Teaching With Commonplace Books in the Digital Age
Jessica Gray
Description
As our students increasingly rely on digital tools for intellectual work, they appreciate opportunities to explore how those technologies shape their thinking. This talk examines a commonplace book assignment that helps students unpack their own cognitive processes and develop awareness of the relationship between those processes and technologies that interact with them.
I created this project for a literature course as a hands-on experiment with early modern “ways of knowing.” Students kept a commonplace book all quarter, then reflected on the experience. Their thoughtful introspection and self-analysis inspired me to adapt the project for other classes, where I often present it as a “field notebook” for collecting and examining specimens of language.
I require it to be on paper to foreground the tactile, embodied experience that offers a productive contrast with their usual reading and writing practices. Writing without a backspace key helps concretize for them how even basic tools influence attention, flow, revision, and output. They also have the freedom to ‘write outside the lines,’ using idea maps, fragments, illustrations, and other non-linear methods, letting them see the shape of their own thinking processes. Their reflections engage thoughtfully with what technologies enable, what they hinder or obscure, and what kinds of intellectual work flourish through slow, deliberate practice.
I will share insights from student reflections (shared anonymously with permission) and discussion/reflection prompts that encourage students to critically evaluate their relationship to emerging technologies that purport to hack the slow, recursive processes through which cognitive skills develop.
Link to the video [video.ucdavis.edu]
About the Presenter
Jessica has been a Lecturer with the Writing Center since 2023 and also holds appointments with English and the UWP. She earned her Ph.D. in English with an emphasis in Science and Technology Studies from UC Davis. She teaches primarily upper-division writing courses, as well as a cross-listed advanced grammar course exploring connections among syntax, culture, literature, and real-world communication.
Drawing on her background in tech and entrepreneurship, Jessica brings practical experience to her Business Writing courses while also weaving in her theatre experience, research, and literary training—meaning students can expect the occasional Shakespeare quote, impromptu mini-games and interactive challenges, weird fun facts about seventeenth-century science, and plenty of connections between language, creativity, and the world beyond the classroom.
