3.30 Workshop on research proposals: sign up for conference

Work on research proposals

Review  Research Proposal assignment

Problem statement  (research questions) see p. 115

Literature Review  see p. 117  for rubric, and review Ch. 3 (119-121)

Methods: (review introductory chapter + think back on our discussions of what different methods can and can't do)

Review creating research questions.

Re-visit research interests list and project proposals => in-class work to plan research proposals

Above is a (more or less) frame for what we talked about in class - though what we really did was have "whole class" conferences, where each of you talked through your project and everyone worked together to make sure the project was:

clearly focused
doable (allowed for fine-grained analysis but would not require more time than is realistically available for doing a two-semester thesis)
important/relevant/appropriate for writing studies
connected to the right literature

We didn't really develop too much discussion on the last point, though in our discussion of the literature review we acknowledged that the proposal really needs to discuss in some depth at least 3 sources.  This discussion could serve to describe the "gap" by pointing out how your work will connect to/build /correct on earlier work.  What your study adds may be discussed both/or in terms of content (findings) or methods (think about the claims Perl made for her study).

I backed off on asking you to write a drafty draft for next class, mostly because class discussion seemed to set you up with most of the brainstorming necessary to write a drafty draft, and I don't really feel I need to check in.  At the same time, because we DIDN'T cover the lit review material - I would like to see some evidence that you have an idea which writing studies essays you will need to connect to in your opening discussion (either in terms of defining your method, or in terms of clarifying what your work will add/do).

For next class:

Write: send me a list of the 3 main essays you plan to refer to in your literature review
Read: Bruffee, 395;  Pepper,  http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/18.2/topoi/pepper/index.html

During the first part of class we will discuss the midterms + the readings.  During the second part of class Dr. Sutton will provide some interactive work  on quantitative approaches most often used by writing studies researchers.

3.22 Literacy narrative research and reviewing for the midterm

Brandt. Melissa provided an overview and facilitated discussion of Brandt.  She focused on Lopez and Branch, pointing out how the different positionings of family identity, family support, local resources, and choice/interest  (technology interests v bilingual education) positioned them quite differently in terms of "the same" school sponsors  

Brandt's overall focus was to explore some of the dynamics of sponsorship - how it works in context - and to reveal that sponsorship is not always straightforward or "the same" = both because of individual identity factors and social/economic positioning (stratification); because more than one person is sponsored by individual sponsors and competition among those who are sponsored can affect what benefits they recoup (competition); and because individuals use/re-purpose matierials/skills/opportunities in light of their own lives rather than reproducing the intentions of the sponsor (re-appropriation).

Laura  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
• gateway
• access

5 findnings drawn from analysis of these two narratives (lifted from Laura's reaction paper)

1. Literacies have lifespans

2. As technology continues to develop, people may have increased opportunities for shaping their sense of agency, sometimes by transcending previously-binding socioeconomic factors

3. “Gateways” (schools, workplaces, homes and communities) present important points of entry for digital literacy development.

4.  Access to the technologies which support digital literacy is much more complex than the mere physical opportunity to interact with computers

5.  Literacies are passed not only from parent/grandparents/teachers/older siblings down, but that increasingly young people are passing on these literacies “up” to parents/grandparents/teachers/older siblings

Christina then gave us an overview of the DALN by way of E.Lewis Ulman's essay on the DALN's creation.  We spent the most time on the discussion of the project's relationship to its subjects and "research" - and the resulting problems this (emerging- new) relationship presented to the IRB.  As pointed out in class discussion, oral history has always had a problematic relationship to the "ethics" associated with scientific research. In the end, we noted that it is not surprising that the DALN presented so many problems for IRB concerns, hosting/access, and use; digital technology has presented is a new form for the distribution of personal stories, and that newness presents opportunities - as well as (as Matt put it) = "oh, I didn't think of that" moments which will need to be addressed.

Midterm:

We spent the remainder of class reviewing the assigned readings (up to but not including the assignments on oral history) in light of the midterm.  The purpose of the midterm is to provide you with an opportunity to critically analyze research essays in a way similary to what you will need to do in the literature review for your thesis.  I the literature review for your thesis you will identify research that works well (and characterize its ideological assumptions and the kind of knowledge it will produce + why that knowledge is vaulable) - and point out how you will use that research as a model for your project.  And you will identify research that needs to be extended or added to (that works less well) or which contributes important findings but which could be improved or developed.   

In your midterm, work on creating similar dicussions, the point in dicussing a piece that has shortcomings is not so much to nail it or find fault with it - but to identify how it could be taken further or what modifications could be made to it so that it contributes more detailed or more theoretically significant knowledge.  

For next week:

Read: review the research proposal chapter at the end of Mertens.

Write: midterm

I will return the writing due this week to characterize your proposal and discuss methods you might use (and what you might discover from each method), probably right before class next week.  We will spend class talking through the purpose and form for a research proposal, and get you started on drafting this assignment.

See you next week!

3.9 Analyzing transcripts, Bartholomae & Heath

We started class with some analysis of the "returing adult learner" transcript (posted to the right).  You all knew she was female, and an older adult learner, partly based on the content, but also because of the way she used language.  As a  "typical" returning adult student, she had an agenda for what she wanted to learn and how she wanted to learn it, and she took some initiative in pursuing it.  Some of the gendered features of the talk which you identified were the use of hedges, the interconnected, collaborative ways the two speakers' language fit together (picking up on one another's terms),  finishing each other's questions/answers without direct prompts - all of which the research literature has noted as often associated with female speakers.

Our discussion led us almost immediately into the observation that language features can imply more than one thing. For example, the short answers + seeming evasion of "I guess" and the apparently not fully considered "agreement" with Ch's "saying back could be interpreted as M's lack of investment in the interview.  Yet, taken in light of her openness about being afraid, and the closing (unprompted) addition at the end of Excerpt 1, where M comes up with an answer to a question she at first was not sure how to answer (where she says "I was resisting it") suggests those same language features might also be interpreted as processing, or not having language ready to answer the questions Ch has asked.

This led to discussion of the different kinds of stories which can come up in interviews, John Wayne stories (where the narrator is in control, has things worked out = the dominant discourse in middle class, white, college student talk from the study I mentioned in class), Florence Nightengale stories (where the narrator is useful/helpful = another "tellable" story form comment in that same study), springboard stories, and so on.  In addition to being able to recognize stories which are in the subject's repertoire (and which signal the fact that they have probably been told before), interviewers need to recongnize features of "untellable" stories = material that the narrator does not know what to think about and hasn't processed into a tell-able unit like a story.  I suggested that language features and interactions in Excerpt 1 suggest we were talking about material which the subject had not yet processed.

In the second excerpt, you pointed out stories, and noted they were generally, if not quite JW stories, at least they presented circumstances where things worked out and there was learning/resolution.  You also noted the many things noted here on the board, in Andre's photo.

Good start on this!  There is lots of material on doing conversation/story analysis - and it is a versatile tool for working in writing studies research.


Bartholomae
We started the Bartolomae discussion by identifying the features of academic discourse(s),

features of academic discourse

• words phrases signify certain expected moves (use academic voice)
• organization = deductive, logical (generally not narrative)
• authoritative stance ( mastery over material) but not authoritarian
• provide evidence => research based
• presented as a conversations with other researchers/writers/texts
• based on experience, though not necessarly your particular experience unless = theorized and supported by scholarship/examples/other evidence
• values abstract/generalized/theorized statements (over personal particular, though values particular materials as support/evidence for theorized points)
• demands that the author contribute some nontrivial insight to the conversation (say something new)
• expects the author to take some risks

. . . and along with Maria's excellent discussion of Bartholmae's main points, you looked at the sample texts in the essay as a way to check in on our list of the discursive features of academic writing.  As Maria pointed out, correctness (the fallback position for what many composition classes teach) is NOT the most important feature of academic writing.

Heath
Matt's 7 minute presentation masterfully presented to main points of Heath's essay: its purpose was to deconstruct the orality-literacy dichotomy which named literate "thinking" as superior to the knowledge-making/thinking of orality; it identified literacy and orality not as separate but as interconnected through what she named as "literacy events"; it provided rich, grounded examples of the different kinds of relationships between literacy and orality within particular cultural events, and showed how access to and power over literacy was constructed through discursive moves invested with power and characteristic to particular contexts (this is the example where the bank/employers kept control over documents which participants did not have the discursive moves to demand posession of).  These findings were revolutionary in their time, and changed the way language philosophers, writing teachers, linguists and others think about the role of writing and how it "works" within our lives.

Summing up and reflecting on qualitative methods.
So, yes, we again degnerated to "lightning round" presentation at the end of class, and did not have time for us to spend some time reflecting on the qualitative methods, together, so I have asked you to do some writing about how you might use some of these methods in what you now perceive as your proposed thesis project (see detailed description of this writing below).

For next class:
Read:  Mertens, Ch 9 History and Narrative Study of Lives;  Hawisher & Selfe (2004), pdf; Brandt, pdf; H.Lewis Ulman, “A Brief introduction to the DALN” http://ccdigitalpress.org/stories/chapters/introduction/

and check out the DALN (http://dalnresources.org.ohio-state.edu/contents.html + check out the HOME + selected Literacy Narratives TBA (your choice, Christina)

Write:   Create + email me a document which contains:
1. A one or two sentence statement of the purpose of your study (what you will do + why).
2. A statement of the primary methods you expect to use + what kind of data you expect to gather through the use of each method.
3. What questions each kind of data will answer relevant to your project.

If this listing already includes several methods from the qualitative methods list in Mertens - you are done!  If not, speculate about how you might supplement/enrich your data (and what you might find) through the use of one or more of the methods from the qualitative methods chapter.

In class, we will spend the first half discussing the oral history/live narrative studies; during the second half we talk about your plans for choice of methods for your research proposal (very briefly- since this will be the primary focus of class on March 30 - this discussion will mostly be to check in for questions + set up for work on the proposal) and review for the Midterm.  I will sum up the readings so far in terms of their content, methods, paradimatic assumptions, importance to writing studies, and we will talk through the Midterm exam.

3.3 In-class work on analyzing a transcript

We started by looking at a "raw" transcript from an interview produced for the New Literacies book co-authored with Kean University students.

This material was produced using the an interview protocol derived from the protocol Haiwisher & Selfe used for Literate Lives from the Information Age. We took a minute to look at how this protocol was built, and noticed that:

• There was a statement of purpose at the beginning, so the participant has a written statement indicating the focus of the interview and how the data will be used.
• Easy, orienting questions were first
• (After the orienting questions - many interviews include a general, overview question, which allows the participant to introduce/set up material which THEY feel is important or central to what they want to say BEFORE the interviewer limits their opportunities to say these things by asking directed questions.)
• Most of the questions are open.  Yes/No questions have follow-up tags to open up the discussion.
• The protocol is organized in sections which ask parallel questions grounded in different times and places from the participant's life.  This allows the participant multiple ways to associate to material central to the interview's purpose.  Fits with the way memory works.

We also, briefly, discussed how the researcher's orientation to interviewing will shape the way the interview goes.  If you view the participant as a "container" with information you want to extract - you will get one kind of a "window" on who s/he is and what s/he thinks.  If you engage your participant in a conversation where you explore the material together, you will get a different kind of data.  Both kinds of data are valuable - but will need to be interpreted differently.

Analyzing the transcript
After reading the transcript, we started by naming some of the "moves" and noticing the contexts where they occurred (use of you know + like + laughter as indication of comfort, use of hedges as  being on guard, changing/taking control of the subject . . .)
We noticed the "stories" L told, including the prompts/material that set them up, and the form of the stories she told.
We noted that, in general, L told stories which resolved into positive conclusions
We noted the "valence" (how or whether each story was associated to either positive or negative emotions.)
We identified themes for each of the stories, and thought about how (or whether the stories fit together).
Although we didn't get to much time for this part, (and we in fact needed some more time to look at the transcript before moving to this step, but we ran out of time) we started asking questions about what the way L was telling her stories suggested about her relationship to literacy and the different connections (to friends, school, family) that were impacted by the way literacy was valued and taught in her home and school.

I gave you two handouts which proposed different ways to categorize/organize this section of transcript for the purpose of thinking about how the stories worked.  We didn't have much time to talk about them - but I am hoping what they show is kind of evident.

For next class:
Review Mertens Chapter 8 with attention to ethnography.
Read: Bartholomae + Heath
Write:  Using the patterns for analyzing the transcript which we started on in class, develop an analysis of the Returning adult learner transcript posted to the right.

For your analysis of the transcript, you might want to use this list of suggestions for how to interpret certain patterns in language use (these features "mean" differently for different speakers - so use them tentatively).

As you work through the transcript, list and interpret the following:
any features you have identified (named)
Any patterns, repetitions, omissions, incongruences that you notice in the talk in the transcript
a description of what you see as characteristic interactions (exchanges  where M and Ch speak back and forth); important interactions
any "turning points" where either speaker changes her mind  (explore describe)
significant language features (see list)
stories (note their context, focus,  form, purpose, etc)

Come to class with the above list & interpretations.  During the first part of class, you will work with a group to come up with an interpretation of your analysis which sheds light on the values, beliefs, identities etc that are embedded in these conversations.

3.3 Qualitative methods

Catch up (retro-active teaching based on what has been turned in).

Reaction essays:  At te beginning of class I give a short overview of features characterisitic of reaction paperst in light of what I have read so far.  I pointed out that the moves/form for this genre vary with audience and purpose, and that reaction essays are related to short reviews and the kind of peer review offered when writing is vetted for publication.  The overall organizationof the essay is to place the essay in context (what was its audience purpose),introduce the main points & set up your treaction in the first paragraph, pretty much in that order. In other words, don't start right in with the point by point analysis of what the essay says => make that academic move where you set up the overview for the essay.

In the next section/paragraph, review the essay's connections to other research, its methods, and findings, usually in that order. If it is "research" essay (rather than a "personal" essay= like Royster or Bartholomae or Elbow) the essay will generally be written in that order.  Don't spend inordinate time on the methods unless: there is some important point about method which you want to come back to (eg in Anderson et al, you might want to mention the recruitment methods, length and distriubtion= since these points may be necessary info for a critique centered on the small sample); or development of the method is part of the point of the essay(as in Perl).  Sum up the findings in a way which sets up your reaction (you generally will not be able to cover everything ) =so it is a focused summary.

In the next section - develop your reaction.  For this assignment you will present a critique which considers the essay within the body of composition research, and which analyzes the researchers' assumptions (the essay's paradigm) and discusses  the consequences of those discussions.  This may take one or more paragraphs.

We talked briefly about presenting the WHOLE discussion of the essay, followed by your analysis; versus a point by point analysis, your you present points from the findings, followed by critique.  This choice will depend on the complexity of the material => choose what makes the easiest read.  For this assignment, finish with a discussion of connection to the literature + critique, and discussion of paradigm + critique.    The organization here, again, is your call.

Overall suggestion based on what I have read so far is to sharpen the summaries (not just shorten => edit to make more economic, therefore shorter but with lots of specific content), and develop the critique/reaction section.

Great work so far.

Concept papers:
Discussion in class focused generally on the overall organization for a research proposal (in detail in your textbook).  With an emphasis on the organization of the set up.  We looked briefly (everything in class tonight was brief, right?) at John Swales Creating a Research Space, where he describes the moves researchers make in the set up for writing studies essays.  I think it is pretty self explanatory => the key point is that you need to provide context for your project - as well as an explanation of why the project is important - before moving into the details.

The organization for your proposal will be:
Introduction: where you provide context + description of niche + discussion of why your project is important.  You will use general connections to what other researchers have done to describe the context as well as your niche.  There are several theories on how this intro connects to the literature review, and we will discuss them as we move through the course.

Literature review: discussion of important work in terms of how you will use it /respond to it in your research. For example, you might discuss one essay for the purpose of describing your methods (as derived from what another researcher has done), another to point out how you are using a different method to answer a related/similar question;  and you might dicuss a third essay do present the main findings relevant to your research questions.   In general, for a proposal you will need some familiarity with at least 10 references, and in-depth knowledge of 3-5 essays.  You will use a discussion of these essays to define your question, your methods, and your niche.

Methods:  In this section you outline, in detail, how you will conduct your study.

As I said, we will be working on the form and content for these sections throughout the term.

Reaction discussions:   Thank you Matt & Laura.  Great job on these.  Papers posted to the right

Discussion of Qualitative methods.

References for qualitiative methods:  Posted to the right is a  (partial) list of references for qualitative methods.   Because Mertens covers a broad range of qualitative approaches, there was 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:
We started our discussion by talking about the list of key words associated with qualitative research in Mertens.

• associated wordes (from Mertens): complexity, contextual, exploration, discovery, inductive logic

This list makes it clear that qualitative research focuses on describing, characterizing in detail = and focuses on "qualities" which do not easily reduce to numbers. It is not thesis driven (the ideas emerge from the data) and it generally starts with questions, rather than assumptions about what we already know.

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, mostly to note that Post-positivist is missing from the list.  

Overview of qualitative methods, short definitions.

Ethnographic –characterized by the purpose of the research (to understand/represent a worldview from the insiders' perspective; 

methods for data collection: participant observation, interviewing, 

methods for data analysis:

grounded theory, discourse analysis, conversation analysis, narrative analysis, visual analyisis etc => where analysis means breaking a system into parts, naming and classifying  (categorizing) those parts, noticing patterns within the relationships among parts, hypothesizing and testing local/partial theories about how the parts work together

The focus is generally cultural, and often requires the ethnographer to "correct" for his or her own assumptions about how cultures "are" (so that s/he can "see' the culture of the Other more "as it is" than as s/he imagines it).

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 - one purpose is to make research valuable to the participants

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.

This is so long I am going to make it two posts.