12.18 Thanks and Grades

What a great semester this has been for me.  And thank you so much for your constructive comments about how to present the material in this course in a way that might work a little better for the next group of students.  I took good notes and will be looking through them carefully.

As stated in class, I will be reviewing your work over the next couple of days.  I hope to send you a gradesheet with comments on your final project, and your scores for all the categories listed below.
At that point, if you are OK with the grade, that's the grade you will get.  

If you do not agree with the grade - or if I made a mistake adding things up or if you don't agree with the score - send me an email and explain and we will see if we can work things out.  I may or may not revise the score (I am really obligated to evaluate the writing  that is turned in, and cannot grade on effort) but at that point we will know where we stand.  If you remain convinced that the grade is not calculated in line with the terms we agreed upon in the syllabus and in the revisions/discussions through out the course, the process for making a grade appeal is described in the Undergraduate Student Catalog under Grade Grievances.

I expect to send grade sheets by Saturday, and to post your grades on Keanwise by Monday.


Thanks again for being such a great class and Happy New Year!

1.  Blog + comments (response to readings; practice analysis, drafts, reflections, etc)    150 points   

          
2.  Class presentations + group work + participation + homework                                 250 points

16 points each class

3.  Short analysis project                                                                                           100 points

4.  Research project                                                                                                  500 points

250 points = creation of  data collection tools, presentation and preliminary analysis of data

125 points=evidence of writing process including invention writing, successive drafts, and writing to critique and plan revisions to successive drafts

125= final research essay

Total points for course                                                                                                           1000 points

Comments to your drafts

You should have received an email with comments to your post for Blog 17.   For most of you, I have attached a copy of your draft with comments.

Make sure that your revisions to your drafts meet the requirements stated on the "writing process" section of the Research Project Assignment Sheet.  I am looking for "thoughtful revisions" to successive drafts.  That means, in general, there should be substantive changes between Blog 17 (the draft project) and Blog 18 (the final project).

Hang in there!   You are all most finished.  See you on Tuesday night.

12.10 Presentations and how we will wrap up this term

We started class with a discussion of how you would turn in your work, and how you wanted the research project to be evaluated.

The class agreed as a whole to allocate points for the project as follows.

Data: 250
Writing Process: 125
Final essay: 125

Criteria for each of the components are stated on the assignment sheet, and have been clarified point by point in the blog posts.  I think you have chosen a way to assign credit for the project that  reflects the work and learning associated with what you actually did.  Great.

The remaining time was spent with presentations.  You provided your classmates with excellent feedback and clarification.  Good job on this!

For next class:
I will be working through your blogs/providing comments to anything posted before this morning.  This will be the last round of written comments to your work.  If you have questions/requests for feedback - be in touch and set up a conference for Wed, Thur, Mon or Tues (I am not available on Friday).

Due at the end of class, 12.17: your final project, attached to an email which lists/links to all blogs with writing for Data credit, and all blogs with evidence of writing process.

Blog 18: Final Research Essay (due by the end of class)

Plan your time so that the email with your essay and your final blog will be sent by the end of class.  I am also going to ask you to do some writing to help my revise/plan this course for the next time I teach it.  What should be changed/kept the same/added/deleted?   what advise would you give to a student coming in to this course about how to do well?

See you next week, and be in touch if you get stuck.

12.3 Presentations!

Tania, Sam, Tanaera, Danielle J,Sarina, Rachel, Jaleel, and Jen gave presentations today - and you all provided great feedback in terms of clarifying questions, pointing out patterns, and helping pull out relevant data.  Good work!

Next week we will hear from Brianne, Carolina, Julissa, Danielle B., Silvia, Trisha, and Eli.

For your presentation, since you will be talking about drafts instead of data, use the following revised format (I changed this from the original post).

1. State your research question.
2. Provide an overview of the research paper you have chosen to reply to/set up your research.
3. Describe the organization of  your paper.
4. Draw classmates attention to the particular writing issues/sections of your paper you want support on.

 Make sure to have a question posed for your classmates.  Give us a task to help.

For next class:
Read: classmate's blogs
Blog 17: Draft Research Essay

Presentations on research projects

As discussed in class, these presentations are about making a clear statement of what you are working on, and framing a question so the class can provide constructive feedback to help you work on your project.

Format for presentations:
The blog post with your work will be on the classroom screen, and individual students will be asked to look at your blog so they can follow your points.  Standing at the front of the class is optional - though you might want to come up front so you can scroll to the parts of your blog you want to talk about.

In your conversation with the class, you should be prepared to:
1. State your research question;
2. Give a brief summary of the research that your project responds to/comments on/is based on;
3. Direct classmates to the section of your work you want feedback on;
4. Give your classmates some indication of what you want help with (e.g. you might ask for help relating the categories you have marked in your transcript to your research question, or for help with the organization /development of a posted draft, and so on).

11.26 Workshop

As we started class, I drew your attention to the connection between the blog posts and how you will earn credit for the data & analysis, and the writing process components of the research essay. 

Post your data and analysis to your blog:  When you turn in your final essay on the last day of class, you will post it on your blog, and send it to me as an attachment to an email sent to the course email.  In the body of the email with your essay, you will list blogs where you have posted data & analysis, and where you have posts that present evidence of your planning/writing process for this project.   Number your blogs.  If you have more posts for data than I have allowed for numbers, post them as 12 a, b, c etc.  Try to stay within the general  number system for the prompts listed on this blog.

What you did in class:  Today you worked on your research project.  Most of you were working  on analyzing data (marking up your transcripts in terms of categories and features, noticing re language moves associated with different features in your categories, thinking about points you might make as you develop your essay); some of you were working on transcribing, and some of you were working on writing sections of your essay.  Great!  That is exactly where you are supposed to be.

What to do for next week.
 1.  Keep working on transcribing and analyzing data and post it to your blog.

2.  Work on doing some analytic writing.  This is an important part of writing research essays.  In general, before you begin to write the analysis section of your essay, you should develop some analytic writing to explore the points you might make about your data.  In each piece of analytic writing you might list the following:

• A category you want to explore
• The features of that category
• Some examples (quotes) from your data which deal with/show features of this category
• What you notice in the transcript about where this category seems to appear (in relation to what topics? in response to which questions?  many times or just once? etc)
• The kinds of language moves associated with this category and its different features
• What you might say about this category with respect to your research question.

You might develop sections of writing for several or all of your categories.  The reason you would do this is to figure out what you have to say about your data in some detail BEFORE you try to write what you have in the form of a coherent essay.  This allows you to think through/develop your ideas without getting strangled by the pressure to put those ideas into coherent sentences.

This process of developing sections of analytic writing also allows you to identify the points you will make with respect to your research question BEFORE you try to put them in the best order.  It lets you focus on content without getting stuck in where it fits in your argument/discussion.

Another analytic approach to writing about your data (rather than by category) is to identify conflicts, and write into them.  You might write about:

Conflicts within the data (where your participant does something and says something that don't fit, or where s/he says two different things)

• Conflicts between your data and what the research predicts
• Parts of your data which confuse you (which don't seem to make sense)
• Pieces of your data which contradict the points you "want" to make

You would write about these conflicts/confusions in a way similar to the ways you wrote about the categories: notice where they occur (what were  you talking about); the language moves they are associated with; how they connect to other parts of the data, and so on.

3. Read posts for your classmates who have agreed to do presentations:

Tania, Sam, Tanaera, Sarina, Rachel, Danielle J, Jaleel, Jennifer

Come to class prepared to provide feedback as discussed in class (and see post on presentations on research projects). 
 
4.  Post Blog 16 *and a, b, c, as necessary: more data, marked up data, analytic writing, or any draft writing you want feedback on

Have a great Thanksgiving - and see you next week.

11.19 Short Analysis project, Introductions, Transcripts,and Data analyis

Short analysis discussion. We started class with a discussion of where we are in terms of how you can apply what you learned from writing your short analysis as you begin to work on your research project.  Some of your observations were as follows.

1.  The research question drives the essay.  It determines the focus and your categories of analysis.  to present a research question, you do not need to write "my research question is. . ." - but you do need to make clear, in specific terms, the focus, categories of analysis, and the purpose of your study. 

Some of the moves to set up a research question include:
This essay focuses on. . .
In this essay, I examine (explore, take a close look at how. . .). . . >  In particular, I describe (whatever) in terms of (your categories for analysis).
Look at the sample essays for further examples of how authors present their research question and categories of analysis. 

2. Writing into what you know and getting your best approximation of what you are thinking puts you in a position for feedback.  Lots of you felt "fuzzy" about what you were expected to do - and writing this paper created an opportunity for you to receive feedback on what fit the assignment expectations, and what was not quite on the mark.

3. The essay needs to include lots of specific examples from the data to illustrate/"prove" the points you want to make regarding your research question.
The form for presenting examples is as follows.

• Set up a point relevant to your research question.
•  Present a chunk of data from your transcript, observations, or other source.  Use to format for block quotes (see Purdue OWL).
•  Discuss the transcript/data excerpt by making specific references to language in the quote.  Make statements about what the quote as a whole/and the particular language moves show with respect to your research question.

4.  Use writing studies discourse.  Use the language/ideas we have been discussing in this course.
Discourse= identity
discourse= the way a group of people use language
Discourse Community= a group of people who share an identity which includes the way they talk, their belief systems, and their literate practices.

This includes creating the right stance toward your research participants, data, and readers.  Writing studies tends to relate to participants from the ethnographic perspective, where the focus is on understanding their world view from their perspective (without judging it as correct/incorrect or as right/wrong). 

You did a GREAT job on this project, and I am well aware that it was challenging to write an essay were you were unsure of the discourse, the focus, and the content!   Good job turning in great essays, and I am hoping the feedback will allow you to continue to gather confidence and expertise which you can then apply to your research project.

Short analysis GRADES:  As stated in class, if you receive a higher grade on your research project essay, you will receive that score for your short analysis.  My reasoning is that if you have learned more about writing research essays and are able to apply it in the research essay, I will give you credit for that learning.


Review of forms/"moves" for writing research essays (focus on set up)
We reviewed the assignment sheet for the research essay and we came up with the following list of moves:

1. Set up the importance of your study
2. background: including review of the literature + definition of terms
3. present research question
4. methods
5. presentation and analysis of data (see requirements for Short Analysis essay)
6  discussion of findings
7. conclusions

We spent the rest of class examining the set up (the first four moves) in three sample essays (read earlier in the course = links at previous post).

You identified exactly WHERE and how each author made these moves, and noted some of the language author's used for each move.  I am hoping you took notes, or can go back to the essays because I was so interested/involved in your discussions I did not write down all your good observations.

Creating transcripts/analyzing data.
We spent the rest of class looking at some of the data you have collected (posted on your blogs), noting the forms in your transcripts, and talking through processes for coming up with categories for analysis or looking for features of the data.

DO NOT INCLUDE YOUR PARTICIPANT'S NAME ANYWHERE IN YOUR WRITTEN NOTES, ANALYSIS or TRANSCRIPTION.  ALWAYS refer to your participant by a pseudonym (false name).  You may refer to yourself by your real name, but not your participant.  Also, remove any identifiers that will reveal your participant's identity.

Not allowed:  M teaches first grade at Jersey City PS 2122, on North Avenue. 
Recommended:  M teaches at a small (400 students) urban grade school in northern New Jersey.

Analysis: As pointed out in this discussion, analyzing data is a cyclical process.  Researchers often begin by looking at their data in light of their research question, but then, once they have spent some time with the data and noticed patterns, they often modify their research question => which sends them back to their data with new perspectives, which may again lead to modifying the research question.

You are doing a great job so far!

After your presentations, I directed you to the Sample transcript and the Edited transcript, and we talked through a process for analyzing your "raw" data by looking for (and analyzing) "stories".  We then noted how the form of the data's representation changes in terms of the researcher's interpretations for what the data "shows."  Good participation in this discussion!


For next class:
More presentations on data/analysis so far; in-class workshop on data analysis and drafting
Blog 14:  Data (if you have not already posted it already); 
Blog 15:  any section of your essay you want feedback on (or a marked up transcript) = anything you want to work on in class.

Great class this evening.  It feels like this class is coming together.