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Things That Have Worked for Me: Ranking Exercises

Part of a short series of posts discussing activities, strategies, or materials that have worked for me in my teaching. Maybe they can work for you, too…

The Thing:

Ranking Exercises

It is what it says. I ask students to rank a collection of things on a scale I provide.

Two examples:

(From a World Literature Class) Rank the following kinds of Freedom in importance to Frederick Douglass, based on what you read in his Narrative: Physical, Mental, Economic, Creative, Legal. 1 is most important; 5 is least important. Be ready to justify your answers.

(From a literary theory class) Rank the following in terms of their claim to be “art”: To the Lighthouse, Hamilton, “Game of Thrones,” Avengers: Endgame, Twilight, “Law and Order,” Hamlet, “Star Trek.” 1 is the highest ranking. Be ready to justify your answers.

Usually, I make this group work to limit sample size and start debates early. Each group has a certain amount of time to discuss. Then I ask them to share the rankings, which I record on the board. Then, as a class, we discuss commonalties, differences, and trends in the rankings.

This can be done individually – I have done that in online situations where this becomes homework or a forum exercise. In person, though, groups work well and create stakes right out of the gate – you have to convince your groupmates!

Why It Works:

1 – Students like options. This has them.

I’ve learned in years and years of teaching that students dislike feeling there’s one right answer (maybe this is fear, maybe it’s a desire to seem even-handed – but I get a lot of “a little of both” answers, especially in essays). This eliminates that by having a lot of variables for them to favor or not. There are no absolutes. The extra good thing is that, once they get past the “right/wrong” roadblock, they really can look at other, more conceptual, merits.

2 – Nobody loses.

More good news for students: other than that they do it, I don’t care what they land on. I will give the ranking I have in mind if pressed – but this is 100% not a “Guess what Dr. Craig is thinking” exercise. The point is to reason out the pros and cons of each ranked option, and to get students talking about them. And a good thing about having options in the first place is that everyone is bound to have an opinion on at least one of them. Even a student who (ahem) has not done the full reading of Douglass’s Narrative could at least chime in with the knowledge that he escaped slavery to push for, say, physical freedom as a top choice.

3 – Everyone loves a debate.

When all goes well, this is just plain fun. Debating relative merits is classic water-cooler or dinner-party (or comment thread!) stuff, so it’s easy to get into. In the group setting, the debating starts internally as groups have to reach consensus (I sometimes get “dissenting opinions,” and I allow that if well-reasoned). Sometimes I notice groups hurriedly changing things as they hear earlier groups present. Usually the groups take pride in their findings, and so enjoy explaining their justification. Since any judgment is reserved for when everyone is done, this becomes a way to share reasoned opinions that everyone feels comfortable with. Plus, “judgment” in this case is mostly me saying things like “I see X is the big winner at number one for a lot of you…why is that?”

A bonus: I get to check, as they go, to make sure no one has really misunderstood the issues at hand. If they have, it can often be gently corrected by asking them to “re-rank” considering a different factor. I usually circulate among groups as we go to check in and take questions or monitor what’s being talked about.

These days have been some of my favorites in class. I’d rank this exercise very near the top…

Things That Have Worked for Me: First Day Talk Questions

Part of a short series of posts discussing activities, strategies, or materials that have worked for me in my teaching. Maybe they can work for you, too…

The Thing:

First Day Small Group Questions

This is another in my attempts to “teach something” the first day that doesn’t require much prep (or any books) on the students’ part. I print a series of questions related to the themes of the class (for a class on Religion in America, examples might be: “America has no official national religion. Why do you think this is important?” or “Do you think religion has solved or created more problems in American society?”). I cut these up into individual slips of paper.

The first day of class, I put students in pairs or small groups and give each group a question. They have a few minutes (never more than 5) to just talk about the question among themselves. After the time is up, I ask them to pass their question to another group. This continues for an allotted amount of class time, or until all groups have a chance at all questions.

When done, I work through the list of questions, simply asking pairs to share a little of what they talked about as each comes up. Discussion proceeds from there.

Why It Works:

1 – It gives students a head start.

Again – this stems from the advice I was given to hit the ground running the first day. I create the questions, so I make sure they are topically and/or thematically appropriate to what’s coming throughout the semester. This means students will have dealt with themes & topics in a low-stakes way even before most start reading or watching material. After all, nothing is turned in or graded – just talked about. If I do require written records, it’s usually just to view any unshared responses. Savvy students, however, will know to look for answers to or discussion of these early questions as we go. In some ways, it’s a “coming attractions” reel students can participate in.

2 – It’s a group builder that’s not floof.

The pair/group aspect get students talking to each other right away. They can get to know one another and some things about what their peers think, but without obvious “icebreaker” vibes. This works as an icebreaker, though, because students inevitably start finding points of agreement (or sometimes contention!) or start sharing experiences to make points. Just as it’s a low-stakes way to start learning the themes of the class, it’s a low-stakes way to start learning about their classmates.

3 – It’s another way of building a shared language.

I always record some aspect of what we discuss. This gives me a fund of responses and thoughts to draw on later in activities or lectures. “Remember some of the reasons you thought it was important for America to have no official religion? You may be happy to know the Founding Fathers agreed with you!” Or “The first day, y’all were worried about the place of women in American religious life. Turns out you’re not alone…”

In this way, the exercise can be used to build some continuity into the class and give us a shared discussion history. I always find it useful to let students see how things in a course build on each other, and this lets that happen, since these questions they deal with the first day come back again.

It’s worth noting that this is also adaptable to an online setting, using forums or breakout videocall rooms.

Things That Have Worked for Me: Working Definitions

Part of a short series of posts discussing activities, strategies, or materials that have worked for me in my teaching. Maybe they can work for you, too…

The Thing:

Working Definitions as a Class Exercise

The basics of the activity is just this: the first day, with most (if not all) materials unseen/unread, I ask the students to write a short definition of a key course concept. Usually this is formed as a question. For religion courses, it was almost always: “What do you think religion is? What does it do?” For my world literature course themed around freedom it was usually: “What do you think it means to be free?” And for a business ethics course it was: “What do you think ‘business’ is? And what is/are ‘ethics?’” And so on.

In traditional in-person settings, I’d ask this to be written on a piece of paper students could set aside or turn in. In online settings, I’d set this up as an online forum thread. The point is to create a copy that can be returned to later.

It is always important to me that this be informal and off-the-cuff. It is never homework; I don’t want students overthinking or being tempted by research or aphorism-gathering. Part of the value is getting them to articulate where they are with the concept in an honest, practical way.

In person, after a 5-10 minute writing period, I start asking students to share and record their responses on the board to review and discuss. I would also collect the papers at the end of the class period to check the responses of those not comfortable sharing aloud.

The most common thing I do is hold on to the papers, and then hand them back half-way through or at the end of the semester and ask students to revisit what they wrote. Discussion centers on questions such as: Would you change what you wrote? Why? Did particular materials or exercises from the class change your mind? If you wouldn’t change, what things we’ve studied back up your view? And so on and so on.

Why It Works:

1 – It’s an easy first-day exercise.

Some of the best advice I got early in my teaching career was to actually teach something the first day of class. This is an easy way to do that, because it gets students thinking about class concepts without requiring materials. Everyone can participate. It’s also interactive; while I can ask follow-up questions or nudge for refinement of the definitions, the discussion starts from where the students start it. Heaven knows students get talked at plenty on first days! I’ve found they welcome a chance to participate.

2 – It’s useful – to all of us.

Students get to hit the ground running. They know up front what we’ll be dealing with, and they have a head start thinking about it. They get practice formulating and expressing a view. They get to recognize where they stand and also learn where classmates stand.

I as the instructor get two samples of where students are – with the concept itself and with how they express things. I also know what I do and don’t need to cover, since I see where everyone is beginning with the class concepts. I have a ready-made benchmark to refer to later (as I often do; see above).

All of us start with a unique shared vocabulary. No two groups have all the same answers, but each group shares its own. I can refer to these definitions in lectures, build on them with later activities, work them into essays or test questions, and so on. Again – I’ve found value in having these sorts of things created in common and not just given to students by me. Student ownership of material and of some class structures is a common theme in these Things That Have Worked; these definitions are a way for students to take ownership of class ideas – and, often, shape where discussions go.

3 – It encourages self-knowledge and self-assessment.

To do this, students have to figure out where they stand on an issue. Because it is an open-ended exercise, there is no judgment involved – we are simply hearing and examining different views. It’s low-stakes but also important. Hopefully they learn that being clear matters more in this case than being “right” about the issue. It’s also an early lesson on making space for differing views and testing how well they coexist.

The revisiting aspect allows students to reflect both on their own thoughts but also on the implications of what we’ve studied – and it encourages them to see the course as something that can affect their thinking (not just their GPA). Of course, there is also no “right” to the reassessment. If their views don’t change, they don’t – but, ideally, they have to think a little about why.

When this has worked, it’s been a fun way to share ownership of the class, to get to know my students better, and to sneak a little second-order thinking into their experience. I define that as a win.

Things That Have Worked for Me: Format Switches

Part of a short series of posts discussing activities, strategies, or materials that have worked for me in my teaching. Maybe they can work for you, too…

The Thing:

Format Switch Assignments

As it sounds, the idea here is to encourage students to take something they encounter in one format (I’m a literary guy, so this is usually a text), and make a version of it in another format. One example I have used is to have them pick a scene from a novel, and describe how they would film it. Another I’ve used is to create a “Twitter feed” for a character or historical figure (Dostoevsky’s Underground Man and the Apostle Paul have both been given this treatment in classes). This is done as an in-class activity, and usually in groups so that students can bounce ideas off one another. Plus, making it part of how they participate spares me grading anyone’s subjective ideas of cool camera angles and whatnot.

Why It Works:

1 – It’s creative, and so hopefully fun.

This exercise is a nice shift away from asking straightforward analysis or detail questions. It lets students flex some intellectual muscles they may not otherwise get to. In the process, I notice that different students take the lead in these groups than do in other sorts of assignments. There also seems to be satisfaction in making and sharing something; there is a clear, tangible, shareable, and hopefully enjoyable result. There’s almost always a lot of humor involved, especially with the social media exercises.

2 – They have to know more than they think.

The method to the madness of course is that, for this to work, they have to dive into the original and make decisions about what matters. For the filming exercise, say, they have to have a sense for what is important about the scene they choose, and then find visual ways to convey that information. For the Tweeting exercise, they have to have a grasp of the person’s style, personality, and worldview – and again, the knowledge of how to convey that in short bursts of text, and in a way that suits contemporary media. The sneaky secret is that I am asking analysis questions, just in a roundabout way. Please don’t tell my students that, though.

3 – They learn by sharing.

I always say I understand something better after teaching it to others, and this gives students a low-stakes taste of that dynamic. In re-presenting the material, they are processing it and taking ownership of it. They become the experts for the time being (which is always a good feeling), but it’s also a good way to reinforce important ideas or concepts. Exercises like this also hopefully give students tools they can use on their own. A format switch might be a good way to study for some students, for example. Anything that opens their eyes to new ways of questioning, presenting, or thinking about material is all to the good.

Things That Have Worked for Me: Cultural Journals

“Things That Have Worked for Me” are exactly that. This is going to be a short series of posts simply discussing activities, strategies, or materials that have worked for me in my teaching. Nothing here is exhaustingly researched beyond my own classroom experience (often exhausting enough!), nor subject to much more verification than some good days in the classroom. I’m presenting them in the hopes they might bring or spark some good days for you, too!

The Thing:

“News and Culture Journals”

The basics of the assignment are that students are, over the course of a semester, to find a number (five is usually good) of news stories or what I call “cultural artifacts” (songs, artworks, books, movies, TV shows, advertisements) that they believe illustrate or deal with a theme from our course (an example from one of my World Literature classes: the theme of “freedom”). The catch is that these events or items must come from the last five years. In other words, these should be happenings and products more or less of our time. Once they find the things, the students are to write up a one- to two-page analysis of each, explaining what it is, how they think it fits, and explaining any direct connections they see to actual class materials and subjects. Further specifics are infinitely variable – the assignment can be targeted to an area of the world or expanded to include many, genre quotas can be imposed (“at least two news stories” or “no more than three songs, please”) or not, and so on. Usually, I collect a sample one or two early in the semester to give feedback (someone is always out of time frame on something) and then require all of them at the end of the semester. The goal is an ongoing search.

Why It Works:

1 – Students own it.

My experience is that, once they get over a little fear of picking something “wrong” (and I am always very clear that they should ask when in doubt!), students like the freedom to choose. After all, here’s a chance to hit up their favorite news source or listen to their favorite music for class credit! In some cases, they get the good feeling of being able to teach their instructor about a show, a book, a band, and so on that he’s never heard of! In most cases, this leads to more enthusiastic engagement with the material on their part. On my part, I’m getting to see how they apply class-learned analysis skills to outside material. I’m also getting to know a little about their preferences and personalities along the way through what they choose to write about.

2 – It brings the outside in.

Making students look outside the assigned materials sends them the message that what we discuss in a course doesn’t just live inside classroom walls. The time frame restrictions also put the burden on them to decide what fits the theme – no “classics” allowed! Part of the design of the assignment is to let students make connections between what they’re studying and the “real world” – or, at the least, their worlds!

In the last few years, however, I have also seen this exercise become a sounding board for students’ concerns. Black Lives Matter protests, immigration battles, voting and gun rights, and COVID-19 restrictions all showed up again and again. On the one hand, these were what was making news. On the other hand, the analyses could become places where students worked out their thoughts about these things and took a stand on them in a safe forum (I graded depth of analysis, never the slant of it). Here again, they can connect class with what’s on their minds. I learned a lot about what matters to my students.

3 – It’s useful.

There are also many different ways these journals can be used. They can be a self-contained assignment. They can be used as a basis for a class discussion (“everyone bring one of your journals to class Friday”) or to stage in-class debates. They can be worked in to lectures (“Many of you have written about immigration concerns in your journals…well, that’s nothing new to American history…”). In some shorter-format classes (e.g., summer or winter terms), I’ve used them as extra credit. They are easily adaptable to online forum posting for virtual or hybrid courses. Of course, the content can also be mined for student aptitude and interests, and – because the assignment asks for ties to course materials and concepts – to see what in the course itself students have a good grasp of or interest in.

Not to mention: if it goes as it should, it’s useful to the students, too, by giving them some new lenses with which to read the news or watch their shows. It might just make them more critical readers and consumers…