Publishing as Pedagogy: Creating a Peer Reviewed Class Journal

Undergraduate students are often assumed to be consumers of the material instructors bring to their attention. Rarely are they seen as producers of original research, other than in elite honors programmes or opt-in research opportunities such as university-based undergraduate research journals. Yet students new to a subject often have highly original responses to what they encounter. Though they may not yet be fully attuned to the contours of the scholarship, they are not limited by preexisting notions of what the defining questions of the field might be, nor are they as committed to the disciplinary boundaries that sometimes—intentionally or not—obscure or prevent promising lines of inquiry. We argue that recognizing students as emerging scholars capable of original, high quality work, and offering a structured assessment in the form of a peer reviewed class journal has the potential to transform how students they see themselves in relation to the discipline, supports the development of advanced research and writing skills, and encourages them to understand academic work as a collective rather than individual endeavor. This assessment also allows a wider range of students to access the benefits of participating in a comprehensive research activity that simulates the academic research process, rather than reserving such opportunities for those participating in elite programmes or opt-in research activities.