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Maintaining Normalcy While Learning Remotely

The COVID-19 pandemic has upended student plans and disrupted learning routines at campuses across the country, including at William & Mary. Many of us left for Spring Break not realizing we’d be gone the rest of the semester or longer. Now that remote classes have started, it can be a struggle to stay motivated and focused on learning in these new formats and without our usual on-campus inspiration. Here are a few tips that can help you reduce stress, improve productivity, and generally make the most out of this unexpected experience.

1. Create a routine that you can take with you.

A routine doesn’t have to be complicated – it can be as simple as five things you do every day when you wake up or when you go to bed. The idea is to build a practice that can travel with you, so you are able to do it no matter where you are. My portable routine includes waking up early, practicing meditation and yoga, writing down at least one gratitude and goal for the day, and then eating breakfast. I can do this easily at home, in my dorm, in a hotel room, at a friend’s place, and so on. Maintaining a simple routine gives your mind and body a familiar pattern to follow and helps you manage the stress caused by events that are out of your control.

2. Create a dedicated study space.

Claiming a space as your own can be challenging, especially if your living arrangements aren’t conducive to studying, or if you have multiple people in your home working remotely. But even establishing a part-time study space—for example, by setting up the kitchen table as your “desk” for a few hours every day—can make a big impact on your productivity. When we try to study in spaces typically used for sleep or relaxation, we may subject ourselves to an unnecessary emotional muddle. For example, try to avoid working in bed. When I work from my bed, my mind begins to associate that spot with the energy and emotions I feel during work and school, which can make it much harder to unwind and fall asleep in that same bed at night. By separating the spaces, I avoid this emotional overlap and make it easier to be productive in my study space and fall asleep in my bed at night.

3. Minimize distractions and take notes.

Remote learning can be difficult because it often comes with many more distractions than learning in a classroom does – noisy backgrounds, family members interrupting, food, pets, and so on. During an online class session, maximize the browser on your screen so you can’t see other distractions on your computer, use headphones to help block out other sounds, ask family members if they can keep the volume down for the time you are in class, and take notes with a pen and paper so that you can stay focused on the class and not the tabs open on your computer.

4. Take purposeful and regular breaks.

It is easy to end up sitting at your computer or in front of the TV all day when working from home because it can seem like there isn’t much else to do. It is important, however, to take regular breaks from the screen to relax your eyes, muscles, and mind. Use these breaks purposefully: exercise, take a walk outside, play with your pet, or do something creative like knitting, drawing, painting, or writing. The goal is to give your brain regular rest periods throughout the day. A rested brain is better able to retain information. Keeping these breaks purposeful can help you stay energized and motivated to continue your studies.

5. Stay connected and use campus resources.

When we are on campus, our friends, classmates, professors, and campus resources are all nearby and more immediately available. Now that we are studying remotely, we have to take the extra step to reach out to others and seek support. Contact your friends and organize group FaceTime or Zoom calls. Setting a regular time for socializing can help replace the positive energy that used to come from running into friends on campus. In my case, I used to meet a friend every week at the Rec; now we FaceTime each other while exercising.

Many campus resources are also available online. Online appointments are available at the  Writing Resources Center and the Tribe Tutor Zone. The Wellness Center and Counseling Center have created a  Virtual Health & Wellness  page with pre-recorded classes on yoga, meditation, mindful arts, and more. The Office of Academic Advising has created a Studying with Distance Learning resources page, and their professional advisors are available for online appointments. The Dean of Students Office has created a student support page and is available for phone and Zoom meetings. If you’re struggling to keep up with your studies during this pandemic, it is important to ask for help.

Most of these tips can be used any time, not just during this unexpected campus hiatus. Implementing small changes to our daily habits, and staying connected to others, can help us maintain our sense of normalcy wherever life takes us. Stay healthy, W&M!

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Always New Things to Learn: Eric Hayot’s “Uneven U”

A few weeks ago, a professor of mine passed out a piece of paper with a grainy photocopy of a book on it, barely readable and clearly hastily done. He explained that he was going to discuss writing techniques for a bit before starting class, as we had a paper due next week. I was happy to hear that he would be teaching some writing skills, but mostly resigned myself to zoning out as the typical platitudes such as “reread your work” and “start with a strong thesis” were shared for the thousandth time. Luckily, however, I idly perused that messy handout and on it, I found an ingenious new method of writing structure and organization. A two page scan of Eric Hayot’s book Essential Elements of Academic Style shared the concept of the “Uneven U.”

The Uneven U works off of a concept of 5 different levels of thought. These can be exemplified in a sentence, a paragraph, or even a whole section of a paper. The 5 levels are as follows:

  1. Concrete evidence, raw data, quotations
  2. Describing, summarizing, or paraphrasing the idea
  3. Analyzing the idea
  4. Contextualizing the idea
  5. Major claim or contribution of the idea to the larger whole

The levels get gradually more complex as they increase, traveling from the most simple raw material to the whole point of the essay. These levels are then applied in the structure of a paragraph by traveling from the central level, level 4, down to raw data, level 1, and back up again to approach the main idea of the whole essay at level 5. If you make a rough graph of it, it ends up looking like a slightly lopsided U:

uneven_uIt’s important to note that this isn’t a scatter plot graph; the smooth connecting line between the points shows that it’s not a discrete sentence for each level. Sometimes you may need a couple of sentences on level 3, and perhaps only half a sentence for level 2. The goal is to use the graph as a guideline, as a gesture where the paragraph is viewed as a vehicle of travel between different depths of thought.

Where Hayot’s ideas really become valuable to me, though, is when you apply them not just to a paragraph, but to the whole essay. Thus, it’s not the first sentence that is a level 4, it’s the first paragraph. Applied like this, a paper’s structure develops this beautiful fractality:

uneven_u_essay

The really lovely thing about this is that you can see the upwards progression of the main idea throughout each paragraph, section, and the whole essay. Since each piece ends just above where it began, there’s a driving movement towards the final height of the essay—the main point.

I particularly like Hayot’s Uneven U because it fits very well with my current method of writing. But given that, I think it’s valuable for just about any writer to at least consider Hayot’s method. Maybe try using it as a basis for your outline, finding the levels for each of your paragraphs. Or use it as a method of review, and label each of your sentences with a level to see where your structure stands in relation to Hayot’s U. Thinking visually about your writing can be a valuable way to gain new insights into your process and your ideas.

I’ve found The Uneven U to be particularly helpful when writing opening paragraphs. The levels help me to make sure that I’m covering all of my bases, and the level 5 sentence is always my thesis. I have that photocopy in my folder with me at all times now, and it’s already starting to get soft with use and covered in pen marks and marginal notes. It reminds me that I am in no way done learning to write, and that being open to new ideas is the most important step in maintaining a strong, even if messy, writing method.

Eric Hayot, Essential Elements of Academic Style, Columbia University Press (2014)

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The Power of Collaboration

“Tutor.”  “Consultant.”  “Worker.”

As an employee at the Writing Resources Center, part of my job is to provide students with the tools they need to strengthen their writing, including the development of strong diction. It is ironic, then, that I find it so hard to find a single word that aptly describes my job at the WRC while conveying the immense benefits the job brings me. “Tutor” seems lopsided and authoritarian. “Consultant” evokes the image of stagnant, sterile office space. “Worker” implies a bitter lack of interplay. I find that the best word to describe what I do is one that can sometimes be taboo within the context of the Center: “Collaborator.”

Merriam-Webster states that to collaborate is “to work jointly with others or together especially in an intellectual endeavor.” As an employee of the Center, one of my central goals is to never take authorship over a student’s work. This definition of “collaborator” can mean just that; working “jointly” on a paper implies a co-authorship that steps beyond our reach as consultants. When I define “endeavor,” however, I don’t think of it merely within the scope of a paper. I think of it as the intellectual endeavor at large.

On a base level, working at the Writing Resources Center is collaborating with students to better their writing skills, thus helping them in their efforts to engage in the holistic intellectual endeavor. The goal of the Center is to give students the means to improve their writing themselves. We point out and explain grammar mistakes with the expectation students will fix them themselves later. We teach strategies for brain-storming and planning. We talk out ideas with our consultees so that they’ll better know how to articulate their ideas going forward. These efforts improve the ability of our students to communicate, and thus strengthen the college’s collective intellect.

It is not, however, just the consultees who gain writing expertise; I’ve perhaps learned more about good writing from students at the Center than I have in the entirety of my years prior. When I notice things that don’t work well in my consultant’s papers, it has a twofold effect on me. On a personal level, I recognize flaws in my own writing, thus allowing me to better express my ideas going forward. Meanwhile, on a consulting level, I become better at recognizing these flaws in others and helping them get past them. Additionally, I often recognize strengths in student writing I could use to improve my own. In short, consultations teach me a ton about writing, allowing me to improve as both a writer and consultant.

Beyond writing skills, collaborating at the Center makes me better versed in the intellectual world at large. Reading papers exposes me to topics I would never be introduced to in my own studies. Not only does this make me better versed in disciplines I would otherwise be uninformed about, giving me a broader view in my own scholarly endeavors, it also helps me become a better consultant. When I first started working at the Center, I was terrified any time someone came in with a paper in philosophy or history. After working with students in these fields, I’ve developed a far better understanding of what works in these papers and what doesn’t. Once again, my work at the WRC has improved me as a student and consultant.

With this constant give and take of learning and teaching, terms like “tutor” and “consultant” become obsolete. When I go in to work at the Center, I have no misconceptions about my job. While I hope a student will end up with a better paper through my consultation, this collaboration towards a better academic whole is what lies at the core of the writing center experience. We’re all inadvertent collaborators in each other’s learning, through exchanges as simple as small talk. The Center simply provides a place for the collaboration to be that much more conscious.