Remixing Commonplaces and Makerspaces: Toward an Innovative, Engaged Pedagogy

This article critiques the reliance on the traditional research paper as the primary assessment tool in humanities classrooms, arguing that such assignments often privilege product over process and risk disengaging students. While term papers develop skills such as close reading and source integration, they can devalue activities that encourage personal engagement and arrangement. As an alternative, this article proposes assignments informed by maker culture—specifically, commonplace books—that emphasize invention, iteration, and reflection. Rooted in classical and early modern traditions of textual gathering, commonplacing enacts “interpretation-as-creation,” blending collection, annotation, and reflection to foreground process. By situating commonplace books within a broader ethos of maker culture, the article shows how they promote remixing and reorienting texts in ways that sustain engagement. This approach affirms students as both makers and users of knowledge, reinvigorating textual study through creative, process-centered practices.