4.29 Presentation

The draft proposals and  IRB applications were due tonight. I will be reading them over the next few days, and will have feedback for everyone by next week. Those of you who presented this evening received your feedback on the proposal already.  Good work on these!

Next week, we will continue with the presentations.  This week we were a little pressed for time, since we took almost the first hour so everyone could read through the drafts.  Make sure to come to class with your comments in mind for each proposal.  To make sure everyone gets feedback, the format for presenting should not include a detailed overview of the whole proposal (since everyone will have already read the proposal in detail); rather state the following.

• A detailed statement of your research question.
• The references you expect to use, and how you expect to use them. 
• A brief outline of your plan for gathering + analyzing data.
• Requests for feedback.

Presentations will be 15 minutes each, and should balance out at under 5 minutes for the above statements and the rest for feedback. We will spend the rest of next week reviewing for the exam.   If you have questions or would like a conference on the proposal or IRB application - let me know.  Have a good week and see you soon.

4.22 Workshop IRB applications + discussion proposals

Note:  Draft proposals + IRB applications are due next week by noon, Monday, April 29.

A complete application as submitted to the IRB should include the following:
Comleted application form
NIH certificate
Any research instruments (surveys, interview protocols, etc)
Informed consent form
Debriefing form
For the purposes of this class, please turn in the following documents for the draft IRB application:
1. Completed application form
2. A DESCRIPTION of your research instruments =>You do not need to create the complete research instruments, but you do have to provide an overview of their general structure + content. 

For example, for a surve, you might give an indication of length, general categories for questions, and method of distribution.  This would give me enough information to provide some feedback on whether/what the IRB may ask you to revise.

3. Informed consent form
4. Debriefing form

The draft research proposal should cover the points set up on the assignment sheet. Also - indicate any areas where you would like feedback/support so that my comments can address your concerns.

Sign up for presentations on research proposals:
April 29: Heather, Jay, Marie, Vanessa, Rafael
May 6: Tobey, Luis, Lewis, Maria, Nikki

For your presentation on the proposal:
If this were not a draft proposal, the presentation would provide an overview of your project (its purpose, value to writing studies, how it is designed, and so on), a discussion of what has been done by other researchers + how your project "adds" to the discipline; and a discussion of your methods.

 Because this IS a draft, you may have questions or be "stuck" on some point in your proposal - so your presentation may be a presentation of the points you are OK with, along with an interactive discussion (prompted by your questions) of points you would like feedback/support on.

Your draft proposals should be emailed to me by Monday April 29, noon, so I can forward them to the class for their consideration.  This will allow for a full class workshop.

4.15 IRB forms, Wysoki, and Selfe & Selfe

You spent the first half of class working with Dr. Sutton on the IRB forms, and we spent the second half of class talking about how computer technologies are changing what writing is, the way we teach writing, and discourses surrounding writing. 

New week is a whole class workshop.  You will work on finishing up the IRB materials and on your drafts for your research proposals. 

You will sign up for presentations for the April 29 and May 6.

I also asked you to think about good questions for your final exam.  We will spend a little time talking about the exam (to think about the question) next week; the review will be May 6. 

The final exam will, along with the final draft of the IRB materials + your research proposal, will be due May 13.

Have a good week.

4.8 Midterm, quantitative data, and proposal assignment sheet

Exam 1. We started class with a review of the midterm.  You did an outstanding job on this.  As I said in class, points off were almost entirely for omitting one of the points requested in the exam. You generally did an outstanding job in your analysis of the sectitons you presented. 

I announced at the end of the break that if you hate the score you got on your midterm, and if you get a higher grade on your final, I will give you double the grade on your final (if it is higher).

We also spent some time discussing when and whether it is OK for outsiders to do research on/represent the experiences of individuals in groups they don't belong to.  It's not like we resolved questions surrounding this issue, but you raised a number of good points:
identities are social, not entirely or even necessarily biological;
good communication with participants can go a long way toward validating data about "others";
asking participants to interpret/check/write up data does not provide the same kinds of rewards for them as it does for primary researchers and they deserve compensation;
providing information about your background/identity/assumptions can help provide context that will help readers understand your interpretations of "others";
doing research demands different kinds of "validity" than what is required of say, a man writing a novel where the protagonist is a woman

Even though we did not get to the end of this, it is important to think about these issues, because (also as we observed in class discussion) even when you might think you are a member of the group you are studying - individual differences can be profound, and you must be constantly senstive to projecting your assumptions onto your data.

Assignment sheet for research proposal (posted to the right): Hopefully this will serve as a supplement to the guide provided by Mertens.  You requested some additional direction in terms of the literature review - so we will talk through some samples from your text book next week.

Bruffee:  Thank you, Luis.  Posted to the right.  Social constructionist pedagogy focuses on teaching discursive patterns - as opposed to teaching "content".

Quantitative data:  Dr. Sutton's data sheets were emailed to you and we talked through them in class.  Although it states on the calendar that you will work on the data set for homework, I think what you did in class is probably sufficient.  The purpose was to give you a "taste" of how to make descisions about how to collect, organize, analyze and represent your data using quantitative methods.  You are by no means experts - but you have had an introduction to some of the issues you will need to keep an eye out for. 

Breuch:  Marie did an excellent job of presenting Breuch's discussion of post-process pedagogy.  I especially appreciated her mention of Kent's reply to Breuch, where he repudiates her attempts to pose pedagogical practices for what he represents as an individualized (NOT systematic in any teachable way), situated (irrevocably dependent on context) phenomenon => where meaning (writing) emerges as language-in-use that can not be taught.  Breuch's point is that even if we reject universalizing theories of what writing is, there are points of intervention and pedagogical moves that can support what writers do as they write. 

For next class:
I am still catching up on responding to reaction papers (re-written and otherwise) and you should have all feedback before next class.

In class we will talk through the purpose of institutional review, talk through how it works here at Kean University, and get you started on your applications.  Even if you will not need to do an application for your project at the present time, I am suggesting that you walk through the process and turn in an application for my review = so that when the time comes you will know what to expect.

We will then talk about the two essays focused on how nem communication technologies are re-framing "literacy" and how we think of as reading and writing
Read: Selfe & Selfe, 739;  Wysoki, 717; IRB materials  (posted to the right)

Additional note:  I seem to have inadvertantly scheduled an "informational session" for the MA in Writing Studies (on East Campus) from 4:30 - 5:30 on April 15.  Obviously I can't be two places at one time - so you may have someone other than me coaching you on the IRB materials.  I expect to be present for the second part of class - and our discussion of Wysoki, & Selfe & Selfe. 

You are not assigned to watch "The Man Who Shot Literty Valence" = and I am not saying it is a good movie, but definitely projects the version of the Literacy Myth from mid-20th century onto the American West, and this is the "story" or "bundle of stories" that Wysoki is asking us to become aware of, and to reject.

4.1 Literacy narratives + project proposals

Talk about the exam.
We started class with a useful discussion of questions/reflections associated with the exam.  Several of you pointed out that placing the essays within a research paradigm was not simple (or clear) and that you spent some time reviewing what the assumptions were for each approach.  I was very happy to hear that - because that was one of my central objectives for the exam = to get you to think (hard) the underlying assumptions within the research we read (and write!) and to notice how those assumptions drive results.  As we have repeatedly said in class - if you can support (with evidence from the text) a line of reasoning for why a particular piece of research fits within a particular paradigm - you are probably OK.  As we also observed in this discussion, the object of research in the humanities is often not so much to prove one correct uncontestable answer - as to explore and define the dimensions of very complex questions. 

Finishing up our discussion of oral history/narrative research.
Tobey provided us with an excellent overview of Hawisher & Self, Pearson & Moraski's co-authored piece on relationships between emerging digital communication technologies and literacies.  Below are the notes from the board which reflect the focus of the main patterns pointed out in the article (summed up in the essay's intro + conclusion).

cultural ecology - macro, medial, and micro environments that shape and are shaped by the literacy practices of the individuals who live within them
gateways -for some literacies, school will not be the only or even the most important gateway
literacies have lifespans
agency - is shaped by macro, medial and micros circumstances
literacy circulates both up and down through generations

Tobey also led us in a discussion of participatory research/work co-authored with participants, and we talked around the same circle where leading researchers in the field have laid a well trodden path.  It is one thing to "listen" to participants - another to focus on their stories - and still another to present their interpretations.  At the same time, there will be questions about the level of co-authorship so long as the research directs the analytic/interpretive process => and WRITING is an interpreetive process.  In some ways, so long as researchers "write up" the essays - it is hard to gage the level of co-authorship. 

She also pointed out how the essay brings issues back to the role of teachers/educators.  We more or less summed this up in terms of being "open" and "flexible" => and paying attention.  In some ways, to be effective teachers, we have to learn as much as we teach => or we will miss the boat,

Brandt also points out issues associated with changing technologies and the responsibilites of educators.  We used our discussion of Brandt as a way to check in on criteria for effective reaction papers.  We began by reviewing the essay's main points (listed below):
 

Define sponsorship = provide opportunities, places, introduce to practices + material

Patterns of sponsorship

Sponsorship + access => stratification

Sponsorship + the literacy crisis=> competition

Sponsorship and agency = appropriation
Reflections + role of educators

We then reviewed the assignment sheet, and looked at the reaction paper posted on the previous page of this blog - and noted the strengths and weaknesses.  The strongest criticism whas in terms of the quality of the critique.  You noticed that the essay brings in the author's experience, but does not really develop a focused point with respect to Brandt's theoretical frame in terms of that point.  You also noticed that the discussion of the paradigm needed to be more clearly articulated and set forward with a "point"(such as discussion of consequences that follow from the choice of that paradigm).  Overall, though, we all agreed this was a strong reaction paper.

The rest of class was devoted to brainstorming/reviewing topics for your research projects with the object (for me) to discover what you need/want in terms of guidance.  We agreed that the directions in the book are so extensive as to be confusing, and that an assignment sheet could help clarify the dimensions of the project.  In our discussion you pointed out that you would like an assignments sheet with the following features.

good visual design = clearly laid out points rather than long paragraphs, heading to represent levels of importance, etc

guidance re the literature review in terms of what KINDS of references, how many references, and what kind of discussion is appropriate
I know there were more points than this on our list - but this is all that seems to have copied into the blog so I will do my best on the rest.

I will have an assignment sheet posted before next class.

For next week:
I will return your exams and we will disucss them
Read: Mertens, Ch 13 - quantitative analysis (skim this=pick out the points you think will be relevant to your work, and draw attention to them in class); Bruffee, 395;   Breuch, 97.

I anticipate having a guest speaker (TBA) to talk through a sample data set.

Good class and see you next week!

Reaction papers

The function for adding files to linklists on Blogger is  not working, so I have posted the reaction papers here.

Selfe and Hawisher

Brandt