4.23 Review for final, IRB + research proposals

Final Exam:  The prompt for the final is posted to the right.  It requires you to write your philosophy of composition - and to relate your ideas in terms of the readings for the term.  We did some group brainstorming to map out a big messy vocabulary of perspectives that might turn up in a composition philosophy designed to cover what composing/writing is, how to teach it, and what kind of composition research is important.  We then spent the next hour or so connecting selected points from our brainstorm map to each of the readings from the course.  This both prepared you for writing your exams (hopefully) and created an overview of the thinking we have done for the course.

Research proposals:  Next you signed up for conferences on your research proposals.


Thursday, April 26:  3:30 Musheerah, 4:10 Laurelle
Monday, April 30:    3:30 Simone, 3:50 Marie  4:10 Jonathan, 4:30 Jennifer,  4:50 Joe, 5:15  Wayne

We can arrange more/different times if necessary.

We spent some time reviewing the format proposed by Mertens - and emphasized that your particular proposal format (what is included and what is not) will reflect the focus of your project.  I have started reading proposals + providing some comments to those of you who turned in a draft.  For those of you who are still working - I will read your work and we will talk.

IRB forms:  We spent the rest of class going over requirements for IRB approval.  You do not have to submit your IRB request - only fill out a "draft" for feedback. This is not going to be about getting a grade so much as about getting and idea of the issues you will face when you actually submit your form.  Most of you will be exempted, some of you will be expedited.  Neither process is unreasonably difficult or demanding in terms of time.

Next week: conferences.

List of readings for course

1/30  Composition as a discipline + literature review
Berlin (1982), 235;
Berlin, pdf on blog
Bizzell (1984), 299;
Kirsch & Ritchie (1995), 485

2/6  Writing, discourse and identity + comparative analysis
Brodkey  (1989) p 621 Musheerah Gill
Sommers  (1980), 43 Simone Turner

2/13  Writing, discourse, and identity + survey
Anderson et al (2006), pdf on Course Blog Julio Parra
Bartholomae (1985), 523 Jennifer Robbin
Royster (1996), 555  Wayne Hargrove
Elbow (1999), 641 - Jacqueline Evans-Turner

2/27 Writers' identities & institutional contexts + grounded theory, participatory research, focus groups
Perl (1976), 17 laurelle Wallach
Castillo & Chandler (in press), pdf on course blog Jonathan Daneshpour
Kean University Writing Center Focus group reports, pdf on course blog (Turner, Longman + Sanpietro)

3/5 Writers' identities, cultural literacies + ethnographic research and case study
Perl (1976), 17 (again) Laurelle Wallach
Heath (1983) pdf -Marie Acot, Julio Parra
Young, pdf- Neiha Bhandari


3/12 Writing process, emotions and cognition + experimental & quasi-experimental
Brand & Leckie, pdf; jennifer robbin
Flower & Hayes, 253 - Timothy Longman

3/26 Literacy narratives + oral history & narrative study of lives
Hawisher & Selfe (2004), pdf  Joseph Sanpietro
Brandt, pdf-Marie Acot, Jacqueline Evans-Turner
Ruecker (in press) pdf-Neiha Bhandari

4/3 Emergence of English/composition departments &post-process pedagogy
Matsuda (1999), 673 Musheerah Gill
Breuch, (2002), 97 Wayne Hargrove


4/10  Composition and new communication technologies
Selfe & Selfe, (1994), 739 Joseph Sanpietro
Wysoki, (1999), 717 Laurelle Wallach
Yancey, (2004), 791Jonathan Daneshpour

4.16 Digital literacies & workshop for proposals

We talked over Wysocki & Johnson-Eilola, Selfe & Selfe, and Yancey = all of whom were speaking from particular points in the history of composition and electronic literacies.  I appreciated the passionate discussion!

The second part of class was spent working on your proposals.

For next week:
I will distribute the exam questions, and we will review the readings covered by the exam.  I will then give a presentation on completing IRB applications, along with sample applications, informed consent forms + debriefing forms.

I will also circulate the sign up sheet for conferences on proposals.

Have a good week and see you next class.

4.9 Brandt, Breuch, Matsuda + research proposal workshop

Good discussions on the theorists.  See Marie, Jacqueline, Wayne + Musheerah's papers to the right.

You spent the second half of class working in groups on your research proposals.  (see last chapter in Mertens). My homework regarding these discussions is to send references to:

• Laurelle on narrative research, life course development + memory
• Simone on commenting on texts
• Jen on assessment/design of poetry courses
• Wayne on high stakes testing = the validity, purpose + how/whether low scores correlate with low grades & other measures of success
• Jackie on mixed method studies to do research on assessing effect of teaching methods/new courses

I will also bring a sign up sheet for the conferences Monday April 30.

For next week come to class prepared to workshop some of  your writing for the first section of the proposal + some ideas writing for the methodology section.  We will work on designing your research intstruments.

Read: Mertens, Ch 14  Research instruments;  Selfe & Selfe, 739;  Wysoki, 717 , Yancey, 791

Great class (as always) and see you next week.

Revised calendar

April 9
Discussion Brandt, Breuch + Matsuda

Discussion theoretical set up for research proposal

Read: Mertens, Ch 14  Research instruments;  Selfe & Selfe, 739;  Wysoki, 717 , Yancey, 791

April 16 
Returned: Midterm Exam

Discussion data collection instruments

In-class practice research instrument design

Write: Draft research proposals

April  23  Schedule conferences on research proposals Due: Draft research proposals + Final Exam distributed
Review readings + connect to research essays for Exam 2Presentation on IRB application  processIn-class work on IRB applications + conferences on research proposals
Write: Feedback on classmate’s proposals

April 30

Conferences

May 7
Due: Final Proposals + IRB application + Final Exam
Presentations on research proposals

4.2 Data Analysis

We started class with questions about the midterm - and it sounds like you are all on the right track.  I emphasized that you should pay attention to the underlined sections of the prompt, and that while it was important to provide enough background(summary) of the study so that I can follow your line of discussion - the focus of your discussion should be on replying to the questions asked by the prompt.

Data analysis practice. Dr. Sutton provided an overview of data analysis methods.  We did some combined applications of the methods we have been reading about.  He presented basic quantitative concepts for assessing data distributions (mean, median & mode + distribution) and talked about when you would resort to which measure and why.  We than looked at coding/classification for his RNF project - and spent some time coding the answers to the writing major survey.  We noted that in each case circumstances that surrounded the study (the shift in classifcation categories for teh RNF study, the calls for papers associated with particular years at Cs, and so on) shaped data interpretation.

In generating categores for the writing major data, we noted approaches to name & classify big, umbrella categories, versus smaller, more particular categories.  E.g. = big = creative writing, particualar = dystopian writing.  Big categories and particular categories serve different purposes in naming and describing relationships within data.

The second half of class dealt with the readings from the oral history/live story/narrative analysis methods from last week.

Papers for the Hawisher et al essay, and the Ruecker essay are posted to the right.

For next week-
We will start with Marie and Jacqueline's presentations on Brandt.
Then we will do reaction papers to Matsuda (1999) 673;  Breuch, 97
There is no assignment for Mertens (except to ask questions about data analysis if you have them)

The second half of class will be spent workshopping your research proposals.  You should have some texts (at least 5 references) for your literature review.  If you do not have a clue what you should be reading - schedule a conference.
In class - you will give a brief presentation on where your proposal is so far + what you need to do = and you will get input from classmates to support you.