Bruffee, Pepper and Quantitative methods for writing studies

Much of our discussion of Bruffee  (thank you Andre) centered on whether or not the "conversation of mankind" and the modeling of "normal discourses" were liberatory moves to teach the "discourses of power," or whether they were another version of the educational system's devaluing, and marginalizing students home languages.  We didn't really answer these questions.  We acknowledged that students do come to school to learn skills that will support them in getting a job and getting ahead, and "mainstream" (academic?) discursive forms are one item in that skillset.  We also acknoweldged that it shouldn't necessarily be a given that the University act to perpetuate dominant discourses.

The Pepper discussion was much too short (poor time management on my part),  but Christina got us through the literature review which dealt with definitions and discussions of "cool" and digital rhetoric, and gave us a quick fly over of  the essay's analysis of thetruth.com, a site  that does and does not suggest not smoking.  We discussed how Pepper's essay played with some of the forms it discusses: the way it was organized (reader control of reading=> possibly nonlinear, making use of juxtaposition),  the use of ethos and interactivity; movement between academic and "cool" rhetorical moves (see reading notes in previous post).  Important ideas to take away are the concept of "cool" as rhetoric, what the features of that rhetoric might be, and whether cool rhetoric will (has?) taken root in the University.

Quantitative methods
The rest of the class was devoted to Dr. Sutton's presentation on quantitative research.  You worked through examples from his research on Research Network Forum presenters, and on data on Kean's freshman composition program.  I am hoping you took good notes, and marked down any concepts which might be useful to your research.

On-going work on the research proposal
You should have chosen the essays for the literature review, and should be working on your draft.

On April 21, we will use half of the class time for a workshop.   During this workshop, you will work in groups to make sure you have mapped out a plan to meet the requirements for each of the sections (introduction, literature review, and methods) as set forward on the assignment sheet.  I will be available for you to check in on your choice of essays for the review, and to answer any other questions that come to may mind as a result of the group work.

On April 20, we will go through the directions/writing requirements for creating IRB forms.  We will also schedule conferences for the draft IRB materials + proposals. We will meet sometime between April 20 & April 27.

On April 27, a complete draft of the IRB materials & the proposal is due.

On May 4, drafts will be returned with my comments.

Presentations on the research proposals will be April 27 (3 presenters) and May 4 (3 presenters).
The purpose of these presentations is for you to get feedback from your peers (in addition to the feedback from me at the conference.

Grades for reaction papers
All of you have written at least one of your reaction papers and most of you have written both.  As discussed in class today, I will give you 2x the score for your best reaction essay.  If you want to revise, for a higher score, the revised essay is due by April 27.  Revisions can only raise your score (if the essay, for some reason, earns a lower grade, you will still receive the higher grade).

For next week
Write: Analysis of data set (if we haven't finished it)

Read: Selfe & Selfe, 739 in Villanueva;  Keller (in your email)

In class, if we need to finish up the discussion of the quantitative data, we will do that.  We will also discuss Selfe & Self (Politics of the Interface), and Kellar.

So far so good, and see you next week.