Using Turnitin as a Discussion Tool in the Undergraduate Literature Classroom
From PraxisWiki
Contributor: Ted Morrissey
School Affiliation: Springfield College in Illinois
Email: tmorrissey@sci.edu
Web: http://www.wcusd15.org/morrissey/sci.htm
In my sophomore-level literature courses at Springfield College in Illinois, I have begun using the discussion board feature of turnitin.com—a site that is known primarily as a sentinel against student plagiarism. While guarding against plagiarism is certainly one use of turnitin, the college’s English instructors want to use the site as a bona fide teaching tool as well. More and more instructors, in all disciplines, are having their students use turnitin.com for major papers, and once a student is registered at the site it is simple for her to add another class. So when a student logs on at the turnitin site (using her email address and password), all of her courses in which instructors are using turnitin appear; then she clicks on the course (e.g., American Lit I) to upload a paper or use the discussion board. Uploading a paper, which is part of the antiplagiarism function, is similar to attaching a file to email.
I generally have two major critical papers in my literature courses, so students upload to turnitin twice a semester. The discussion board, however, works differently. Ahead of time, I will have created a topic (e.g., “Week 1 Discussion”). The student clicks on the topic to post a reply by either writing directly in the discussion board window, or by writing in Word and copying and pasting her post. My literature courses meet once a week, and I provide the students with three or four discussion questions based on the readings (and sometimes film, too). The students discuss the questions in small groups; then we use the questions as a basis for a whole-group discussion. For the coming week, students are to choose one discussion question and write a one- to two-page response, using textual evidence to support their observations. In addition, students post their expanded response to the turnitin.com discussion board—allowing their classmates to read and respond accordingly. I encourage students to be supportive of their classmates’ responses; and I will use the students’ responses to comment via the discussion board on points that are especially lucid and when the student has effectively used textual evidence to illuminate a point. (I save my constructive criticism for the old-fashioned, hand-written and private remarks on their papers.)
The feedback they get on their discussion board work can be almost immediate, compared to the old-fashioned remarks that they receive a week later. My syllabi are online (see below), and I upload a pdf version of the discussion questions each week, so that if they find themselves ready to write their response but are without the handout, they can access it online; or if a student misses class, she can access the discussion questions. This is the first semester that I’ve used the turnitin.com discussion board feature, but so far I’ve liked the results. Some students are more comfortable with the process than others, but over time I think students will come to see it as a natural part of a literature course—expanding the classroom and the class meeting time beyond the traditional boundaries.
Students who are reluctant to comment in class—perhaps because this is the first literature class they’ve taken and they’re not certain how to comment—have additional time to reflect on questions before posting to the discussion board, and they can see how their classmates respond, too. So the practice not only encourages them to explore aspects of the literature they may not think of on their own, it can also build confidence in new literature students. There are other discussion/bulletin board sites available, but an increasing number of students at Springfield College are using the paper-uploading feature of turnitin.com in various classes already; it seems logical, then, to incorporate turnitin’s discussion board, which is user friendly, rather than add another website just for web discussion.
