Writing tips are a surprise (CS222 Spring 2022 Assignment 0 Notes)

As I mentioned in my previous post, I rearranged the first three weeks of CS222 assigned work into six assignments. Part of Assignment 0 involved reading and responding to portions of the course plan. I did this with a quiz in the past, but now it was rolled into a larger "Assignment." I still feel like quizzing students over the course plan represents further infantilization of college students, I also can't deny that I've had less confusion around the policies in the course plan since grading student work about it.

I have spent significant effort over the years curating my Tips page, but I had never previously required students to ever engage with it. Sure, I encouraged and cajoled, but there was never anything graded that came explicitly and solely from that page. I changed that this year by adding a question to Assignment 0 asking students, "What surprised you on the Tips page?" 

There were a range of answers. A few students aid that while it was good advice, nothing there surprised them. Others mentioned that the presence of the page at all, or its attention to writing, were surprises. A few students referenced the checklists, indicating that they were thinking ahead to how they will know if they are doing what is expected in the future.

My favorite responses were those that referenced George Orwell's writing tips. The tips page includes a quotation from George Orwell's 1946 essay, "Politics and the English Language." It is a masterful essay, and you should take a few minutes to read it. While only a few students referenced it as surprising, one student was particularly clear* in their response, writing, "George Orwell's tips surprised me the most because they are just about the opposite of what I learned in probably every English class I've ever taken." In my feedback to this student, I indicated that I would love to hear more about this, but that's the kind of thing that rarely receives notice from students, much less a response. Perhaps I can use it to engage my classes in person, however, in those few awkward minutes between when I get myself set up and when the meeting begins.

* My first draft used the phrase, "hit the nail on the head," but then I realized that this violates Orwell's first rule.