5.6 End of the term review

We talked through the exam and then did some writing to prepare for it.

First you wrote out your research philosophy: the assumptions/beliefs about what good research is and how you would do it, what it does and why it is important.

Next we talked about which essays from the assigned readings you might enlist as examples which support or contest your position.

And we also talked about how (to make the last point) you will want to place your researchwithin the context of writing studies (what kind(s) of research the discipline needs.

We made lists of examples and talked about the fact that you are NOT required to identify yourself with a paradigm => rather, you are to identify your particular belief system (which may not align perfectly with one of the paradigms used by Mertens).  It is OK to refer to the paradigms, but it is most important for your to present YOUR philosophy.

Grades:
We tweaked the points allocated for the grade as follows:

1. Class participation                                                                                                                 150 points

2. Reaction papers + class discussion                                                                                      100 points

3.  Data analysis group work; in-class work + presentations                                                     100 points

4.  NIH training + IRB application for proposed thesis project                                                    125 points

5.  Research concept paper +  proposal                                                                                    225 points

6.  Exams: 2 @ 150 points each                                                                                                300 points

I will send grades as an attachment to an email + post them to Keanwise as soon as I read through all your writing.  For the final assignment you will be sending the following documents to the course email:

1. Project proposal

2. IRB materials (past them into a single document in this order: application, consent form, a/v form, debriefing; you do not need to send the certificate again)

Thanks for a great term!

4.28 Presetations on projects

Each of you talked through your projects.  They all sounded like you are in a solid position to finish your proposal - and some of you sound like you are in a good position for getting started on your projects.  Well done!

You wrote me an email with the list of IRB issues you will be dealing with, and I am just getting to composing my consolidated version so we can get some answers.

Good class tonight.

Next week we will review the course readings and talk through the exam.  I will also take any last questions related to how to turn in work/finish the Proposal + IRB materials.

I will return the IRB materials as soon as I work my way through them.

See you next week!

4.21 Research proposals turned in=> IRB drafts in process!

You turned in your research proposals along with an email where you gave me a heads up about:

what you thought went well
what you thought went not so well
what kind of feedback you want from me

We spent the rest of class working on IRB applications.  You created accounts (noting that it takes 72 hours for the permissions to go through), read through the expedited/exemption categories and identified where your proposals would land, and looked at the submission portal.

The rest of the class was a workshop.  You drafted your IRB materials, asked questions, and oveerall got a good start.

For next week:
Proposals returned with comments
IRB drafts due.  The complete IRB assignment includes:

• IRB application
• Informed consent form
• A/V consent form
• Debriefing form
• NIH training certificate

We will spend class talking about your research project.  Each of you should plan to talk through your proposal, including 

• the introduction (CARS moves)
• a detailed discussion of the research relevant to your project
• your proposed methods.

As a class, we will respond with support and suggestions.  

You are almost done!   Good class tonight and see you next week!

4.14 Set up for IRB work, workshop on thesis proposals, and reflecting on language use

We started class by checking out the links to the right which direct you to Kean University's IRB materials. In particular, I suggested that you read through the handbook (linked from the IRB page), with particular attention to the different levels of approval.  Also read through the sample application form.  This was created before the online portal was instituted, but requirements remain to turn in hard copies.  You will use the forms/templates in the handbook and on the site to create your application.  A complete IRB application includes: the Submission form (beginning with the first page in the sample); an informed consent form; an A/V consent form (if you will be recording any interactions); a debriefing from; and  protocols/data collection materials associated with the project.  For now, don't worry about the protocols.

In class you will work on creating your IRB account and drafting your materials for submission.

Workshop:
During the next part of class you workshopped your proposals so far, with particular attention to your focus, the place of your project in writing studies, whether you have made constructive connections to the research literature - and anything else you wanted to talk about.  You were grouped with colleagues who had similar projects, and it looked to me like you gave eachother some good feedback, and all of you were good to go in terms of creating a draft for next week.  I'm looking forward to reading these!

Wysoki and Selfe and Selfe
In some ways, the discussion of both of these articles had similar themes:  literacy and literacy education are not neutral.  Our language (and the way we use it) and our teaching are intricately associated with power structures in ways that put forward the interests of the 'more powerful'.

Our discussion of the term literacies and Wysoki's description of the "bundles of stories" (unconscious associations, belief systems, values, and narrative lines) associated with it characterized it as a term associated with colonization, homogenization, authorization of one set of discursive practices and identities as "correct", capitalism (buy in with a particular model of economic growth as "good" and natural) and a version of democracy the envisions "everyone as equal" through literate participation. Wysoki pointed out that these beliefs and values persist despite compelling and pervasive experiences where that is not the way the world works.  And she asked why we would want to apply such a burdened term to what we do with computers and on the internet.  She asked - why not name it something else?  This was in 1999.

We then reflected on what it means that we persisted in naming many things "literacies" - and asked ourselves what it meant that we did - in terms of who garnered power from that move, and what it authorized?  We noted that it authorized educational ownership of the internet, empowering "schools" to name the "right" and "wrong" way to use the internet; that this move was in collusion with economic interests who sell technologies to schools, and so on.  Though we didn't make this move in class - there is also a need to step back and ask about who benefited and how in more detail before jumping on the anti-capitalist/business bandwagon.  Even when it is difficult to actually step outside of the effects of ideological systems - it is important to strive to see them - so we can write messages to the future.

We then segued to Selfe & Selfe's analysis of the interface. Rather than repeat their analysis of Microsoft, we used their axes for analysis, and mapped the capitalist & class privilege, discursive privilege, and rational/logocentric privilege in the interface provided by blogger, the software I use to create public documentation of our classes.  We only scratched the surface, but we noted that the kind of information about "use" (in the stats) was more useful to marketers (who opened the page, how often, when) than to educators, who might be interested in who read what page, when, and what they interacted with.  We also noted all the opportunities for self promotion and for developing ways to make $$$ (surprise).  Lots to think about here.  We could have spent much longer ont his.

I have pasted in the calendar for the rest of the term.  You are almost there!

April  21  Due: Draft research proposals; schedule conferences

Presentation on IRB application  process
In-class work on IRB applications + conferences on research proposals

More work on research proposals

Write: IRB application

April 28 Due:  IRB application  Returned: Research Proposals with comments

Presentations on research proposals

May 5

Returned:  IRB application with comments
Presentations on research proposals
Review readings + connect to research essays for Exam 2

May 12
Due: Final Exam, Final Research Proposals + IRB application  

4.8 More discussion of research proposals, reflecting on the midterm, + Breuch & Bruffee

Tonight's class spent time on a range of topics and hopefully helped you get the big picture of where we are going for the rest of the term.

Research proposals:  We started by applying the rubric to the second research proposals.  The purpose of this exercise was to give you a chance to think in detail about features that make a good proposal - and to see how they look in writing.  Your comments on this proposal indicate to me that you have a good idea about the different moves you will have to make, and are getting a more clear idea about what those moves entail. As we noted in class, the particular voice, kind of authority, organization and development for your proposal will depend on your topic.  We noted that if your work is reflective, if you are working with a group where you are a member, and for any other kind of work where your sensibility needs to be explained + explored to validate and authorize your work, you will probably write from the first person.  Other projects (surveys, literature reviews, and "objective" approaches) will work better from the distanced third person of more cientific writing.

We noted on the calendar that we did not do the drafty writing for the proposal, but that the Draft proposal (ready for feedback) would be due April 21.  For this draft you should write the whole way through as best you can (including the timeline).  This means you will need to have located the sources you will use to identify your niche, and to develop the detailed discussion in your literature review. See what you can do using the data bases/strategies identified at the end of the term, but if you are stumped or you want to check on whether you have identified the "important" sources - stop by my office and we will do some looking around.

Reflection on the midterm.  Writing the midterm was meant to provide a chance to consolidate and use the concepts we have been working with this semester.  You have read about a range of approaches to writing studies research along with some expamples of those approaches - and more importantly we have spent a lot of time thinking about the assumptions embedded within those different approaches and research projects.  As you illustratd in your midterm writing - the "paradigms" suggested by Mertens are not really a perfect fit for most research; at the same time, the work as general classifications for typical groupings off assumptions about: the way the world works (ontology); the ways knowledge is realized or created (epistemologies); what is fair and moral in research practice (axiology); and appropriate means for envisioning, collecting, analyzing, and representing data (methodology).

Because these assumptions determine the kind of knowledge you will "discover", it is essential for you,  as a researcher, to know how to identify the assumptions that underpin both the research you read and the research you do.  So that is what we have been working on.  So in some sense, the paradigms are names for the kinds of research different groupings of assumptions will produce.  While sometimes the grouping make sense, as when someone with a worldview where there is one reality values precision and objectivity in data collection.  But sometimes our assumptions are more muddy, as in some of the midterms, where you wrote that you believed in constructionist principles for the creation of knowledge, but yet felt that the broad studies with many participants produce more reliable or important knowledge.  In theory, this is a contradiction - since social constructionist "facts" are highly contextual, and the results from very large studies usually need to be categorized in ways that erase or otherwise lose the differences within specific contexts.  So it is important for us, as researchers to think about that: to know our own biases for what counts as "good data" - and decide how we want to conduct our studies in light of that thinking.

Keep on this. It really is some of the most important work of the course.

Breuch & Bruffee
Really, we spent 15 minutes on this. I think we did a reasonable job cutting to the essential points.  For Breuch - it is the dilemma of how (and whether it is possible) to apply about post-modern theory in the classroom.  Her set up indicated that post-process writing theory's real benefit was providing new ways to conceptualize definitions of writing, methods for teaching (as "indeterminate activities rather than a body of knowledge); and communicative practices (98).
Bruffee's focus in one sentence, is that providing learners/writers (structured) opportunities to engage in the discourses they will use in the academy is an important ground for learning.  Discourse is internalized => needs places where it is modeled and practiced; directed, peer-peer encounters work for this.

Statistics a la Writing Studies, courtesy of Dr. Sutton
The rest of class was spent working with some of the quantitative data that writing program administrators often find themselves confronted with.  I am sure this portion of the class was entertaining.

For next week:
Read: Selfe & Selfe, 739;  Wysoki, 717   In addition to reading Wysoki, you might want to watch "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence"

We will also spend some time working on your researh proposals = specifically making sure everyone has references for the literature review - so come to class with material to work with and questions,

Good class and see you next week!

3.31 Research proposals

We started class by reading through the description for the research proposal assignment, and talking about how the focus and purpose for your individual projects with shape the particular format of your proposal.  The assignment (linked on the right under course documents) lists the "moves" you will want to make in your proposal, but this "list" is not meant to be a formula.  Rather, you should organize and develop your proposal in a way that will make the most comprehensible + compelling presentation for your subject material.

You then wrote into your plans for your project and we did some group brainstorming in response to your informal presentations.  

The rest of the class was devoted to discussing and applying the expectations for the project proposal assignment in more specific ways.

We negotiated the valuation (weighting) of features for a rubric to assess (in terms of what aspects of a given proposal would need more work) and evaluate (assign a grade).  We talked through several different point systems, all of which made clear to us (once again) the organic nature of writing => where its different accomplishments (use of appropriate discourse,  clear focus, logical organization, in-depth development) are in many was so interconnected as to be difficult to separate in terms of both evaluation and assessment.  For example, discursive choices (which voice/style you choose, what/how you establish authority, the depth and kind of critical examination => writing issues identified by Bartholomae) in some sense DEFINE how to establish/inntroduce a focus, possibilities for organization, and demands for development. For example, to meet the discursive expectations of writing studies research, an essay must authorize its focus and points through references to the research "conversation" and evidence created through a critical the project's data. In a very real sense, the newest and most difficult aspect of this assignment  will be to write within "writing studies research" discourse, and as we talked about valuing the different features of the rubric, I made my claim that the points should reflect this = both so that student put their efforts there, and so that the rubric carries a clear message about what is important (the central learning task).

The rubric we "tried out" in class is listed below (thank you Mary Ellen).

1. Audience: writing studies discourse = voice/style, authority drawn from other researchers = joining the conversation (CARS article—finding a niche and occupying it)       20 points

 2. Focus/purpose:  stated on assignment sheet, frame a study appropriate to writing studies research (includes resources, methods, problem statement—deals with the same issues and be coherent), significance, all parts of proposal are within the focus.                   30 points 

3. Organization:  establish the context or place yourself within it, elaborating, define terms before discussing, purpose and focus have to be early on in the organization,      
15 points 

4.  Development:  appropriate development (relevant to the focus), sufficient development, position the focus within the research, raise questions, include elaborations on methods, literature review, connections to writing studies research and focus             
30 points

5. Correctness:  bibliography, consistent format, consistent citation, spelling, punctuation, grammar, sentence structure. 
5 points              

In our discussion of how to grade & coach the sample research essay, we found that we had slightly different perspectives on what needed work in this essay = though overall there was close enough agreement to provide a basis for talking about how to make use of the rubric as a tool to develop/work on your proposals.

Good class!

For next week:

Assess the 2nd sample research project using the rubric.  Come to class prepared to evaluate both the essay - and the rubric.

Read: Bruffee, 395;   Breuch, 97

I have not assigned the chapters in Mertens on quantitative analysis (although they are there for your reference).  Rather, during the second half of class you will apply some of the analytic approaches described in Chapter 13 to several data sets under the direction of Dr. Sutton.  

During the first part of class I will return the exams and we will have a brief discussion to consolidate learning fromt he first half of class,  we will revisit the rubric in terms of Sample Project 2, and we will take a quick look at Bruffee & Breuch.  Obviously, we will not be able to all these things and an hour and 15 minutes, but we will at least set you up so you can continue your contemplation of these materials on your own as they apply to your work.

Dr. Sutton will provide some work with quantitative analytic methods during the second half of class.

Have a great week (looks like it might finally be spring!) and see you soon.

3.24 Hawisher & Selfe, Brandt and Exam review

Brandt. Kristi provided an overview and facilitated discussion of Brandt.  In response to her first question about how, whether & to what extent economics drive literacy - we kind of covered just about everything in the article.  We made a chart of factors which shaped the literate lives of the two individuals described in Brandt's first case, and worked through material that produced one of Hawisher & Selfe's conclusions - that literate lives unfold within complex cultural ecologies with influences at the macro, medial and micro levels which create unique configurations/constellations for the experiences which shape us.  Our reflections on Lopez and Branch were in many ways allowed us to work through a particular comparison of how the different positionings of family identity, family support, local resources, choice/interest and how it connects to current economic sponsors (technology interests v bilingual education), educational opportunities, employment opportunities, and so on ( shoud have copied the list from the board - it was much more comprehensive.  

We spent some time defining sponsorship, and touched on the main points of the essay:

Definition of sponsorshipDiscussion of patterns of sponsorship

• Sponsorship + access => stratification
• Sponsorship + the literacy crisis=> competition
• Sponsorship and agency = appropriation

Reflections + role of educators

Gina  provided an overview of Hawisher & Self, Pearson & Moraski's co-authored piece on relationships between emerging digital communication technologies and literacies.  Main points/ important terms:

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

Google docs review sheet.   On the review sheet, we started to categorize (name & characterize) the paradigmatic assumptions, main points and strength & weaknesses of the essays we read this term.  See list below.

Berlin (1982), 235

Brodkey  (1989) p 621. 

Anderson et al (2006, pdf on Course Blog); 

Royster (1996), 555;

Elbow (1999), 641

Perl (1976), 17;

Castillo & Chandler (2013), pdf

Bartholomae (1985),523 ;  

Heath (1983) pdf;

Hawisher & Selfe (2004), pdf;

Brandt, pdf.

For next week:
Read:  Review Appendix on research proposals  in Mertens.

Write: midterm exam => send to  Sally Chandler <eng5002.01@gmail.com>  at or before class on Monday.

Come to class prepared to think about your research proposal.  We will look at some sample proposals and develop an assessment tool.

3.23 Finishing up qualitative research - setting up narrative and life studies

I am not putting up much of a post here - as the last week I was at Cs and between getting ready for our panel - and traveling - summing up what we did in class was one of the activities that got slighted.  Fortunately, you were all in class - so I am hoping you took good notes!

This week we will spend the first half of class talking about oral history and life narratives as they are used in writing studies, and then we will spend the second half of class reviewing for the midterm.

See you soon!

Bartholomae + Heath Reaction paper are posted

Click the link to the right.

In class we work through some data using qualitative methods for analysis, and talk through Heath and Bartholomae.

Have a great weekend and see you Monday.

3.3 Qualitative methods

Qualitative methods.

References:  We started class with a review of the (partial) list of references for qualitative methods (posted to the right).  As mentioned in discussion, Mertens provides an overview of a broad range of qualitative approaches, so there is not much room for the"how to" - practical descriptions of what you actually do in the process of collecting and analyzing data. The purpose of the reference list is to give you some places to start.  This list clearly has gaps - but it provides some widely used handbooks and theories for language analysis, interviewing, ethnographic methods, narrative analysis and taking a new literacies approach.

Defining qualitative research:

• authenticity, observation,  descriptive,representations of individual experiences
• empirical, in the real world, complex, situational
• inductive discovery for focus/theory
• in-depth look at a microcosm
• associated wordes (from Mertens): complexity, contextual, exploration, discovery, inductive logic

Some "problems" qualitative research is good for:

When the researcher does not have a thesis - for open problems

When the researcher is confronted with a "messy" problem with lots of features that do not fall clearly into categories

When exploration of context (as in social construction, phenomenology) is important

When the study needs/demands unconstrained (i.e. not already framed by the researcher) input for research participants (as in transformative research)

Paradigmatic assumptions and qualitative research. We then took a quick look at the different qualitative approaches listed in the chapter, and considered what they might look like in the different paradigms.  We noted that while the chapter did not allow that post-positivist approaches used qualitative methods, we noted that grounded theory and the idea of "discovering" theory in the data may share some assumptions with post-positivist approaches, (as might some of the counting and categorizing characteristic of analytyic moves associated with some approaches to case study, ethnography and even phenomenological work).  

My hope was that this discussion might start to open up the classification of the 4 paradigms, and put us in a position to start thinking about the significance/assumptions of different actions within a research project (as opposed to classifying the whole project within a single paradigm).  I think this discussion was fairly successful at introducing this perspective - thank you for your good questions/contributions! 

Overview of qualitative methods, short definitions.

Ethnographic –describe-analyze of social/cultural practices in terms of systematic connections among different components of the system

Case study – study of a bounded system

Phenomenological research- individual-subject's study of (reflection on) unfolding experience

Grounded theory –coding, characterizing, constant comparison of data =theory emerges from data

Participatory research – everyone is a researcher-participant

Clinical research-application of qualitative methods to biomedical problems (we will not deal with it)

Focus group-patterns of interaction within the conversational presentation become part of the data

Evaluation of qualitative studies: Although I discussed features for evaluating qualitative research as part of our discussion of Castillo & Chandler, they really belong here.  Merton's discussion is on p 255.

Terms for assessing qualitative research (as opposed to quantitative research) 

We did not go over these in class, but - as you design your research -the different systems for assessing qualitative v quantitative research are important considerations.

Credibility (internal validity)=> prolonged persistent engagement, member checks(who has authority to be representative); accounting for/acknowledging what doesn't fit; reflective analysis of researcher's perspective; triangulation

Transferability (external validity); =sufficient detail so readers can guage applicability to other contexts – multiple cases useful

Dependability (reliability)=(the idea that the concept/context understudy will remain the same)=documentation of details

Confirmability(objectivity)= evidence so that data can be tracked to their source=> good fieldnotes/transcripts etc.

Creating  + analyzing transcripts

Sample interview protocol in class.  See handouts posted to the right.

Perl + Castillo & Chandler

Thanks for your good presentations.  We used discussion of Perl to think in a little more depth about how grounded theory looks and what it can do.  Discussion of Castillo & Chandler tended toward the piece's focus, rather than its approach (participator research) - though the presentation on the paper gave a good overview of how the processes through which the research project was conducted and the way the paper was written shaped the findings.  

For next class (no class March 10 = Spring Break)

Read:  Review - ethnographic, case study + phenomenological approaches in Mertens, Ch 8  Bartholomae (1985),523 in CT ;   Heath (1983) pdf (sent to Kean email)

2.24 Surveys and personal essaays

I didn't talk much about Mertens  (because we didn't have class time), but here is an overview.

Mertens points out that surveys strengths are that they can handle large #s of responses, and their weakness is that they provide "self reporting" = indirect rather than direct evidence.  In our discussion we emphasized a further weakness: that because of the form of survey information (quantifiable, clearly categorized), it can elide or obscure important contextual information necessary for its interpretation.  As we all know from our life experiences, the answer "no" to any given question can mean many different things.

 Mertens identifies 3 kinds of surveys(177), simple descriptive (one shot) cross-sectional (several different groups at one point in time); and longitudinal (one cohort at different points in time). 
In her discussion of collection methods, Mertons reviews a number of phone, electronic, and f2f approaches - and indicates that usually initial contacts with follow-ups provide the best response. 

Factors that Mertens identified as influencing response rates included:

• topic salience
• incentives
• length
• and timing of request

The instructions for testing your survey instrument + delivery system, and the questions for critically analyzing survey research will be particularly helpful if you choose to use this method.

Anderson et al
 Anderson et al's essay on Multimodality reviews how composition studies researchers have used sureveys historically, describes methods for creating a survey for their project, reports findings, and discusses conclusions based on their data. They also acknowledgd the study's limitations.

In our discussion of the survey we speculated about the use of surveys in composition studies (whether or not it was a frequent/preferred method) and thought, given the relatively small number of studies cited over the past 50+ years, that it probably was not.  Discussion suggested that this may connect to the nature of the activities and relationships compositionists are interested in.  At the same time, as Anderson et al point out in their review, writing studies teachers frequently use surveys to evaluate courses, assignments, find information about the major, and so on.

As pointed out in class discussion, Anderson et al's survey present a certain kind of snapshot of who taught multimodal composing in 2005 (mainly fulltime, tenure-track faculty at universities), how they taught and assessed it - in terms of their own assignments & their own (as opposed to programmatic or disciplinary) standards), what kinds of departmental and institutional support these instructors had (pretty good at the level of making computers available - not so great in terms of professional development).  We wondered how accurate this picture was in light of their response rate + distribution (and so did they) - and in some ways the response rate + the profile of responders  in and of itself suggests something about "what it took" to teach multimodal composing 9 years ago. 

In terms of designing an online survey - while they outlines a useful process - we agreed that their choice to give such a long survey may have limited the survey's distribution, and in that way - its usefulness.  A series of shorter, more tightly focused surveys might have helped.

So there was much to think about here.

You then took a look at the two reaction essays and made some excellent suggestions about how the writers might write stronger papers.
Comments included suggestions to condense discussions and state them in terms of one of the essays main points (make connections, point out the take away); clearly identify the essay's main "findings" and develop a "reaction" that responds to these points; include discussions of  paradigmatic assumptions; and develop discussion questions that provide opportunities to deepen/expand on/find applications of the ideas from the essay.  Goodl

Royster
Larissa's reaction gave a clear presentation of Royster's main points and our discussion of her questions =could have gone on much longer.  Royster points out three "limitations" of dominant discursive (unconscious) assumptions about voice .  These assumptions deal with who has authority to speak; who has authority to interpret or theorize (negotiate - as Larissa put it) the identities and theoretical positionings associated with that voice; and what constitutes "authenticity" (or indeed whether authenticity is a useful term).  These are important concepts for teachers to be mindful of as the work the boundaries that define reader-reality-audience-language within student teacher relationships.

We also talked at some length about the use of first person in writing composition research.  We noted that Royster's identity was a "feature" of this essay that resonated for the original audience (in her talk to CCCC at their 1995 meeting) somewhat differently that it did of our class.  Maybe this is a limitation of first person research essays?  Something to think about.

Elbow
Elbow:  Mary Ellen's presentation on Peter Elbow focused on how best to support speakers of nonmainstream English in learning Standard Written English.  Elbow points out  in his introduction that writing teachers can feel torn between conflicting goals + obligations.  Specifically, writing teachers goal to teach "the written language of power and prestige" and their obligation to respect students' rights to their home languages.  The essay focuses on practices Elbow hopes will negotiate that conflict.

His approach - which is provided in detail - is to encourage/support students in writing in their home language by abandoning current traditional practices for focusing on "correctness" and shifting to practices for receiving an validating work written in home language, and fosterring concrete practices for working through successive drafts in terms of conferencing, copy-editing and modeling revision practices so that students cultivate a process for creating SWE - when they choose to and using whatever means available/necessary.

Mary Ellen led us in an interesting discussion about the ethics of copy editing, and I don't think we came to complete agreement about whether, when, and under which circumstances it is OK to "hire" a copyediter.
Elbow's essay also allows that there are objections by linguists and other language teachers concerning the 'editing at the end' approach.  This objection has it that moving from home languages to SWE is NOT simply about copy editing - but rather a move from a mother tongue to a foreign tongue which will cause students to need to "rewirte much of the substance and even thinking of there essays" in order to approximate SWE.  This objection could be read as making the idea of conferencing & copy editing irrelevant - since to approximate SWE, students will essentially need to compose a new essay. Elbow claims this is not the case because 1) he is not talking about ESL speakers, 2) anxiety is a significant obstacle in composing, and writing in home dialect can reduce anxiety; 3) the use of a dialect is not necessarily a way of seeing the world (he cites the dismissal of the Sapir-Whorf view of language)- and points out that SWE is not the exclusive owner of academic writing. He also posed two conferencing models which make students aware of rhetorical differences and provide experience negotiating between the different rhetorics.

We spent some time questioning whether Elbow's approach -regardless of its intention - in fact was a productive approach to helping students code-switch through providing them with adequate experiences stepping out of the rhetorics and syntactic patterns of their home language. I don't think we came to an answer concerning this.
Discussion of the questions attached to this essay applied Elbow's ideas (and then kind of extended them) within a discussion of today's "clear, universal goals/high stakes testing approaches.

For next week
Read: Ch 8 Mertens = qualitative methods with a focus on grounded theory and participatory research
Perl (1976) p 17, and Castillo & Chandler (pdf)

2.24 Making up for class cancellations

Three credit courses meeting Mondays from 4:30- 7:15 must add an additional 15 minutes to their future meetings beginning Monday, February 24.

We will talk about this in class.

2.22 As you are reading the reaction papers

You will notice that I put up two reaction papers for the Anderson et al essay (if you opened them before 2.23, 12:30 pm, noticed that I have slightly revised the links).  We will talk over the Anderson as a way to think about what needs to be in a reaction paper.  Come to class prepared to suggest to these two authors what they would need to do to strengthen their essays.  Also, pay attention to the survey in Anderson et al.  What was its purpose?  In what ways does it achieve that purpose and in what ways might it have done better?  How might this survey/study have been designed differently to provide a richer picture of what is going on in terms of multimodal teaching in writing programs?

See you soon.

2.11 Class: Research paradigms, Berlin and Brodkey

Research paradigms.  The first part of class was devoted to reviewing and practicing the language associated with the research paradigms identified by Mertens.  As she pointed out in her introductory chapter, her designations are not the only way to classify the many different standpoints for doing research and the names are somewhat arbitrary.  At the same time, I agree with her in stressing the importance of examining the assumptions, values, and methodological perspectives that underly ANY kind of research.  Truly - we see what we look for - and we see it in terms of the questions we ask and the tools we use to "measure" and "see" it.   So paradigmatic assumptions about ethics, the way the world is, how knowledge is made, and what methods can best explore and characterize the subject of our research is an essential move both in reading and researching.

We re-created thechart from Mertens, p. 11, Chapter 1 in our own words and in a more complete form, pausing to translate the jargony words into our own language.  I strongly recommend that you pay attention to the different assumptions, learn the language to talk about the paradigms, and start thinking about where you fit as a researcher.  You will want to consider what kind of research your assumptions /paradigm set you up to do.  Thinking about what kind of knowledge the different paradigms produce - and who benefits  and who controls that knowledge - is one of the major themes of exploration in this course.

Berlin and Literature review.  The reaction paper is posted to the right.  As you noted in class, our discussion was be-labored by clarifying and defining the terms.  Berlin's terminology: Current-Traditional, Expressivist, and New Rhetorical (social constructionist) is widely used by compositionists, and you will want to be able to pull up the assumptions about writers-reality-readers and language that are associated with each.  We talked about Berlin's work as an example of what a literature review could do "in and of itself" as a research method.  We agreed that he had in fact used his literature review to create new knowledge - a new way of thinking about and "seeing" writing pedagogy.  In our discussion of literature review we took some time to talk about composition studies resources for finding research articles, and discussed a variety of approaches.  The tips for doing searches listed in Mertens are worth noticing.

Brodkey and Comparative Correlational research.  We did not spend much time on Mertens except to note the differences between the approaches, and to point out that the statistical material is there as a reference should you choose to employ it.  Much writing studies research is qualitative and remains comparative, as did the Brodkey study.   In our discussion of the reaction paper for Brodkey, we noted that there was more than on way to think about which paradigm the essay "fit", and that to think deeply about a researcher's paradigmatic assumptions we need to look both at what the essay says (espouses) and what it "does" - how its (perhaps) unconscious) discursve moves position it within assumptions about ethics, the way the world is, what constitutes knowledge, and the "right" way to conduct research.  

For example. Brodkey's essay focuses on the discursive construction of relationships, where different experiences of a relationship dependent upon the subject's positioning within/with respect to the discourse of power .  In her study, the teachers chose to remain within the teacher discourse/subject positioning which gave them power over the content, tone, and language choices within the letters.  When ABE students made moves to become peers, or the "leader" in conversations in terms of their own class-based discourses, the teachers resisted this move, and each in different ways, remained in the "teacher" subject position.  Her apparent assumptions about reality are that there are multiple realites and "ways of being" grounded in historically-based cultural discourses. Her essay seemed to  suggest a transformative paradigm which advocates for acknowledgment of unacknowledge discourses of class at work in the classrooom.  This silencing of working-class student perspective makes it so many of their concerns (content) and ways of talking (tone) are not acknowledged in the more middle-class educational context.   


At the same time, her student-teachers, subjects in her study, were not asked to interpret their responses - a move through which Brodkey "speaks for" a perspective (the teachers) which she has not allowed to speak for itself.  So it's complicated.  This clearly is an important piece in terms of calling teacher's attention to discursive difference and power, yet other power differences (between researchers and subjects) remain unaddressed.

For next week.
.We do not meet on February 17, President's Day.  Our next class will be Feb. 24
Attend your conference.
Turn in your NIH certificate if you have not done so already.
Read: Mertens, Chapter 6: Survey methods.  Anderson et al (2006 at right); Royster (1996) 555; Elbow (1999) 641.

I think we are pretty much caught up from our missed class. If you have questions, or would like to spend a little more time on material we worked through quickly this week - bring it up in your conference.  

Have a great 2 weeks and see you on Feb 24.

List of readings

We discussed the reaction assignment (posted to the right) and each of you chose the paper/class where you would facilitate discussion.  Send your essay to the course email on or befor the noon, Saturday before your presentation.  I will then post it to the site so we can all read it.

Although I technically "modelled" the form for the presentation, Berlin (as you pointed out) contained so much new vocabulary that a lot of our discussion was focused on defining and using his terms, connecting to experience and applying his words to the other new words associated with research paradigms.  And Brodkey , because of the snow day, was left with so little time that we did not really get to spend time talking about the questions, or opening up implications of power differentials associated with discourse, subject positioning, and (as raised in the questions that went with the reaction paper) the role of the disempowered (students) in resisting/re-casting power structures.  This would have been a productive conversation to take up - especiallly in light of our discussion of transformative paradigms.

In your presentations, you may:  1) read all or part of your paper - stopping to engage the class in discussion; 2) assume that classmates have read your paper and after a short extemporaneous summary of the article's main point, its paradigmatic assumptions, and its place in- connection to comp-rhet history,  move directly to discussion (be sure to draw our attention to the sections of the essay you choose to discuss - one feature of discussion I did not model especially well was the move for a collaborative, close reading = making specific references to the  article); 3) any other kind of discussion which presents a perspective on the article's content and engages the class in about 30 minutes + of discussion.

The sign-up list is as follows:

2/24       Anderson et al (2006, pdf on Course Blog);  Chandler

                Royster (1996), 555; Larissa

                Elbow (1999), 641  Maryellen

3/3         Perl (1976), 17; Dave

                Castillo & Chandler (2013), pdf  Pete

3/17       Bartholomae (1985),523 ;   Meaghan

                Heath (1983) pdf;  Omar

3/24       Hawisher & Selfe (2004), pdf;  Gina

                Brandt, pdf.  Kristi

Developing a concept paper

What exactly do you want to study with respect to this topic?

What are your paradigmatic assumptions relevant to researching this topic?

What makes this a writing studies project?

What ideas are already "out there" in terms of your idea? (At this point, don't worry about whether what you think is actually true)=> prepare to start checking out references.

What might your study add to the ideas that are already "out there"?

How and where might you gather real world "data" that could add information about your topic?

Make a quick timeline to identify the tasks you would have to accomplish and to set up a schedule for doing your project.

Literature review

1.  Check out journals relevant to your field.
http://wpacouncil.org/rcjournals
http://wac.colostate.edu/journals/
Journals on literacy and education

2. Check out web sites of appropriate professional organizations 
NCTE  National Council of Teachers of English
CCCC  College Conference on Composition and Communication
IWCA  International Writing Centers Associatiojn
WPA  Writing Program Administrators

3. Cruise bibliographies/reviews compiled in your area of interest 
e.g Rebecca Moore Howard's bibliographies

4. Attend professional conferences

5. Talk to your peers

6.  Search Amazon as if it were you library

7. Use specialized search engines (such as google scholar, comppile)

2.3 Snow day and what to do for next week.

I'm always glad for a snow day - but I am sorry we will be missing class tonight.  

Missing class means we will need to double up on literature reviews and causal comparative and correlatinal research next week.  I will provide the reaction paper for Brodkey (it will be posted by Saturday).  We will skim through the Mertens chapters - but use our discussion of Berlin and Brodkey to make connections to the points in her chapters.  We will also spend some time using the language associated with the different research paradigms and consolidating what we know /how we feel about the different axiologies/ontologies/epistemologies and methodologies.   

We will go over the reaction paper assignment & you will sign up for presentations by choosing from the remaining readings.  

This revision to the calendar won't be the end of the world, but it is going to leave a little less time for brainstorming/sharing ideas for research projects in light of the reading we are doing about methods and composition studies.  

I'm hoping we can recover some of the lost class time through allowing for slightly longer f2f conferences, some time within the next two weeks.  I have pasted in a schedule of  times I am available. You can "sign up" by sending me an email listing two possible times and I will write you in, here on the blog.  If none of the times I have posted work for you - send me times that are good for you and we can work it out.

Possible times for conferences on research projects (& appointments so far)
2.10@3:00 Kristi
2.10 @ 7:00  Meg
Tuesdays: (2/4 & 2/11) 11:00 am - 12 noon; 1:00 - 2:00; 4:00-5:00
2.11 @ 4:00 Larissa
2.11@4:45  Omar
Wednesdays: (2/5 & 2/12) 11:00 am - 12 noon 
2.12@2:00 Dave
Thursdays: (2/6 & 2/13)  11:00 am - 2:00 pm
2.13@1:00  Mary
2.13@3:30 Gina
2.13@4:14 Pete

For next week:

Read:  Mertens, Ch 5: Causal Comparative and Correlational Research; Mertens, Appendix: Research Proposals; Brodkey  (1989) p 621 in CT.

Write:  For your conference: do some drafty-draft writing for a description of a project you might like to do - or create a list of several possible projects.  Go wide at this point.   After the conference , expland this writing to include questions you might ask, a list of what you might need to read, and a list of methods you might use.

1.27 What we did in class

New student survey: For those of you who have not yet turned in the new student survey (discussed in class, here is the link.

What a great class!  I was especially excited by your presentation of ideas for thesis work.  Many of your ideas spoke to one another - not that you were interested in the same project -  rather that you had interests that grew out of different perspectives on similar issues - issues associated with motivation, audience, creative writing, writing process, and "effectiveness" (in both teaching and writing).   For example, several of you raised topics that connected to (at least the way I understood them) relationships to audience.  Similar but different audience-oriented approaches  might prove useful in studies of teaching "clarity" and "correctness", considering an ethics of creative writing, understanding exploring the roles/importance of "in-between" people in teaching writing - or understanding motivation.   Conversations surrounding the presentations also suggested that our class is going to make a good team.  You had lots to say to one another - and that is what having a class is all about.

I was also pretty excited about our discussion of "what research is/does".  You hit many of the concerns raised within the different axiologies, ontologies, epistemologies & methodologies before I even introduced them.  So you have the thoughts/ideas inside you.  Much of this course will be about learning the writing studies jargon for articulating, analyzing, and assessing ideas about what research does and how it does it and for what purposes.

Course description
The discussion of the syllabus and calendar was about giving you a feel for how the course will go: what you will learn, what is required of you, and how your work will be evaluated.

Research methods and their application: The focus is on research methods used in writing studies, and this focus is realized through expository writing about the methods themselves (Mertens), and reading hallmark essays which illustrate the use of those methods.  in general I will assign the Mertens chapters, and unless you have specific questions about here presentation there will not be much class time spent going over her chapters. Rather, we will focus on the applications of the method under discussion in our analysis and critique of the theoretical readings paired with the methods chapters.  In some cases, we will "put into action" some of the concepts/methods presented in Mertons through application of the methods to data sets or hypotehtical research contexts.  

Reaction papers:   As pointed out in the syllabus - the course will primarily be conducted as a seminar, where our exploration of material is interactive and conversation based.  If there are terms in the readings (either from Mertens or Villanueva & Arola) which you need more talking time to "unpack" or get practice using - bring them up and we will spend some time on them.  Otherwise, I will assume you are good with the level of attention I have planned.  In our next class I will model an approximation (with room for critique) of what I will be expecting in terms of a reaction paper and facilitation of discussion.  Your responsibility as nonleaders in this dicussion is to:

• identify concepts and vocabulary ( central to the text's point) which you have questions about; 
• identify (think about) the research paradigm each essay develops from within; 
• critique/validate the logic/conclusions central to the essay; 
• raise points you want to extend/apply to other contexts/aspects in writing studies.

There will not be "correct" answers within these discussions; rather what is important is to consider how supportable/powerful/ useful different answers are, and to reflect on the contexts/assumptions that would make them seem "right".

NIH training
We checked out the link to the side, and talked through the importance of training and IRB review.  The assignment sheet has all the details.  If you have questions, raise them in class. NIH certificates are due by the beginning of class, February 10.


Readings for next week:
Introduction to the history of composition: James Berlin, "Contemporary Composition."
Since this essay was written in 1982, obviously this vision of contemporary composition is no longer contemporary.  At the same time, it is an important document in the history of writing studies and Berlin's work was foundational in identify features of different approaches to teaching writing that evolved with the development of the discipline.  This review of rhetorics and teaching practices used in writing classrooms beginning with Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric (1776) names a series of approaches (characterized by epistemology + practices) including: Positivist or Current Traditional, Expressivist, Neo-Platonic, Neo-Aristotelean, and New Rhetoric approaches.  As you read this essay, spend some time identifying the assumptions associated with each approach, think about whether/how Berlin's New Rhetoric might hold up in light of the changes in text/composing/and audience/reader relationships brought about through digital technologies, and think about what YOU think about "best practices" for teaching writing in your classroom(s) (in otherwords - think about your assumptions and your students' expectations/writing 'need').

Introduction to research methods + Literature review.  Mertens, Chapters 1 (what we did in class) and Ch 3. Literature Review.
You did some writing to characterize yourselves in terms of the four sets of assumptions Mertens identifies researchers as making: assumptions about what constitutes ethical research (axiology); the way the world works (ontology) how we discover/constitute knowledge (epistemology); and what methods will work best to ethically construct the kind of knowledge in the kind of world we imagine (methodology).
Then - at the very end of class, we spent a minute summing up the 4 paradigms Mertens puts forward, each of which has a slightly different combination of assumptions about how to answer the 4 questions.
As she points out - there are other ways to construct the "paradigms" (for instance we don't really have a suitable paradigm to account for postmodern perspectives), but this set should work for us.

The really important thing to do is for each of you to think about your own paradigm, so that you will conduct research in a way that is a match for your values and understandings of the way the world is.


What to do for class 2.3.14:
Read: Mertens Ch 1 & 3; Villanueva & Arola, p. 235, Berlin.
Work on: NIH training

In class next week, you will sign up for a conference to talk about/brainstorm/think about ideas for your thesis.
We will also, talk through research paradigms, literature reviews, and Berlin's essay.  I will use Berlin's essay as a way to model presentations for reaction papers.  We will also generate the schedul for your reaction paper presentation (you will choose an essay to present on).

Great class tonight and see you next week