12th-Grade History, Difficulty Papers

Before I talk about Elements, I wanted to say something about the Experts/Novices article: The discussion about “knowing facts” vs. actually internalizing the information made me think about my high school American History class. I went to a small, private high school in Alabama (seriously, 43 seniors in my graduating class), and twelfth-grade history with Mr. Thagard had a reputation. We heard about it as freshmen and sophomores, dreaded it as juniors, and sweated through it as seniors. I’m talking 6:30 a.m. study sessions on test days (tests were two days, by the way: multiple choice on Day 1 and discussion questions on Day 2). Mr. Thagard specified how we were to take notes (right side of the page only; in pen, because it’s easier to read; and in the formal outline style: I., A., 1., a., i.), and he checked our notebooks the first week of class to make sure we were doing it correctly. Class consisted of 50 minutes of note-taking. I studied for these tests by pacing around the island in my kitchen repeating my notes to myself. I did well on the tests.

And? I’m pretty sure I couldn’t tell you one true thing about the Louisiana Purchase. Or name more than fifteen or so presidents. It’s pathetic.

I thought this article was a really interesting read. I recognized myself (esp. in high school) in some of the situations discussed. I like the idea of “expert” being kind of an untrue term — “we’re always learning,” etc.

So, Elements. There are several different ideas produced in this book that I liked and could talk about here, but I think I want to focus on the idea of Difficulty Papers in general, something that I found particularly intriguing.

I think I’d find a Difficulty Paper much more interesting to read than an “academic” paper in which the student fumbles around, talking about a text in a way he thinks he should (that he thinks the teacher expects), but isn’t comfortable doing. Such papers would allow for more interesting and useful classroom discussion — you could talk about the things the students are obviously interested in, intrigued by, confused by, excited about, etc.; students would be able to better relate to the text, and hopefully see it less as lofty English Literature (with a capital E, L).

Also, calling them “Difficulty Papers” is a way to get students to grapple with confusing or contradicting thoughts and ideas about texts without thinking that they will receive bad grades for their papers because they didn’t come to a conclusion about the text or put forth a polished and well-argued reading of it. It moves the pressure from writing a complete, reasoned reading of the text and puts it on truly understanding the text, appreciating its nuances, its contradictions, its strengths and weaknesses.

The reality is, though, that students need to know how to construct a compelling, well-reasoned argument about a text, because that is what other teachers will expect of them (teachers who aren’t familiar with Difficulty Papers). I think Difficulty Papers are a nice place to start, but they are certainly only a start. If I was teaching English to a class of high school students utilizing this strategy, maybe I would assign Difficulty Papers during the first semester and expect regular academic papers from them in the second semester, or perhaps each semester would be divided roughly in half, with students writing Difficulty Papers in the first half, and regular essays in the second. It might also be helpful to consider Difficulty Papers the first draft of a paper — if you have time/space/flexibility in your curriculum to assign several drafts of each paper, the evolution from Difficulty Paper to reasoned, argued academic essay would be an excellent learning tool, perhaps. I do think that Salvatori and Donahue show the usefulness of Difficulty Papers in Elements.

2 thoughts on “12th-Grade History, Difficulty Papers

  1. nikki

    Abbie, I can relate to your high school history class experience. I think we’ve all experienced the “banking” model of teaching (on one end or the other), so I’m excited to learn about methods of encouraging genuine learning (as opposed to rote memorization).
    Your thoughts about the difficulty paper are also interesting–you summed it up well. I agree that it would not serve HS students well to have them write only DPs (instead of academic essays). I wish I had the time and curricular flexibility to assign one WITH each academic essay I have students write–but alas, that’s just not realistic.
    As an undergrad in freshman honors comp, my prof asked us to write DPs (or, as she called them, metacognitive responses) for each formal (academic) essay we turned in. In most cases, the metacognition was more useful than the essay itself. I’d love to experiment with this concept in my HS classroom. I’m working on an assignment for tomorrow where the kids think (and write) through the difficulties they encounter when reading an unfamiliar text. We’ll see how it goes….

  2. Professor Sample

    Your story about your high school history class is hilarious. The Louisiana Purchase was also known as Seward’s Folly, right?

    On a more serious note, I hear what you’re saying about difficulty papers. I think they are probably just one tool in a whole toolbox of writing strategies.

    Though, I do really wonder about the faith that we put into “regular academic papers” as true indicators of anything other than knowing how to write formulaic, unadventurous responses. I don’t have anybody else after me expecting my students to know how to write a 5-paragraph essay on a poem (certainly, this is not what most employers in the area are looking for in terms of writing), so I have the luxury of experimenting with different kinds of assignments with my students. There’s a compelling case to be made that the most valuable kind of writing a student can learn is multimodal multimedia writing, in which visual and spatial rhetoric is just as important as a “thesis statement.”

    But I’m getting ahead of myself…more on these thoughts later this semester.

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