials; and (4) public speaking by leading a class meeting.

Content

You will identify one ore more key passages and/or objects related to your thesis, as well as 1-2 works of secondary scholarship that are either (1) foundational to your research project; or (2) important but especially challenging and so in particular need of insight from your peers. With these documents as the shared reading for class, you will lead a class session focused around your primary and secondary texts.

Instructions

First, if you haven’t already, claim a Thesis Workshop slot.

Advance Preparations

More than one week before your Workshop:

  • Contact your assigned workshop partner. Your workshop partner will be a classmate who will be your first mode of support and feedback as you design and lead your Workshop.
    • Plan to meet with your Workshop Partner to discuss your plans for the class; leave enough time to incorporate their feedback.
  • Identify a set of primary and secondary readings to assign to the class:
    • one or more selections of your primary (texts or objects) crucial for understanding your topic and the scholarship that you plan to work through with your classmates
    • one or two scholarly documents that you would like to discuss with the class; on the advice of your Advisor or Prof. Farmer, this might include a general introduction to a school of criticism (and your illustrative example)
    • if necessary, identify short reference works that provide context on your topic
    • remember that you are one of two workshop leaders during your class session; keep your readings short and to the point. Consider flagging key sections for students to focus on, or making some readings required and others optional. DO NOT assign material you haven’t read.
  • Meet with the Convener to discuss your Workshop, texts, and strategy for the session. You are also encouraged to meet with your Advisor and other faculty for advice.
  • Send your readings to Prof. Farmer for addition to the webpage, AT LEAST one week before your class. Practically speaking, this means I should receive your readings on the morning of the Friday before your workshop, so I have time to share them with the class.

Workshop Goals

Your workshop should seek to accomplish the following goals:

  • Introduce your classmates to the essence of your thesis project (and any crucial supporting theory or methodologies)
  • Learn from the insights of your classmates’ fresh perspectives on your documents.

Workshop Structure

Your Workshop class session should have the following structure:

  • Begin with a brief introduction to your topic.
    • don’t lecture for an extended period of time
    • do make sure everyone is up to speed on the essential details of your topic
    • do make use of images, quotations, slides, and other resources to help structure your introduction
    • do outline your plans and goals for the class session
  • Next, take the class through one or two structured activities
    • This should include some conversation that is open to the whole class.
      • If you plan to begin with this, make sure you have clear questions students can respond to.
      • Consider moving from simpler or more concrete questions towards more involved or abstract questions.
      • Consider offering your discussion questions in advance, so that students can reflect on them while doing the reading.
    • 60 minutes of open conversation, however, is probably too much. Consider some of the following alternate structures:
      • free writing: provide a prompt, and give students 3-5 minutes to write silently. Have students then offer their observations directly to the class, or – even better – first share with a partner.
      • small groups: assign students to small groups. Give each group the same prompt to discuss, or different prompts. Then invite each group to present their results to the class. Move from group to group to answer questions, prompt deeper thinking, and monitor progress.
      • cascading groups: start students with partners and offer a prompt for discussion. Then have groups of partners combine with others to form larger groups. Culminate in a reunion of the whole class.
      • brainstorming: have students freely contribute thoughts or questions to a running list. Consider having them free write first or submit questions to you via note cards. Follow up by having students organize the list (with venn diagrams, categories, tags, etc) or identify trends or groupings.
      • games or performances: learning can be fun and still have a serious purpose. Consider designing a brief game that helps students find their way into your topic, or have students bring your primary text to life with readings, performances, or illustration.
      • annotation: have students focus on key passages or images from your assigned readings, and collect details or observations around a theme you identify.
      • debate: assign students to sides of an argument that they can use your assigned readings to make a case for. Give each side time to use your readings to identify key points, then ask them to offer those points back and forth as a class.
    • Make time for questions and reflection.
      • Build in ways for students to ask you questions during or at the end of your class session.
      • Summarize and reflect back the students’ observations, and share your own thoughts about how your ideas have evolved during the lesson.

Setting Up Readings

When you are assigning readings for your thesis workshop, the most reliable thing you can do is to download / produce a PDF of the reading and send it to me, and I’ll set up a shareable link on the site.

If you’re not able to do that, and you want people to use a resource we have access to through Tripod, then you should use a link to the Tripod page. If you send a link to the resource itself, it will only work for people on campus (and often only for people on your campus). To send a Tripod link, make sure you click the “PERMALINK” button on the page of the reading in question (see below), and then copy that link – browser addresses in Tripod are not stable, so you have to make the site generate a permalink. That way, students will be able to log in and access the resource wherever they are.

Reflection

Within one week of your Workshop session, meet with your Workshop Partner and discuss whether the goals of your Workshop were met, things that worked well, areas for improvement, remaining questions.

Then, send a short (3-5 sentences) email to Prof. Farmer summarizing your conversation with your Workshop Partner.

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