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Pros & Cons of Assigning Students to “Choose Their Own Adventure”

In my fully online graduate seminar on contemporary rhetoric this semester, I decided to experiment with one component of the students’ grades by letting them “Choose Their Own Adventure.” I developed a series of short assignment options they could choose from that, when combined, would result in 30% of their course grade. Some of the options included: short analysis papers, book reviews and attendance at our monthly “book club” synchronous meeting, narrative essays, and/or a handout on a scholar in our field. Each item was worth a different percentage—some 5%, others 10-15%–so there were multiple paths to earning the 30%.

The “Choose Your Own Adventure” assignment required the following:

• Within the first few weeks of the semester, students had to submit a plan that detailed their selection of assignments for the 30%.
• In their plan, students had to set their own due dates for each assignment, except for the book club choices which had scheduled due dates on the syllabus.
• All adventure assignments had to be completed before the Thanksgiving holiday, so there’d be no last-minute cramming when they are supposed to be working on their major research papers.

“Choose your own adventure” by scanlime is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Pros: What Students & I Liked

Choice, Flexibility, Creativity

At mid-point I conducted an anonymous survey through iCollege asking for feedback from students on how things were going so far, and they overwhelmingly liked the “Choose Your Own Adventure” assignment. They liked that they had some choices in the type of assignments they selected, and they appreciated the chance to set their own due dates. Here are a few snippets from their anonymous survey feedback:

• “Being able to pick my own due dates via the ‘Choose your own adventure’ assignments has probably been the most helpful in helping me find comfort in completing assignments. That comfort, I believe, is valuable in reaching the head space where learning can happen more effectively than if it were simply a dedicated date on the calendar that might share due dates with other classes.”
• “The ability to create our own schedule of when to turn things in has been a nice addition, too.”
• “I particularly appreciate the creativity and flexibility with the Choose Your Own Adventure assignments–I found myself wanting to do all of them, which is an excellent sign for their effect.”

In a semester that has been unpredictable, the students and I both liked an assignment that allowed for some flexibility and a little bit of fun. In reading what they’ve turned in thus far, I can say that students have tended to exceed my expectations on these assignments—seemingly putting more attention and creativity into them than if I had just required everyone to submit an analysis paper, for example.

Cons/Cautions: What Can Be Challenging About Choice

Being Overwhelmed by Choice, Changes of Plan, and Logistics

 While I tend to think the “Choose Your Own Adventure” assignment has been a success for my graduate seminar, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out a few challenges of the assignment, especially if situated within different course contexts.

First, some students may be overwhelmed by choice and the range of possible assignment selections and due dates. I tried to mitigate this by offering one plan that was more direct. I told students, if you’re not sure what to choose, select the three book reviews; they had to read the books for class any way, and the book club synchronous discussions were already scheduled, so there wasn’t a choice in due date. That was a straightforward way for them to quickly have a plan for attaining their 30%.

A second challenge with this assignment has been when students need to make a change to their plan. Because the assignment was framed as flexible and student-driven, I have had a number of requests to make slight changes to a student’s originally proposed plan. I have been able to accommodate those changes without much problem in my seminar of 15, but I imagine this could become more difficult in larger sections. If you decide to experiment with letting students have some choice, you might decide to set some boundaries or not allow changes to the plan.

This brings me to the last challenge with this assignment, which is keeping track of when assignments are coming and returning graded work in a timely manner. Again, because it’s a small graduate seminar, I have been able to check each week for assignments that have been submitted so that I can mostly stay on top of grading and returning work. However, it’s a much different rhythm than receiving a stack of papers on a set due date. In some ways, it’s been nice to just grade a few each week, a kind of surprise mixed bag of adventure assignments. It also means that I’m grading most weeks, though, even if only a few at a time. I acknowledge that these logistics may be challenging for some classes. One possibility for doing things differently might be to allow choice in the assignment but not allow students to choose their due dates; this might mean setting 3 or 4 due dates for when “adventure” assignments are due. They would have to submit something by your defined due dates, but the type of assignment might be their own selection from the list of choices—perhaps as a way of balancing student choice with the demands of teaching and grading.

Will I try it again?

Yes, I think I will. I’m beginning to think about my spring classes and how I might tweak this assignment a bit considering what I’ve learned and experienced this semester. It’s important to me (and to students) to be flexible during these most unusual times, and allowing for student choice and a bit of class adventuring has been—I’m pleased to say—kind of fun this semester.