By Claudia Jorgenson, Associate Professor of Psychology & Counseling
I teach writing heavy biopsychology courses. To foster writing skills, I have developed writing assignments that are scaffolded. The scaffolding is structured so that students work on a smaller section of the full writing assignment and obtain feedback. The students are highly encouraged to use this feedback to revise their paper before resubmitting the assignment. The feedback I provide relies on track changes in Microsoft Word.
Over the years, I have been modifying my writing assignment instructions and information provided for students to be able to locate the track changes. Some of the modifications included self-reflection on the use of the track changes, how-to-guide with screen shots, and a how-to-video tutorial.
Despite these modifications, students continued to struggle locating the track changes BUT this struggle does not become apparent until after the grading of the final submission. My “Horcrux” idea was born to have an unbiased way to know before the final submission, whether students have accessed the track changes.
A “horcrux” (in the fantasy Harry Potter series, a horcrux is a hidden magical object of great importance) is like an “easter egg.” Using track changes, I type in a word or word phrase—the “horcrux” or “easter egg” that clearly does not belong in the graded student paper. Before the student submits their final paper, they complete a canvas quiz answering what “horcrux” was in their paper. As the horcrux differs from student to student, I have an objective way in knowing whether the student accessed the track changes.
If they get the horcrux wrong or cannot complete the quiz, I can reach out individually and show them how/where to access the track changes.