Designing the User’s Journey: My Three Takeaways

My Thoughts So Far

            Hey everyone! I hope you are all staying healthy and are safe at home. On the bright side, having all of this extra time at home is great to catch up on some reading and writing. Currently, as many of you reading this already know, we are reading The Six Academic Writing Assignments: Designing the User’s Journey by Jim Burke in class. I really appreciate the amount of detail that Jim goes into regarding each of the writing assignments he discusses. In some instances, I find that he almost goes into too much detail and I find myself having to stop reading in order to really absorb what I just read. Two of my favorite things that Jim includes are his explanations of how he uses each of the assignments within his own classroom and the feedback from his students. I found that both of these inclusions are extremely valuable in generating ideas for my own future classroom and hammering in the fact that every assignment we create should be for a purpose and beneficial to our students.

My Three Takeaways

On that note, here are three things from the chapters we have read so far that I want to remember in the future:

            1. First and foremost, from the introduction onward, I love that Jim keeps reiterating how we as teachers should view our students as “users – of our courses, materials, texts, and tools” and ourselves as “designers – who are charged with the task of removing from their journey through our curriculum what designers call ‘friction points’ that can undermine student’s learning and performance” (2). Going off this principle, Jim approaches each writing assignment with those ideas in mind and even explains his own design process for each. I can say from my own experience with lesson planning that it is extremely easy to lose sight of the purpose of a lesson during the design process. I can recall times where I spent too much time focusing on trying to create a fun lesson that when it came time to share what I came up with I couldn’t answer what the lesson was meant to accomplish. Therefore, I think Jim’s comparison of teachers as designers is extremely important to remember and should be at the forefront when coming up with lessons.

            2. Second, in Jim’s discussion of short answer assignments in chapter two, I loved his breakdown of the different levels of questions we should be asking out students. The different levels, found on page 61, are as follows:

• Before Beginning to Read: These questions are used to activate connections in the reader’s brain before reading to frame the text within a larger inquiry or purpose.
• On the Surface: These are literal or factual questions one can find answers to on the page.
• Below the Surface: These questions mirror those on the SAT, ACT, AP, or state standard exams, as they emphasize close reading.
• Above and Beyond the Surface:These questions involve critical reading and thus ask students to make connections with other texts, current and historical events, etc.

The aim of designing questions in this way, as Jim describes, is to give them some basis of logic and structure, rather than just asking easy questions with no real purpose other than to test if students have completed the assigned reading. I found this section to be worth remembering as well because it’s a great example of scaffolding by helping student’s work up to the harder, more critical thinking-oriented questions. This type of structure is definitely worth thinking about when designing any lesson or assignment.

            3. Finally, when discussing writing on demand or timed assignments, Jim notes that these types of assignments are often considered the hardest and most anxiety-inducing. To this day I still have trouble with writing on demand as I normally spend a lot of time brainstorming before I begin an assignment. I sometimes beat myself up after submitting a timed writing assignment because I remember important details I wanted to include after the fact. Therefore, this fact wasn’t necessarily surprising, but I think it is something to keep in mind when designing any type of assignment, especially timed ones. Jim gives some great examples of how to alleviate some of this anxiety such as allowing students to refer to their notes and giving them handouts as guides in order to provide them support when approaching writing on demand assignments.

In conclusion…

            Overall, I am excited to continue to read the rest of this book as I definitely think it will be a valuable resource to have in the future. I can see myself referring back to it when I need specific information about designing assignments that are integral to an English class. However, the main point that I keep replaying in my mind is to talk to and listen to students. Ultimately, it is their education and we as teachers have to make sure we are providing the best education, or experience as Jim would say, possible for them. I look forward to reading what everyone else came up with for their three takeaways and I hope everyone continues to stay healthy!