Invisible Man Mid-Unit Surveys and Student Responses
A sample of student responses:
Analysis of Survey Responses:
The first two questions of the survey focused directly on the novel and what topics students found interesting and worth pursuing, what was frustrating and about the novel. Because the book was so long and each chapter presented new points for exploration and questioning, I wanted to know what students liked thinking and talking about.
With the first question (“What topics from the novel or from class discussions interest you so far? What are you interested in investigating further?”), there were a variety of responses including image and identity, the narrator’s progress throughout the novel, the metaphor of blindness, and general symbolism. I had 48 survey responses and of those, 19 mentioned the narrator’s growth and progress in each chapter or his journey to becoming invisible. Eleven wrote, in some variation, about the social and racial inequalities presented in the novel. Those were the two most frequent responses with interest in blindness, and other symbolism in the novel having the next highest numbers of responses.
The next question (“What don’t you like about the novel or what has been difficult so far?”) asked about what students did not like about the novel, and there were three different broad responses: Length of reading, pacing of reading, and overall content of the novel. Fourteen responses specifically mentioned disliking the length of the chapters assigned for reading each night, six responses focused more on the quick pace of the reading, and twenty-two responses were in some way related to the content of the reading. This last response varied however, from frustration over the characters, to confusion about language or the series of events, to disliking the novel all together.
Before handing out the survey, I was most worried about the forth question which asked “What has not worked well in class? What would help you become more interested or engaged in the novel or in class discussions?” because I assumed most students would write that the class discussions were not working and would be very critical about this aspect of the class. Even as I quickly flipped through the surveys the first time, I noticed that many students did write down “class discussion” for that question. However when I later looked though the responses more closely, I saw that about half of the students actually wrote that class discussions helped them understand the novel better, and only half of the students said that they did not like full class discussion.
Because this particular item had an initial question and a follow-up, a few responses only referred to the second question and did not mention something that was not working well. Overall, only 12 responses specifically mentioned that full class discussions were not working, and several other responses mentioned the lack of participation or the focus of the discussion. In response to “What activities and assignments have worked well in class?” 15 students wrote class discussion, and 20 answered with some variety of group work or small group discussions.
The first two questions of the survey focused directly on the novel and what topics students found interesting and worth pursuing, what was frustrating and about the novel. Because the book was so long and each chapter presented new points for exploration and questioning, I wanted to know what students liked thinking and talking about.
With the first question (“What topics from the novel or from class discussions interest you so far? What are you interested in investigating further?”), there were a variety of responses including image and identity, the narrator’s progress throughout the novel, the metaphor of blindness, and general symbolism. I had 48 survey responses and of those, 19 mentioned the narrator’s growth and progress in each chapter or his journey to becoming invisible. Eleven wrote, in some variation, about the social and racial inequalities presented in the novel. Those were the two most frequent responses with interest in blindness, and other symbolism in the novel having the next highest numbers of responses.
The next question (“What don’t you like about the novel or what has been difficult so far?”) asked about what students did not like about the novel, and there were three different broad responses: Length of reading, pacing of reading, and overall content of the novel. Fourteen responses specifically mentioned disliking the length of the chapters assigned for reading each night, six responses focused more on the quick pace of the reading, and twenty-two responses were in some way related to the content of the reading. This last response varied however, from frustration over the characters, to confusion about language or the series of events, to disliking the novel all together.
Before handing out the survey, I was most worried about the forth question which asked “What has not worked well in class? What would help you become more interested or engaged in the novel or in class discussions?” because I assumed most students would write that the class discussions were not working and would be very critical about this aspect of the class. Even as I quickly flipped through the surveys the first time, I noticed that many students did write down “class discussion” for that question. However when I later looked though the responses more closely, I saw that about half of the students actually wrote that class discussions helped them understand the novel better, and only half of the students said that they did not like full class discussion.
Because this particular item had an initial question and a follow-up, a few responses only referred to the second question and did not mention something that was not working well. Overall, only 12 responses specifically mentioned that full class discussions were not working, and several other responses mentioned the lack of participation or the focus of the discussion. In response to “What activities and assignments have worked well in class?” 15 students wrote class discussion, and 20 answered with some variety of group work or small group discussions.
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