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.   

Resources/models for writing your introduction and literature review

Rhetoric of Teacher Comments on Student Writing   Robin Martin

Texting and Writing  Michaela Cullington

Coaches Can Read, Too  Sean Brannick

11.12 Research essay rubric

Short Analysis Essays.  At the beginning of class you used the rubric we created last week to post a grade for your Short Analysis essay.  I will be reading your essays over the weekend and will return them to you with coments by next class.  You also gave me some feedback on how to adjust/tweak the teaching process for this essay.

Research Essay Rubric.  We looked at the assignment sheet for the research project with special attention to the criteria for the essay.  I talked a little about what I want to teach by assigning this project, and how it is those teaching goals that provide my basis for defining criteria and weighting different features that count toward the grade.  On the assignment sheet we note the following criteria, and discussed the moves the writer would need to make in the essay to meet those criteria.

20 points: background & relevance to WS

Presentation of relevant background + discussion of relevance of your project to writing studies

 

Include:1 or 2 writing studies references relevant to your research question; use those references to  define your niche and the categories of analysis.

20 points: research question

Clear statement of a research question to focus your analysis=what the analysis will show

A good research question is relevant to writing studies, is "doable" in terms of your data set

10 points: methods
Clear identification & explanation of methods to conduct your research

This should include discussion of how you will collect + analyze your data, and it should set up your categories of analysis and their connection to the research (if relevant)

20 points: presentation & analysis of data

Presentation and analysis of data or information (see requirements for short analysis essay)

 

This should include: identification of your analytic categories, examples to illustrate patterns from data; direct statements of what the analysis shows re the research question.

 

10 points: discussion 

Discussion should point out relationships between patterns in the data and findings from WS research, direct statements of what in particular your research adds to WS

10 points: conclusions
Sums up findings, indicates limitations, applications, possible new questions raised, etc

10 points: organization & correctness

 
We used this rubric to assess the two sample research projects and found that in general, the rubric posed grades that were slightly different from the "wholistic" grades (gut grades) we would give to the essays.  (My rubric grades were lower, some groups gave higher, and some lower).

The most important outcomes of this discussion was to think about how these evaluations might help these (very good) writers write stronger essays.  Both these papers were very good in terms of exploring important questions in terms of questions raised by writing studies research, making particular references to that research, and using their data to add to (or raise more questions) for writing studies.  We noticed that important areas to work on were:

stating the research question explicitly and in detail;
announcing or setting up the categories for analysis somewhere BEFORE the actual analysis section;

selecting/including appropriate examples from the data;

providing detailed discussions of the data examples (paper 1),
providing enough examples (paper 2)
organization and development.  

 

 

Workshop on  research projects

You are just about ready to start collecting data.  A number of you turned in the consent form, and all of you spent class working on your research instruments (for example, the interview protocol, plan for observation,  reflective writing => what every you tool or material you will use to gather/create data), developing a more in-depth research question, planning for data collection (identifying what you will look for/notice/ask about).

 

For next class:Turn in signed consent forms.

Blog 12: Grade for Short Analysis (posted in class)

Blog 13: Whatever you worked on in class and during the week.  This is one place where you accumulate credit for writing process for your project.

 

During first part of class we will work on writing the literature review (bring the research essay you used to frame your project) and the methods section.

During the second part of class we will work on data analysis.  I will talk about how to create and analyze transcripts, so bring any transcription you may have started + any other data you might have. 

 

11.5 CaRS for research projects, grades, and finishing up the Short Analysis paper

NOTE:  Bring your signed consent forms to class!   You must turn in your consent form so you can begin colleting data.

Also: turn in your short analysis projects as an attachment sent to the course email.

During the first part of class, you read through John Swales' "Creating a Research Space" and noted the three moves he identifies as important in writing an introduction for writing studies essays.  We restated them as follows:

 

1. Establishing a Territory (or writing what your essay is about/identifying the focus/connecting to the writing studies' topic you will discuss)

 

2. Establishing a Niche (pointing out what your essay adds)

 

3. Occupying a Niche (writing what your essay will do/providing an overview of the essay's contents).

 

 Writing a particular essay ALWAYS depends on your audience, purpose, as well as the genre you are writing in, so there is no formula for writing an essay, BUT as Swales points out, these three "moves" are characteristic of writing studies research essay's introductions.  Under each move he listed some ways which researchers achieve the 3 moves.  These components are use, alone or in combination to accomplish the  purposes of the introduction (which Swales sets up as the 3 moves). 

If you check the introductions of the research essays we have read so far (including Swales essays) you can see exactly how the different writers made these moves.

 You spent then some time looking at the research essay you have identified for your project, and thinking about how you can use it to "establish the territory" and "establish the niche" for  your research project. 

How you will be graded for this course
Your syllabus (posted to the right) lists the following spread of points for the course.
1.  Blog + comments (response to readings; practice analysis, drafts, reflections, etc)         150 points            
2.  Class presentations + group work + participation + homework                                          250 points

3.  Short analysis project                                                                                            100 points

4.  Research project                                                                                                                 500 points

• 200 points = Writing for project planning, creation of  data collection tools, presentation and preliminary analysis of data
• 150 points=evidence of writing process including invention writing, successive drafts, and writing to critique and plan revisions to successive drafts
• 150= final research essay

Total points for course                                                                                                                        1000 points

As noted on they syllabus, we may re-negotiate how points are assigned for your research project, as a class.
In tonight's class we talked in some more detail about exactly how grades would be calculated.
For blogs, you receive 10 points per post.  We will probably have a total of 16 posts, so you have a possibility of 10 points extra credit.
For class presentations, group work, participation and homework, you earn 15 points per class (again, out of 16 classes). The remaining 25 points were credit for the NIH training.
For the short analysis project, and the research essay, the discussion on the syllabus says we will develop specific criteria in class (see below).
Criteria for writing to develop the project and for evidence of the writing process are listed on the Research project assignment sheet.  Also, as we finish the term, you will have a series of blog posts where you will receive feedback on what you need to do to meet these requirements.

Grades for the course are assigned in keeping with the following scale:
91 and above = A, with 90% = A-
81 and above = B, with 80% = B-
71 and above = C, with 70% = C-
This means that to pass this course you will need to earn 701 points or above (out of the 1000 possible).

Criteria for Short Analysis project
We listed the criteria for the project on the board and had a discussion about how to "weight" the different features so they will add up to the total score, and so that the "value" or importance of each criterium corresponds to the number of points it is assigned.

I pointed out that in practice, assigning a grades is more whollistic, since the effectiveness of one component shapes and is dependent on the effectiveness of other components.  At the same time, our work to assign points to each feature can give students a realistic picture of what they need to work on and the relative importance (for their grade) of the different features of their composition.

We first assigned a "range" of scores for each component, and then "tweaked" our ranges so that the total score came out to 100 points (the total allocated to the project).  Our scoring was as follows.

20   quality of the research question
20   developed categories of analysis relevant to the data and to the research question
15   relevant, effective examples to demonstrate what the categories show with respect to the research question
15   clear, direct statements of what the examples show with respect to the research question
15   clear, logical organization appropriate for writing studies research esays
10   conclusion  sums up findings and reflects on limitations of the analysis and/or further possibilities for study
5     grammar/readability

We then tested our rubric on one of the sample essays. Our scores were in the same general "ballpark" - which suggests that we all had a similar understanding for the expectations for the essay. 

In general, my score was more demanding for the research question, the use of direct statements, the organization (because organization includes not just the order, but the details of what each section accomplishes), and the conclusion than most of the groups, and I was more satisfied with the essay's development of categories, its use of examples and the grammar than most other groups.  This is important for you to notice because I am the "audience" for your essays, the person who will be evaluating them, and you need to be aware of my expectations.

For next class:
Blog 11: Write a draft for the introduction to your research essay.  This is an important post!  It will help you frame your research in light of what other researchers have written.  This will help you nail down your research question and identify your categories of analysis.  For those of you who don't have an essay yet - email me immediately so we can set you up to move forward.

Due: Final Short Analysis project.  If you are stumped, let me know so we can set up a conference.  I am not available for conferences on Friday.  I am in my office most of the day Wednesday and Thursday. 

Due: Signed consent forms.

In class we will look at some sample research essays, and develop a rubric similar to the way we did for the short analysis project. 

The rest of class will be a workshop to go over your research instruments (interview protocols, prompts for reflective writing, observation protocols, etc).

Good class and see you next week!

 

 

 

11.5 Revisiting Introductions and literature reviews

"Swales: Concept of a Discourse Community

 

Coaches Can Read, Too

Texting and writing

Rhetoric of Teacher Comments on Student Writing

10.29 Re-cap on short analysis projects, interview protocols, and intro to oral history

Note on blogs and short analysis drafts: Yes, it is the middle of the semester and I am a little overwhelmed just like everyone else.  I had some other work that came due the same time as advisement, and I just wasn't able to get finished.  I will be giving you feedback on Blogs 7 & 9, together, since they both pertain to you interview protocol.  It may be a couple of days before I get my head above water, but know that I have good intentions and I am working on getting back to you.  I hope to have everything back in order by the weekend.   Thanks for your patience - and if you need some immediate help (or to get the hold off your account so you can register) stop by my office.

If you have sent me some drafty writing for the Short Analysis project, I will get back with some feedback, hopefully by the end of the weekend.

 WHAT WE DID IN CLASS
I started by giving a general response to what I was seeing on your blogs.

Short analysis project
Setting up the short analysis project:  In general, you are doing a great job of attending to the language features (and that is the hard part!), and you are getting the idea about using the language moves as evidence to answer a larger question.  Also, you are doing a good job of asking questions that the data can answer. Very good!   All interview data can ever really indicate is how the speakers act/feel/think.  The reason that is important to writing studies is because those indications suggest larger patterns about cultural discourses, Conversations, forms and so on.  Writing studies are interested in these larger formations because they shape our writing, talk and behavior (whether we are aware of them or not) => and to REALLY understand communication, it is important to think about the role played by the cultural Discourses, Conversations and identities that are out there = ready-made, for us to step into.

So what you needed to work on was identifying how the features you were noticing were shaped by larger cultural identities, Conversations, and ways of thinking and being associated with particular Discourse communities. We talked about what kinds of formations were associated with each of the two transcripts you might choose for your short analysis project (listed below, sort of approximating what we said).
Chat transcript

• Conversations about "danger" "sex" "good parents" and the Internet
• Identities for "children" as vulnerable, impressionable, and in need of protection (this is a very American conception of childhood - other cultures think of children as resilient, capable of processing experience more or less on their own, and able to take the good and the bad)
• Discourses for "rebellious adolescent" and "good sister/daughter" and "vulnerable child" (for A) and as research interviewer and friend for S
• Reflective patterns for talk typical of female talk (sharing stories and reflecting on what they mean)

Adult learner

• Discourses associated with digital technologies and computers (newcomers v experts)
• age/generational Discourses
• Female reflective storytelling-talk
• nontraditional student identity for M, research interviewer identity for S, middle aged women Discourse for both (collaborative, reflective, not coming to closure too quickly, lots of connections to other people and groups)

We also reviewed the assignment sheet.  As you draft your project - check the assignment sheet to make sure you are meeting the expectations.

Interview protocols
I also talked briefly about what I saw on the posts for the interview protocols. You are doing a great job of starting with warm-up questions and moving to open-ended questions.  For the most part, you are also asking lots of "tell me about. . ." "Can you talk a little more about. . . " and "Tell me a story where. . . "  This is the best.
A few suggestions.
Set up a brief statement of your purpose at the beginning of your protocol (as on the sample).  In most cases you will send your protocol to your participants BEFORE you do the interview, so they can think over what they have to say.  The statement of purpose will help them frame their answers.
Use the categories of analysis from your research essay and your research question to decide what kinds of questions to ask in your interview. Categories of analysis are the general groups of ideas/information that you will analyze.  In the commenting essay, the categories for analyzing the comments were length, type, Positive/negative, etc.  Your categories of analysis need to connect to the research article because you are using your research article to help you frame your study.  For example, if your research article states that children learn x, y, and z about literacy from their "play" - you will look at your participants' learning to see whether x,y, and z are there (or not) - and whether they learn other things as well (or not).
Be sure to ask participants to DESCRIBE their experiences before you ask them to ANALYZE/EVALUATE them.  Ask a "tell me about" question before asking a "what was it like" or
"which is better" or "how do you use. . ." question.  Both kinds of answers are useful, but the "tell me about" questions may give you information about how your participant feels/thinks that s/he is not able to fully articulate.

So good work on this.  Before you do your interview: get the signed copy of your consent form and  send me a copy of your interview protocol as an attachment to an email with the subject line: YOUR LAST NAME, Interview Protocol.

Developing a Research Plan.  Somewhere in there, we also talked about planning your research project, and you did some writing to nail down (one more time) the purpose, research question, and process for your research project.  The more writing you do here, the more clear you will be on what you are doing. 

Oral history.
We spent the rest of class talking about Oral History, and doing some thinking about best practices for oral history interviews.
We talked about the kinds of background we would need to think about and the kinds of questions we would ask to collect an oral history on 9/11.
You then had a too short time to have a short conversation (recorded on your phones) about experiences surrounding 9/11. 

For next class:
Blog 10.  Write to the points on the Developing a Research Plan Handout (posted to the right) as discussed in class.  As discussed in class, this needs to be an in-depth representation of what you plan to do and how you plan to do it.

Bring a copy (electronic or otherwise) of the essay you are using for your research project

During the first part of class, you will each give a short presentation on your research plan. You should come prepared to talk about each of the points in your blog post, the purpose of your study, a detailed statement of your research questions, how you will use your research article to frame your study, how you plan to collect and analyze your data, what research methods you plan to use, and what you need to do to get started. 

During the second part of class, we will review the moves you need to make to write a research essay, with particular attention to the literature review, and you will work on drafting/writing which ever section of your essay you are ready to write.

Thanks for the good class tonight, and see you next week.

Due dates for Short Analysis Project

The due-dates for the Short analysis project listed on the course calendar are conflicting, so I am posting the due dates we will use here, so there is no question.

Due Oct 29 (optional): writing for short analysis project if you want feedback.  You may turn in writing for the project as an attachment to the course email, and I will work with you/provide comments.

Week of  Nov 4: optional conferences on short project/research project

Due Nov 12: Final Short Analysis project .

10.22 More discourse analysis and doing interviews

We spent the first part of class reading through the list of language features and what they (might) mean (see previous post), thinking of examples, and deciding what we thought each feature might mean when speakers use it.

Just before this discussion, each of you shared a possible research question for the Gaming transcript, and just after it you spent some time coming up with a question for your short analysis project. For a question for this assignment:

 1. it needs to be a question that is important to writing studies

2.  it needs to be "answerable" in terms of information in the transcript

With respect to the first feature, we talked over some of the kinds of questions that writing studies researchers might be interested in.  This list might include questions about:

• how interviews work
• features of different Discourse communities and how they influence the way we talk about particular topics
• how identities (Discourses) shape the communication dynamics in conversations (and interviews)
• how Discourse affects literacy learning
• attitudes about literacy, writing, school and just about anything else that will influence literacy learning
• how Discourses/identities/past literacy experiences affect student attitudes toward writing/literacy
• connections between literacy learning and other attitudes, activities, and identities

As you can see, this is a pretty broad list. 

 

Some observations we made about how to phrase a "good" research question for this project were that the questions would  need to be asked in terms of what the transcript can show. For example, the gaming transcript cannot support an answer to questions about whether or not gaming experience helps students learn software for school=> it can only show what the participants in this interview say about their perspective on that question. 

The rest of class was spent talking about how to design interviews.  We looked at the handout on doing interviews, and we looked at a sample interview protocol. 

We noted the following.

• The beginning of the interview is a place for participants to warm up.  Ask questions that are easy to answer.
•  An open-ended, general question about your focus at the end of the introductory material can give your participant a chance to talk about your topic in his/her own language, before you begin directing the conversation to specific features of your question.
• It is a good idea to organize your interview - either chronologically, by topic, or both.
• You will probably want to ask the same questions - related to different aspects of your topic - over and over again to give your participant multiple opportunities to call up information assosciated with your focus.
• Ask lots of descriptive, tell me about, do you have a story questions, rather than questions that demand direct information.
• As you come to the end of your interview make sure to give your participant an opportunity to raise anything they want to say that you might not have covered.

For next class:

Read: Best Practices for Oral History

Blog 9: Draft an interview protocol for your research project.  If you are not doing interviews, draft an interview protocol that you could use if you decided to do your project a different way.

Next class we will talk about doing oral histories, which is a particular kind of interview. We will also talk about your assignment sheet for the final project and map out the rest of the term's work.

Thanks for the good class tonight, and see you next week!

Handout on language features and what they (might) mean

language features and what they (might) mean

10.15 Part 2: Discourse, discourse, Primary Discourse, Secondary Discourses, transcripts = and discourse analysis

Note: See the previous post for a summary of presenting the informed consent forms to participants.  This post lists the prompt for Blog 7 - the in-class writing you did on how you would present your project to participants.

We spent the middle part of class talking over James Gee's introduction to Discourse.  These were some of the observations we made during the discussion.

Literacy is connected to Discourse

Little d discourse is language in use

Big D Discourse includes beliefs, ways of thinking = a pattern for performing an identity

Dominant Discourse is the identity/ways of being/language  that is "enforced" by culture

Primary Discourse = values beliefs ways of relating to the world we learn as children

Discourse is not just what you say but how you say it

We learn secondary Discourses from school, media, work peer groups etc

You need to understand Discourse before you can research it

Our interpretations derive from our Primary Discourse

Your own discourse will influence the way you “hear” and “say” things = consciously and unconsciously

There is translation (difference) between languages – and between Discourses

School teaches Dominant Discourse

Transcripts – we hear what we expect

Style and structure are part of Discourse

Analysis of the gaming transcript.
Next we looked at a sample transcript, the Gaming transcript,  and made some observations about what was going on.  We noticed particular patterns in language use; repetitions, presence of particular language "moves" (such as the different ways B minimized his expertise, and Ch's persistence in focusing on connections between software and games= would counting the different ways these two speakers persisted in these moves help justify posing this opposition as a focus for the conversation?); the organization or sequence of the conversation (how statements set up the statements that follow); who spoke the most; who controlled the conversation; who asked questions, and so on.  Here is the marked up transcript we created in class.

We also went over the assignment sheet for the short analysis project.  This was to give you a heads up on the project - where we will be going.  The work we did in class on the Gaming transcript was practice for this project.  You will work on analyzing transcripts for your short analysis project next class.  We will also work on set up/doing interviews (handout distributed in class). 

We ended class by listing some communities/groups which have Discourses. Here is a list.

School

Most sports/games have Discourse communities (football, baseball, soccer, scrabble. . .)

Churches

Nationalities

Ethnicities

Professions (Doctors, lawyers, accountants, teachers, steel workers, farmers. . .)

Politicians – by party & positions within parties

Students

Gamers (online/game systems) by game genre or gaming group 

Music communities

Fan communities, including different fan fiction groups

Interviewers (for the news, for celebrities, for research, for jobs = all different discourses)

So, with all that in mind, this is what to do for next class.

Read: look through transcripts for Data Set 5 (posted to the right).  Review what we did to analyze 5-1 ( the gaming transcript).  Think about which of the other two you would like to use for your Short Analysis project. 

Blog 8: Pose a research question about what is going on in the Gaming transcript.  Do your best to ask a question that will allow you to discuss criteria requested on the Short Analysis Assignment Sheet.   List/point out the evidence from the transcript that you will use to develop your answer.  (One important criterion for a good research questionis that it is a question your data set can answer. That is, there needs to be evidence in the data to support an answer.) 

10.15 Part 1: Informed Consent

We spent the first part of class planning and practicing how to get informed consent from your project participants. 

I handed out:

• a signed (by me) informed consent form
• a signed (by me) A-V consent form
• a debriefing form.

You started a paragraph to cover the specifics of your project so you could talk to your participants about your study,  your processes for subject selection, the purpose of your study, and you data collection methods. 

After watching Tania talk through the process for getting informed consent, you practiced with a partner. 

In addition to covering all the points pertaining to your study, made sure to:

• point out the contact information
• inform participants that they can withdraw with no penalty/consequence at any time
• make clear the steps you will take to preserve confidentiality
• ask if your participant has any questions
• get a copy of the signed forms for you to turn in to me, and give one to the participant

You also looked through the A-V form.  As you present the A-V form, make clear that participants can request that the recording equipment be turned off at any point during the interview, and that the A-V form only pertains to data recording.  Again, draw participants' attention to the contact numbers, and create two sets of forms, on for you to turn in to me, and one for the participant to keep .

At the end of your data collection you will provide participants with a debriefing form.  Thank your participant, explain how their participation was important, point out the contact numbers, and thank them again.

The second part of class focused on Discourse, Dominant Discourse, Primary Discourse, Secondary Discourse, and discourse analysis (our talk about the transcript).

Because that is another topic - I am setting it up as a separate post.

For next class:

Blog 7: Post the material you will use to describe your project when you present your informed consent materials.  Even if you will not actually be using human subjects, and will not need to present consent forms, write up a your project as if you were using participants so you will have training in presenting consent forms.

10.8 Part 2: Developing research questions + what to do for next class (Data Set 5)

NOTE:  Class on 10/15 will meet in CAS 307.

During the second part of class we discussed Data Set 4: 4 papers with teacher comments.  We spent some time discussing the comments: their purpose (why teachers might create them), the form different comments take, and how students might receive different comments.

For the different purposes comments might serve (I did not get my notes for this, so this is probably not exactly what we had on the board), our discussion put forward the following.

Purpose for teachers comments:
to get students to revise
to support students in taking authority over their own work
to provide the teachers perspective on "how student is doing"
to give readerly feedback (say what was understood)
to motivate students to write

You then worked in groups to think about the categories for analysis from Ferris/Martin, the different purposes for giving comments, or some other set of features of comments on student writing => and to come up with research questions that might help teachers/students understand more about how teacher commenting works (what it does, what makes it effective, how it works, and so on).

Groups: (Let me know if I got these right)
Tanaera, Sam
Silvia, Carolina, Jaleel,
Sarina, Julissa, Rachel
Bri, Danielle, Danielle

As discussed when we created questions for the ethnographic notes, a good research question needs to be relevant to the data (that is, there needs to be enough information in the data to answer it); it needs to be "important" (it needs to explore something useful, new, or contested for writing studies), and it needs to pose a research process that is "doable".

The groups came up with the following:

1. How does poor proofreading in comments affect the effectiveness of commenting?

2. How do questions work in comments
3. How do teachers use comments to give the student the option to express his/her own ideas versus demanding that students comply with teacher directions?  What factors would make these different approaches appropriate?
4. Analysis of headnote/endnote how they work versus how sidenotes work
5. How does the amount of text selected for side comments affect student response?
6. How does specificity of comments work in commenting? What does it do &  how does it contribute to (or not) comments effectiveness in achieving their purpose?
7. In head/ending comments, how does the use of examples contribute to effectiveness?
8  How do imperative comments work in getting students to revise
9. What are the effects of placing the head note at the beginning versus the end?
10.  What does it mean that there are not grammar comments?

Each group chose a question, but I didn't get the timing right for this class, and we did not have a clear discussion of what to do for the Blog before some of you left.  I thought it over and I don't really think we had a clear enough discussion for you to follow on the post I set up in the last chaotic minutes of class - so I am assigning completely different post (see below).  

Next week we will talk some more about how to set up and follow through with the analysis of a research question.  You did a great job last week on the ethnographic notes, and I don't want to confuse you. .

For next week:
Blog 6: Set up the analysis to answer the question chosen by your group by doing the following 
1. Identify your research question & discuss what features of the comments you will need to characterize in order to answer it.
2. State the categories for your analysis (for example, what features will you use to determine "effectiveness"? or to characterize headnotes versus sidenotes?  or to characterize the different "selections" made by side comments?
3. If you chose a question about "effectiveness" = describe the criteria/process for determining the comment's effectiveness which purpose(s) (from class discussion) the comments are effective for.

Read: Gee, Introduction to Discourse Analysis
In this reading, pay attention to the way he talks about Discourse communities, identity, and his discussion of how to analyze talk (transcripts).

Then, for next class, look through Data Set 5 (posted below ).

Chat room transcript

 

Adult learner transcript

 

Gaming literacy transcript

 

Come to class with some ideas about questions you might ask to use this data set to study Discourse communities, how individuals represent themselves as belonging to those communities (or not), and what discourse analysis can show about speaker's relationships to the material they are talking about.

 

 

 

10.8 Part 1: Form and content for research papers,

We spent the first part of class discussing Martin's essay on the rhetoric of teachers comments on student writing.  The notes from the board are pasted below.

rhetoric: the arts writers & speakers use to get their audience to "hear" them

Overall organization of this essay

Introduction
Literature review
Current study

                Methods

                Results
Discussion
Conclusions

In our discussion of the overall analysis, we noted that some authors merge some of these sections (for instance, the lit review + the introduction, or the results and discussion, or the discussion & the conclusions), but that this list represents the general order for the "moves" research writers make when presenting their work.
 Categories of analysis for Martin’s paper
Length
Type of comment
Use of hedges
Text specificity

As we discussed these categories for Martin's analysis, we noted that the paper might have been stronger if these categories were defined more directly, and earlier in the essay.  We figured out what she meant by these categories by looking at the appendix, and the discussion of teacher tendencies in the literature review.

 

What should a literature review do
1. tell what has been found relevant to your question
2. establish your authority/credibility
3. evidence of the importance for your research

What to include in the methods section

Identify your research subjects
Describe the context for the study
Describe how you collected your data
Present your research instrument (survey, interview protocol, etc)

Findings for this research
Students did not revise in response to positive comments
Did correct grammar comments
Type was the strongest predictor (more so than features) for student revision

(4 most likely to respond to = list on last page)

This essay also noted a long list of similarities and differences between the present study's findings and Ferris' work.  We observed that the presentation of findings was hard to follow, and made the following observations about different ways to present them.

• don't try to present everything, just points relevant to the focus
• use visuals
• make better use of categories/other organizing ideas to present data (more, larger groupings)

 Suggestions for strengthening this essay

Organization= present definitions/focus before discussing
Create a focused summary of the literature review=> only summarize/discuss points relevant to your focus
Work on the data presentation: don’t present ALL the results, only results relevant to the research question; use visuals; organize data by points about what the data mean

Throughout this discussion, you did some talking/thinking about how to organize/present your research essay.

 

 

10.1 Developing a research plan - and surveys!

We started class with some writing to develop your research projects. You wrote some drafty writing to answer the 5 prompts in this post. (See previous post: Developing a Research Plan).

We then moved on to a discussion of surveys.   We started with a general discussion about what surveys can and can't do, some of the problems associated with surveys, and different kinds of surveys and survey questions.

what surveys can and can't do
can do:
collect a large body of data fairly cheaply
provide statistical answers to clearly framed questions
because surveys rely on self-reports, it is difficult to get accurate information about what the respondents don't know, don't understand, or have misinformation about = all you can find out is what respondents think

can't do
unpack the reasoning/particular interpretations that underlie the ways respondent complete surveys


some of the problems associated with surveys
poor return rates
people do not always answer them honestly
often, even when respondents have good intentions, there can be miscommunications
different cultures, as well as individuals with different experiences rate/respond to survey questions differently

survey formats
fill in the blank/write a response
multiple choice
rank on a scale

We then spent some time looking through the data collected for the MA in English studies program.  As pointed out on the earlier post on surveys, surveys need a clear purpose and objectives. This survey's purpose was to assess the program's effectiveness,
The survey's specific objectives were to assesss whether the program provided students with:

• courses and experiences that would support their career choices/personal aspirations
• a sense of increased confidence and proficiency with respect to writing practices they will need for their future
• strong background in theory and practice that defines writing studies.We used the survey designed to assess the MA in Writing Studies Program as a sample. 

Among other things, after reading through the survey you pointed out that it was confusing to use the same language on the pre- and post- surveys, since the students had different relationships to the program, and the questions did not make sense for both sets of students. 

Evaluating model research studies
During the second part of class we evaluated the study on texting.  We noticed that the beginning of the essay defines the problem.  The author's next move was to present the "pro" and "con" research on the effects of texting on writing.  The following section set up her methods: her overall approach to collecting and analyzing data.  The final section presented findings.

Our evaluation of her essay's form: In our discussion we pointed out that the paper would have been stronger with a more detailed presentation of her data (results) followed by a conclusion which discusses her answer to her research question in light of her data.

The study used three approaches for data collection: interviews with teachers, interviews with students, and analysis of written texts by students. 

Content of surveys for students and teachers

Students
How long have you been texting?

How often do you text?

 Do you notice yourself using textspeak in your texting/formal writing?

(suggestion = forward some texts)

 What types of abbreviations/how often

What do they think should be done to prevent textspeak in writing?

 

Teachers
Are you a texter?

Do you believe texting is impairing student writing?

Do teachers notice the effects of texting in student writing?

Is texting positive or negative?

What do you think should be done to keep students from using textspeak in writing?

 

Analysis of student writing
essays were analyzed for common acronyms used in texting

**essays were not analyzed for any of the positive effects of texting noted by researchers

 

Class assessment of this study:

We raised questions about the subject selection (is choosing friends the best idea?); the quality of the surveys (some questions were leading, needed more questions); the surveys should have been included in the study as appendices; the student writing might have been analyzed for more than just the presence of acronyms. 

Good work on this!

For next week:

Read: Rhetoric of Teacher Comments on Student Writing  Robin Martin

Blog 5: Develop your research plan.  Write into each of the 5 prompts.  At the end of your plan: list what you need to do to get started on your project;  list of what you need from me, let me know if you want another conference.

Good class & see you next week.