Comments on your blogs. I started class with a quick overview of some of what I am seeing on your blogs in terms of analysis. You are doing a good job of naming the different parts of the analytic process. Keep working on including lists of the particular codes and categories - along with examples from the data of the actions, interactions, actors and settings that you used those codes and categories to name. The point of doing analysis through this process (and the point for writing it up) is to allow your classmates and me to SEE your analytic process (how you made your decisions about what belongs in which category - and why a particular theory might make sense). Also, keep working on writing up reasoning (how you build your hypotheses) by identifying your codes and categories and then explaining the relationships between and within those codes and categories. This allows you to talk about HOW you came to your conclusions. Your analysis is your evidence of the logic you used to solve the problem, and of your assumptions about what behaviors/actions, etc fit into which categories.
When asked what was hard about analytic process- several of you pointed out that coming up with hypotheses and theories was hard. Hypotheses are answers to questions about relationships in your data (what are the connections between age and emotions? what kinds of questions got the most detailed stories? what kind of information was contributed by off-topic talk? etc). To develop hypotheses - ask about relationships between categories and/or codes. Theories are big over-arching explanations for what is going on with ALL your data. Sometimes you can only come up with a "local" theory - a theory that explains one particular set of relationships throughout the data. Other times you can come up with more general - global theories that seem to account for everything (like the explanation of the pattern in the logic problem from the first day).
Analysis of Shaggy dog stories.
During the next part of class we worked with the shaggy dog stories (Data set 3 linked on the right). We started out with a review of the first two stories on the handout. You identified the following list of characteristics of shaggy dog stories (names for what they do/are)
- they are jokes
- conclude with a play on words => mangling of a quote
- listeners have to know the quote to "get" it
- punchline is a spoonerism = switch of first letters of key nouns or names in the quote
- punchline is at the end (placement)
- switched words from the quote are introduced early in the story and used throughout
- presented as a story with a beginning middle ending
- punchline quote sums up or explains what the story means/is about/shows
- the resolution to the story's action is unsatisfactory (the "bad" force triumphs)
- the story includes characters & setting and other story elements - often with excessive (ridiculous) development
- the development involves using the mangled words from the punchline
We then ranked the stories in terms of how funny we thought the stories were. 5 = funniest, 1 = not especially funny (I also added the rankings from the other class). Your rankings are listed first and they are presented in a format listing the # of 5s/4s/3s/2s/1s - in that order.
# of votes for Funniest = 5 /4/3 /2 /1 = not funny
nate 1/1/3/1/-
1/4/4/4/1
friars 1/3/1/1/-
1/1/6/2/4
panda 2/-/1/2/-
7/4/-/1/2
Friday -/-/-/2/4
5/3/-/2/4
chess 1/-/1/2/2
-/2/4/5/3/
A quick looks shows that our class thought the panda story was the funniest - but the other class thought the Friday story was the funniest. What is more - our class thought the Friday story was the UN-funniest. So it seems one observation is that different people/groups think different stories are funny - and one question to ask of this data might be what factors contribute to making a joke seem funny.
We then talked in general about what we thought made one story funnier than another. You then worked in groups to identify features of the stories that made the stories "funny" (or not). Some categories for these features (along with some of the codes in those categories) from your notes include:
- length = the longer the story the more likely it was to be funny. Features that made that story longer that contributed strongly to it being more funny were character development, development of an eloaborate, ridiculous rationalization of an absurd situation - often with an element of violence that is introduced suddenly. You also noted that the development was most effective if it connected to the interests of the reader
- word play: the effectiveness of the word play at the end related to how it connected to the reader, to how long and elaborate it was, and to whether or not the reader was familiar with it
- ironic contrast; you noted that contrast between what the reader imagined or expected - and what happened in the story also made the story funny. For example - that the panda was a thug - instead of cute and fuzzy - was a surprize and funny.
- surprise = things that were not expected or ridiculous
- connections to the audience: in terms of the setting, characters, plotline, etc and especially associations to the punchline. You noticed that the panda joke made the most complete connection to the punchline for the widest audience by giving the audience all the information it needed to understand it (the audience does not have to already know the quote that the punchline is a corruption of). We also noticed that the panda story was set in NY and that might have helped make that story funny to us.
- confict: funny stories all seemed to include conflict.
There are many more details to develop here. Hopefully you will develop them in Blog 5 (see below).
Literacy narratives
I began by talking at length about what literacy narratives are and how they are used by writing studies teachers and researchers. To sum up - a literacy narrative is an autobiographical, reflective story about the storytellers experiences learning to read and write. It is autobiographical because it is authored by the person who looks back over his or her life; and it is reflective because in addition to telling stories about reading and writing, the author thinks about or reflects on what the stories mean - what factors contributed to making those particular stories important; why s/he told his or her stories in the particular way s/he told them, and how the experiences related in his or her affected his or her relatinship to literacies (among other things).
I emphasized that literacy narratives include important information not just because they tell teachers and scholars about writers relationships to reading and writing. While understanding how people learn and use reading and writing is important, the study of literacy narratives is important also because literacy narratives provide evidence of who we are and how we think about who we are. In a very real sense - the stories we tell about who we are = ARE who we our. How we think of ourselves, talk about our selves and how others perceive us = our very identities - are made of stories we tell about who we are. The structures for reading and writing are in some ways the building blogs for how we tell stories. Because of this - our relationship to reading and writing ( and how we use the structures they provide us) influence how we are able to think about and represent ourselves.
Writing instructors often assign literacy narratives like the essays at the link for Data set 3 to provide students with the opportunity to explore their relationships to reading and writing - and to think about how that relationship has shaped the stories they tell about who they are. For example, in class I pointed out that where I grew up there was a unspoken understanding in my family that "school came first" and that reading and writing were important because they were "my future." This belief is central to what is generally known as The Literacy Myth - a part of the American Dream story about success. And while I was held to that standard - at the same time - there were other unspoken beliefs that conflicted with that story about success. I wasn't really expected to do so well at school that I would grow up and get a job that took me away from my home community - so in that sense school and "success" didn't really come first. When I DID move away from home to take a job - there was considerable confusion for all of us. Writing about and reflecting on stories, beliefs and values associated with literacy and so on can help individuals understand the conflicting feelings they have about school, writing, and success.
After this rather long introduction - we looked at the assignment sheet for the sample literacy narratives in Data Set 2, and the literacy narrative I handed out in class. (Those of you who were absent can pick up the handout in my mailbox by the English Department), and I set up the analysis you are expected to post for Blog 6.
For next class:
Update Blog 4. In light of class discussion - add/point out the kinds of writing you would need to add to develop your analysis.DO NOT re-do the post. Rather, ADD some more writing at the end to state how you could strengthen and deepen the analysis you have posted.
Post Blog 5. In class, we looked at 5 shaggy dog stories, ranked which were funniest, and began an analysis to identify which features make shaggy dog stories funny. Our analysis from class suggested which features seem funny in general, and the ranking (posted above) gives an indication of what your CLASSMATES think is funny. For Blog 5, use the class ranking and our analysis of funny features of shaggy dog stories as a basis for predicting how our class(es) will rank the shaggy dog stories at this link.
Your analysis should identify features of the stories at the link that are similar to features of stories our work in class suggested as "preferred" by your classmates. In this analysis, your line of reasoning is at least as important as your conclusion.
Blog 6: Set up an analysis of one or more of the sample literacy narratives: two are posted at Data Set 2 - one handed out in class. In your analysis, begin by posing one or several questions that you might be interested in thinking about with respect to these three pieces of writing. Then code the narratives by.identifying/naming features within the essay(s) that are relevant to your questions. Continue coding and noticing patterns until you can't think of any more codes (conditions, actors, actions, interactions, or outcomes) related to your questions. When you have lots of codes, categories and hypotheses - see if you can come up with a theory that accounts for large chunks of what you see happening.
Example. If you are interested in what kinds of experiences cause individuals to like reading and writing you might begin by coding for: positive and negative stories, experiences, phrases/words, etc. You would also code for experiences connected to family, school, friends, social organizations etc and then you would begin to notice patterns between the two sets of codes (are family experiences positive and school experiences negative = etc). As you code you would develop more ideas about what to notice - and you will develop new questions to pose additional hypotheses. that you will focus on; describe how you will analyze them (names + categories) and indicate the kinds of conclusions you might come to.
Read: Rhetoric of Teacher Comments on Student Writing by Robin Martin
In class next week:
We will start by going over blog posts 5 & 6 to make sure you are well on your way in terms of doing analysis and developing analytic writing.
We will then spend some time summing up the kinds of research methods you have worked on so far (interviewing, oral history, language analysis, textual analysis, literacy narrative studies) - and talking about your ideas for projects.
We will then talk about Martin's essay as a way to look at how research essays are "built" - and to take a look at one way writing studies researchers use quantitative methods.
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