We started tonight's class by reviewing your research questions. Those of you who discussed your questions with the class have all chosen topics that fit into writing studies, that are important, and that (hopefully) are interesting to you. (I felt pretty excited about all of them!) Keep working on stating your question in a way that can help you identify the particular data you will collect - and the features of that data that will be relevant. Questions that have the form "what features of . . . correlate with/connect to/ shape/influence . . . ." are usually a good place to start. Why questions are often to hard - so go for a "how do. . ." question that then suggests particular features. I will be reading your "completed" research plans (and giving you feedback) on Sunday or maybe Monday - so you will have feedback by next class.
Where Teachers and Students Meet. We devoted the next part of class to reviewing an essay with a thematic, narrative presentation of data - as opposed to the boxes of categorized data presented in the commenting essay. I pointed out that this was not a "perfect" essay - and that I felt our class was in a good position to offer suggestions for suggesting revisions. You worked in groups to describe what each section of the essay "did," and then describe what worked and didn't work in each section. You pointed out that the introduction needed to define and introduce terms BEFORE using them, that the statement of the research question needed to come earlier, that the "researcher's position" perhaps should have been part of the methods section, and that the methods section did not clearly set up the categories (teacher -WAW, teacher - non-WAW, etc). You also pointed out that the discussion of the findings had organization problems. You suggested several alternatives to the headings used by the author - each of which would have worked. Your suggestions were all more strongly tied to the categories set up by the research question than were the headings suggested by the author. Also, you noticed that the conclusion section did not develop a sufficiently detailed discussion of how the data answered the research question.
Overall - this discussion made clear how important the research question is to the written report of findings. It is necessary for the set up/introduction of the focus, it justifies the methods, it organizes the presentation of the data - and it is the question that the concluding section needs to answer. The message here is to USE your research question to structure your research AND the write up of your findings. IF your question is not pressing you to collect adequate or sufficiently complex data => give it more detail - add additional sub-questions! If your question is to general to structure a paper => tighten it up!
Short analysis essay. We spent the next part of class working considering the assignment sheet for the short analysis essay (you all seemed clear at least in class = if you find you have questions once you are back at home = send and email to the sallywchandler address). We then took some time for you to think about which data set you wanted to do - and to work on your research questions for this project. As I said in class => most of next class will be devoted to workshopping + writing up your draft for this project.
We did not get to Pope's essay. I handed out the reflective essay that accompanied the creative writing piece, "Teacher Training." If you missed class and need a copy I have left extras in my mailbox. We will talk about reflective essays as a version of research in class next week.
For next class.
Read: Gee, Chapters 1-4. Students generally think Gee is an easy read. So these chapters should go quickly. Mark any language you have trouble with. Come to class with:
1) a clear idea of the tools & ideas Gee is introducing in each chapter - and
2) a list of questions/confusions we need to talk through to make those tools/ideas so they belong to you.
Blog 11: Identify points in Gee that you want to talk about more in class. Explore how you might use the ideas/tools he is introducing in your research project
Blog 12: Discuss your Short Analysis Project. State: your research question, how you plan to answer that question, and indicate
how you will meet other criteria on the assignment sheet.
In class, you will begin by workshopping what you have written so far on your short analysis project, and making additional revisions in light of feedback. By the end of the first half of class you will post your draft project (Blog 13).
During the second half of class, we will have a quick discussion of autobiographical research/reflective writing - in the form of Pope's essay. As I said in class, those of you who are writing option majors will write a "composing" essay to accompany your senior writing project for Senior Seminar.
We will also go through the points in Gee that you identify in your blog. We will be working from Gee's book for the next several weeks. We will be dropping some of the other readings to make sure you have spent enough time on discouse analysis to be able to use it for your research project (I will be posting a revised calendar - hopefully by next week).
Thanks for the good class tonight. If you want to schedule another conference, or need information - send me an email! See you next week.
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