Mapping Eve: A new materialist approach to concept maps as “working objects” in the humanities classroom

Abstract

This article presents a SoTL study of students’ use of concept maps in my undergraduate class “Women in Christian History,” in a mid-semester module called “the Eve project.” I present three students’ maps to show the different kinds of understandings that students developed in this literacy encounter. I am especially interested in how I can read these learning artifacts as a humanities scholar, and I use humanities theory—in this case, new materialism—to understand aspects of my students’ map-making, with a focus on the keyword “work.” I argue that the maps in my study, read through a new materialist lens, functioned as working objects in a manner that encouraged “differenciation” (inviting students to move toward multiple undefined learning outcomes), and that this is quite different from the work of “differentiation” (ranking students according to predefined learning outcomes) that concept maps traditionally perform in science classes.