You are here: Creative Journal Writing > Subtopic 2
Making a Table of Contents
Purpose
A Table of Contents has two purposes:
Unification
and Organization
Assessment
Unification and Organization
In a project with fifteen to thirty parts, perhaps organized in different
sections (for example, responses to essays, responses to visual images, and
responses to model essays), organization of the materials becomes essential
for both the student and the instructor. For the student, the project
has no center or connection of its parts without a Table of Contents. Without
one, the student types up entries, clips them together, and hands them in. He
or she is unsure if requirements are met and does not take responsibility for
the organization of the materials into an interconnected whole. In fact,
students are unlikely to see it as a whole or understand it as a unified body
of work.
The instructor who receives such a pile of papers has no idea if requirements
are met and must organize the materials according to some scheme to determine
if the assignment is complete. If the assignment was meant to just get
students to write and had no further agenda, i.e., response to certain texts,
response to a certain number of visual images or model essays, or response to
class discussions on key issues, then the instructor could just count up the
pages and thumb through them, awarding a grade on productivity and creativity.
Assessment
If however, the instructor is interested in what students responded to, how
many texts they responded to and if they used different categories from Andrea
J. Kaston’s twenty “Suggestions,” or if they met other requirements,
a Table of Contents proves invaluable. A quick look and, provided
what is listed actually exists, an instructor knows if the student completed
the assignment.
