Coping Strategies for Research Seminars
by
Kevin C. McMunigal

I encounter three persistent problems in my research seminar, but I've developed some effective strategies for coping with them.

My seminar format is fairly standard: Twelve students complete research papers. For the first six weeks, I supply the reading. A two-week break from class meetings follows for completion of first drafts due in the eighth week. Two students present their papers in each of the final six weeks. A week before each class, students receive copies of the papers to be presented the next week; these papers are the reading assignment for the class.

The problems

Procrastination. Law school seminar students react quite predictably to the gauntlet of competing incentives they run. They resort to academic triage. The conventional strategy is to tread water in a seminar while devoting limited time and energy to more immediate pressures - job interviews, moot court and journal deadlines, daily classes. The semester ends with a research and writing binge fueled by caffeine and the adrenaline rush of a deadline and impending exams. My students' written work suggested procrastination was epidemic. First drafts reflected hours rather than weeks of work.

Inadequate thesis development. My seminar students exhibited a near-primal attraction to the research memo as their model for legal writing. Page after word-processed page summarized and described cases, rules, statutes, articles, and opinions. Analysis and evaluation of these materials, much less advancing and supporting positions, seemed taboo.

In one-on-one sessions to review drafts, I cajoled and demanded. The students nodded and smiled. But their final papers provided little if any analysis or thesis development. Some would take positions, but simply tack them on as the last pages of their final papers, rather than supporting them throughout.

Lack of student engagement. The third problem I encountered was the students' reluctance to invest time, energy, and interest in each others' work. Rigor mortis set in during student presentations. Class participation was weak. Responses to papers were superficial. In short, the student presentations often simply failed to spark the sort of exchange that marks a good class.

Procrastination and lack of thesis development were partly to blame for this lack of engagement. But it was an incentive problem, too. With no test on the material, there was no grade reward for investing in each others' work. And since the students often worked on unrelated topics, time and energy put into others' work may have seemed unlikely to bring tangible benefits for their own papers.

The antidotes

These problems stemmed in part from my failure to communicate clearly enough to my students what I expected from them. In addition, I was working against an incentive structure that discouraged students from producing what I wanted. My strategies address both of these issues.

Thesis statement. A good start in getting across the notions of analysis and thesis development is simply to emphasize and illustrate them. In the first class, I tell the students what I expect in their papers and that I will monitor their progress throughout the semester. A written statement of the seminar' s requirements expands on these points. Reading assignments provide material for reinforcing analysis and thesis throughout the first six classes. These meetings focus on students articulating and evaluating each article's thesis and its support. Students also report briefly each week on the status of their papers with particular attention to thesis.

Blank stares at times leave me wondering if the message is getting through. Rather than waiting for first drafts to find out, I monitor their work on a thesis after the first four weeks. This allows time to remedy any misunderstandings prior to the first draft.

My monitoring device is one page from each student, due at the end of the fourth week, stating the student' s thesis and how it will be supported. To illustrate what I am looking for, I suggest that students look at the precis used to introduce an article in many law reviews. The thesis statement allows me quickly to identify students who haven't gotten the message. I can easily require one or more rewrites of this statement in the weeks before the first draft until I am sure the student has the idea. To further emphasize the thesis point, a first draft that contains only a descriptive section with no thesis articulated or developed will not count as a first draft. In other words, no thesis, no credit on the first draft. And the first draft comprises 25% of the final grade. To ease the panic caused by the early deadline for the thesis statement, I emphasize that students are free to modify or jettison a thesis as their research and thinking progress.

Student editors. My primary strategy for improving engagement in other students' work is to use students as editors for one another. This idea has two facets.

First, students are paired in editing teams, with the same two students working with one another throughout the semester. The students usually pick their own editing partners, and I do not monitor their work. I suspect the amount of work varies from team to team. From student reports, I know it is quite substantial for some.

The second aspect of the student editor idea requires each student in the class to edit every other student's paper once during the semester. This is accomplished as follows.

As I mentioned earlier, the last six class meetings are devoted to students presenting drafts of their papers. A week before each of these classes, I distribute copies of the drafts to be presented. Rather than simply requiring students to read these drafts, I require the students to edit them as well. Each student must turn in at the end of class a copy of the draft fully marked and edited for issues of both form and substance. Each student must also turn in a one-page sheet of written comments on the draft. I collect these at the end of each presentation.

Immediately after class, I quickly review the edited drafts and comment sheets. This review helps establish the 25% grading component for class participation. I then pass the marked drafts and comment sheets on to the student authors.

This second editing requirement has greatly improved student presentation classes. They tend to run themselves, and I usually have to cut off discussion rather than try to resuscitate it. The editing requirement forces students to prepare for class and encourages active engagement with the topic. Reviewing their editorial work after class gives me a simple way to monitor and enforce class preparation.

This editing work also may pay dividends outside the classroom. My hope is that the students' editing improves their writing by enabling and encouraging them to bring editorial eyes to their own work. Also, each student author has the benefit of twelve edits - eleven from students and one from me - in preparing their final papers.

Grading. Seminar grading that relies exclusively on the final paper severely tempts students to procrastinate. To encourage work early in the semester, I determine seminar grades by the following formula: (1) 25% on the first draft; (2) 25% on performance in class; and (3) 50% on the final draft. The grading components based on the first draft and class performance provide obvious incentives for investing in the seminar earlier in the semester.

This approach also helps alleviate the problem of lack of engagement in the work of other students. The 25% component for class participation directly rewards their efforts in class. The 25% first draft component also improves class sessions. Because the drafts reflect more work and thought, they tend to be more engaging. Also, if students are more invested during the semester in their own seminar papers, they tend to be more involved in the seminar generally and in the work of fellow students.