Looking at my blog I'm slightly horrified to see that I have not posted here in over a month! I must admit that the Group Activity took up most of my attention and after that I was determined to do very little eLearning while on my holiday. But it's 2006, a new term and a new year and time to begin the lst half of this course. I hope that you are reenergized as I am. Personally, my interests are more contemporary than historical and so I am keen to get going on these last five units which take us up to the end of the Cold War. There's a lot of interesting ground to cover.
In the meantime before we get started I must complete my mountain of marking. I remember when I was an MA student one of my professors grumbling about how difficult and stressful the job of marking was. He seemed to be implying that this was tougher than the actual writing. At the time, having just handed in a major paper which I had agonized over for weeks I didn't have a lot of sympathy for the man. In fact, what I felt was the distinct--thuogh slightly guilty--pleasure of schadenfreude. Having seen both sides now I can assure you that writing is more challenging--creating is always more difficult than critiquing. But marking is a lot less fun, for the most part which makes it all the more exciting when I read a really good, well-written and incisive paper.
I wonder if any of you would be prepared to post on your blog one of your marked essays? Some of them have been truly excellent and would be a good example for others. Besides, you'd get bragging rights.
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6 comments:
Whilst I would not claim that my essay from term 1 was anything even close to being 'truly excellent' (and I am not alone), I may be prepared to post it on my blog. Naturally I will have to review and edit it first though, as submitting it to you as part of the course is one thing, posting it in public may be an entirely different matter!
I have an idea. Why don't you post extracts of what you thought were some of the best bits of our essays. Then we could all rip it to shreds. Oops, I mean, critically analyse them. That could be fun.
Not a bad idea Nick. I think that when I've finished this round of marking I shall post a 'Best of Group 1' selection.
I'm happy to post any of my essays (good or bad) as already suggested a few months ago. I cannot think of a better way of consolidating our learning than reading each others efforts. That said, and as Nick suggests, “anon” extracts or better still “anon” whole essays would be just as good, if people are not keen on putting them on their blogs.
I was anticipating following your recent message on the discussion forum, for some more guidance on the reflective study on the group activity - or is it just a matter of making up our own format and detailing how the activity differed from the reality. Should we reference sources as in our essays? Maybe I have missed something?
Pip
I thought that I had already posted a reply but it seems to have disappeared into cyberspace!
I would be happy to publish any of my essays - good or bad - on my Blog. I cannot think of a better way to consolidate our learning on each of the given subjects. That said, Nick's idea of anon extracts is as good and maybe even anon whole essays even better.
I had anticipated from your last message on the discussion forum that you might be also posting advice on how to present the reflective summary of the group activity. Is it just a matter of comparing how our activity differed from reality or have I missed something? Should we list sources as normal, etc ,etc.
I have tried to post a response several times but seem to have lost them all....?
I cannot think of a better way of consolidating our studies than by posting our essays on our blogs especially as we are "specializing" in differing areas. I, for one, am quite happy to do so - good or bad. That said, I like Nick's idea of posting anon extracts but perhaps one could even post anon whole essays.
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