Shaggy dog stories II

1.

A string walked into a bar, hopped on the barstool, and said, "Bartender, gimme a beer." The bartender said, "I'm sorry, sir, we don't serve strings here."

Disappointed, the string hopped down from the stool and went to the next bar. He hopped on the barstool and said, again, "Bartender, gimme a beer." The bartender said, "I'm sorry sir, we don't serve strings here."

The string continued down the row of bars in this fashion. At every bar, he hopped on the barstool and said, "Bartender, gimme a beer." The bartender at every bar in turn said, "I'm sorry sir, we don't serve strings here."

Finally he got to the last bar in the area. He was tired, he was sweaty, all he wanted was a beer. He trudged inside, climbed on the barstool, and said, "Bartender, gimme a beer." This bartender, too, said, "I'm sorry, sir, we don't serve strings here."

Tired and angry, the string walked outside to think. He was a hard-working string. He deserved a beer. Finally, he came up with an idea. He had a passerby tie him up into a bow and frazzle his ends. Then he went back into the bar, and climbed up on the barstool. "Bartender, gimme a beer!" he said loudly.

The bartender looked him over critically, and finally yelled, "Hey, aren't you that string that was in here a few minutes ago?"

The string replied coolly, "Nope, I'm a frayed knot."

2.

A man went to his dentist because he felt something wrong in his mouth. The dentist examined him and said "That new upper plate I put in for you six months ago is eroding. What have you been eating?"

The man replied, "All I can think of is that about four months ago, my wife made some asparagus and put some stuff on it that was delicious... hollandaise sauce! I love it so much now that I put it on everything -- meat, toast, fish, vegetables, everything!"

The dentist said, "Well, that's probably the problem. Hollandaise sauce is made with lots of lemon juice, which is highly corrosive. It's eaten away your upper plate. I'll make you a new one, and this time, I'll use chrome."

"Why chrome?" asked the patient.

"It's simple," said the dentist. "Everyone knows that there's no plate like chrome for the hollandaise."

3.

Ghandi walked barefoot everywhere, to the point that his feet became quite thick and hard. Even when he wasn't on a hunger strike, he did not eat much and became quite thin and frail. He also was quite a spiritual person. Furthermore, due to his diet, he ended up with very bad breath. He became known as a super-calloused fragile mystic plagued with halitosis.

4.

A certain lawyer was quite wealthy and had a summer house in the country. Each summer the lawyer would invite a different friend to spend a week or two. On one occasion, he invited a Czechoslovakian friend to stay with him. The friend, eager to get a freebie off a lawyer, agreed.  Early one morning, the lawyer and his Czechoslovakian companion went out to pick berries for their breakfast. As they went around the berry patch gathering blueberries and raspberries, along came two huge bears, a male and a female. The lawyer, seeing the two bears, immediately dashed for cover. His friend, though, wasn't so lucky. The male bear reached him and swallowed him whole.The lawyer ran back to his Mercedes, tore into town, and got the local sheriff.

The sheriff grabbed his shotgun and dashed back to the berry patch with the lawyer.  Sure enough, the two bears were still there. "He's in that one," cried the lawyer, pointing to the male, while visions of lawsuits from his friend's family danced in his head. He just had to save his friend. The sheriff looked at the bears, and without batting an eye, leveled his gun, took careful aim, and shot the female.

"What did you do that for?" exclaimed the lawyer. "I said he was in the other one!"

"Exactly," replied the sheriff. "Would you believe a lawyer who told you the Czech was in the male?"

5.10 Presentation outline

1. What you studied + why you studied it  (why you chose your topic)
2.  background - what other research has been done on your topic; what other researchers have found, hoe they studied your subject
3.methodology

• what was your purpose (why is this important?)
• assumptions about truth v Truth
• what were your assumptions about how to find information?

4.what were your methods => detailed description of whta you did
5. findings
6. what your findings mean

5.3 workshop research essays

We reviewed the assignment sheet for the research essay and you used the guidelines for the workshop (posted last week) to work on your essays.  Most of you have a good start - make sure to set up your project in light of  other research, make several clear points that relate to your research question, and use specific references to your research data to support your points - and you will nail this one.

I sent you comments to blogs 8-11.

For next week:
Blog 12: Final research essay

Also send your final research essay and your final exam to the course email.  See you next week!

4.26 Quantitative methods, Research drafts & Final exam

We started with a brief overview of the chapter on quantitative methods in your Research Methods text - and then moved on to the Shaggy Dog exercise. We started with an intuitive ranking of  the 5 shaggy dog stories, and then analyzed the features that made them funny.  We next rated the SAME 5 stories using a numerical scale based on  our 7 categories for what made the stories funny.  This rating showed that our numerical scale worked on the stories we used to create it => the stories came out with ratings numerical scores that corresponded pretty well with the intuitive "funniness" ratings we gave the first time around.

We then applied the numerical funniness scale to 3 new stories - and found that it didn't work so well on the new stories.  This means that our funniness scale needed some more work before we could apply it to measure "funniness" to a broader range of stories.  For instance, we noticed that the Ghandi shaggy dog story was really much funnier than the funniness scale indicated.

Jen then gave her presentation on "Is Oral History Good For You?" a study which demonstrated political motivations for resorting to quantitative evidence (to receive funding or to prove the value of a method or theory to an audience that only values "hard" data).

Oral history continued. We then did a slightly different kind of quantitative study to assess the value of oral history.  We rated  our feelings about particular stories - told the stories to each other as a group - and then re-rated our feelings about the stories using the same scale.  Jen is going to report the results for us next week.

Final exam.  Your final exam is posted to the right under Course Documents.  You can look it over this week (or get started if you choose).  We will review and ask/answer questions next week.  The completed final exam will be due May 10.

Research Drafts are due by Sunday night.  I will give you feedback by Thursday you will workshop them in class May 3.  The final draft will be due May 10 when you will share your findings with classmates (and celebrate the successful completion of the course!).

I think that wraps it up = what an awesome class tonight!  Thanks for your good participation.

Workshop

Workshop guidelines

1. State the essay's research question

2. Sum up relevant background, including other research, related to your project 

3. Identify the relevance/importance of the essay's focus to English Studies (identify the problem that the paper studies)

4. Identifythe methods

5. Explain the analysis of data and how it sets up the findings => count the specific examples (particular references to transcripts, observations, textual analysis etc)

6. State the findings (should be a list of observations/generalization relevant to the research question)

7. How does the researcher connect  the findings to the research question

Shaggy dog stories

1.

A man went to his dentist because he felt something wrong in his mouth. The dentist examined him and said "That new upper plate I put in for you six months ago is eroding. What have you been eating?"

The man replied, "All I can think of is that about four months ago, my wife made some asparagus and put some stuff on it that was delicious... hollandaise sauce! I love it so much now that I put it on everything -- meat, toast, fish, vegetables, everything!"

The dentist said, "Well, that's probably the problem. Hollandaise sauce is made with lots of lemon juice, which is highly corrosive. It's eaten away your upper plate. I'll make you a new one, and this time, I'll use chrome."

"Why chrome?" asked the patient.

"It's simple," said the dentist. "Everyone knows that there's no plate like chrome for the hollandaise."

2.

Ghandi walked barefoot everywhere, to the point that his feet became quite thick and hard. Even when he wasn't on a hunger strike, he did not eat much and became quite thin and frail. He also was quite a spiritual person. Furthermore, due to his diet, he ended up with very bad breath. He became known as a super-calloused fragile mystic plagued with halitosis.

3.

A certain lawyer was quite wealthy and had a summer house in the country. Each summer the lawyer would invite a different friend to spend a week or two. On one occasion, he invited a Czechoslovakian friend to stay with him. The friend, eager to get a freebie off a lawyer, agreed.  Early one morning, the lawyer and his Czechoslovakian companion went out to pick berries for their breakfast. As they went around the berry patch gathering blueberries and raspberries, along came two huge bears, a male and a female. The lawyer, seeing the two bears, immediately dashed for cover. His friend, though, wasn't so lucky. The male bear reached him and swallowed him whole.The lawyer ran back to his Mercedes, tore into town, and got the local sheriff.

The sheriff grabbed his shotgun and dashed back to the berry patch with the lawyer.  Sure enough, the two bears were still there. "He's in that one," cried the lawyer, pointing to the male, while visions of lawsuits from his friend's family danced in his head. He just had to save his friend. The sheriff looked at the bears, and without batting an eye, leveled his gun, took careful aim, and shot the female.

"What did you do that for?" exclaimed the lawyer. "I said he was in the other one!"

"Exactly," replied the sheriff. "Would you believe a lawyer who told you the Czech was in the male?"

Quantitative Experiment

1

There was a snake called Nate. His purpose in life was to stay in the desert and guard the lever. Theis lever was no ordinary lever. It was the lever that if moved would destroy the world. Nate took his job very seriously. He let nothing get close to the lever.

One day off in the distance he saw a cloud of dust. He kept his eye on it because he was guarding the lever. The dust cloud continued to move closer to the lever. Nate saw that it was a huge boulder and it was heading straight for the lever!

Nate thought about what he could do to save the world. He decided if he could get in front of the boulder he could deflect it and it would miss the lever. Nate slithered quickly to intersect the boulder. The boulder ran over Nate, but it was, in fact, deflected, leaving history to conclude that is was better Nate than lever

2.

Some friars wanted to do more for their flock but their vow of poverty, simple lifestyle and lack of gainful employment meant that their supply of available funds was, to say the least, meager. Nevertheless, they put their collective heads together and came up with the idea of opening a small florist shop. They reasoned that they could grow most of the flowers on the church grounds, and what they couldn't grow, they could likely pick from the surrounding countryside.

As you can probably guess, everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of God and their little business flourished. So much so that the rival florist across town thought the competition was unfair. He asked the good fathers to close their little shop, but their flower business was providing them with much-needed funds for  their good works and they refused. He went back time and again, finally begging the friars to close. By this time, they had tired of the florist's constant whining and they ignored him. The florist even asked his mother to go and ask the friars to get out of the flower business, but they ignored her, too.

By this time, the florist was nearly backrupt and in desperation hired Hugh MacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town, to "persuade" the good friars to close. Being a man of few morals and even fewer religious convictions, Hugh had no ethical problems with his assigned task and promptly gave the friars a thorough beating and trashed their store. He departed with a stern warning that he’d be back if they didn’t close the shop. Terrified, the friars did so immediately, thereby proving that only Hugh can prevent florist friars.

3.

A giant panda escaped from the zoo in New York. Eventually, he found his way downtown and walked into a restaurant, where he found a seat at an emptey table. The maitre d', being a native New Yorker figures he's seen stranger things than this so he sends over a waiter to take the panda's order. In due course the panda's meal arrives and he eats.

After he finishes his dinner he stands up, calmly pulls out a gun from God-knows-where he had it hidden, and blows away several customers and a couple of the waiters. Then he turns around and walks toward the door.

Naturally, the maitre d' is horrified. He stops the panda and demands an explanation, at the very least.

The panda says to him, "What do I look like to you"?

The maitre d' answers, "Well, a giant panda, of course."

"That's right," says the panda, "Look it up," and he walks out.

The maitre d' calls the police. When they arrive the maitre d' relates the whole story to them, including the panda's comment about looking it up. So the chief detective sends a rookie out to get an encyclopedia.

He eventually returns with the Encyclopedia Brittanica, Volume P. The detective looks up "panda", and there's the answer: "Giant panda, lives in China, eats shoots and leaves."

4.

Robinson Crusoe fell desperately ill. Just before dropping into a coma, he called for his man Friday to help him. "Friday, get help! Get help!"

"Yes!" Friday replied, "Get help now!" Not knowing what else to do, he went outside of Crusoe's tent and danced and prayed for the gods to come and help his master.

Shortly afterwards, he went back into Crusoe's tent and found his master awake and staring at a beautiful glowing shape at the foot of his bed.

"Who is that?" Robinson Crusoe asked.

His helper answered, "Thank Friday! It's God!"

5.

All the top chess players show up at a hotel for an important international tournament. They spend the first hour hanging around the lobby telling each other of their recent victories. Their crows get progressively louder and louder as each one tries to outdo the others.

The hotel manager gets tired of this, so he throws them out of the lobby and tells them to go to their rooms. "If there's one thing I can't stand," he says, "it's chess nuts boasting by an open foyer."

4.19 Oral history

Jill gave her excellent presentation on Oral History (and you all learned how to use the periodical list at the Kean Library).  We used our discussion of the article both to think about the kind of work oral historians do - and to map out the kinds of moves researchers make in writing a research essay.

You also did oral history interviews - reported back - and we talked about the kinds of questions and issues that can be studied through oral history.

Next week we will talk about qualitative methods - and workshop your research essays.

Read:  Is Oral History Good for You? The Oral History Review  37.2

Blog 11:  Draft Research project that you will workshop in class

Turn in your draft for comments, as an attachment to the course email on Friday, April 27.

I might be late for class

The Honor's Convocation for Kean University is begins at 3:15 tomorrow - and I will be there in my cap & gown sitting with the rest of the faculty - so I may be late for class.  If I am more than 10 minutes late - get started on your presentation and I will catch up with you.

4.12 Ethnography and Interviewing

Send a copy of your final DA essay to the course email if you have not already done so.

Lauren and Michael presented on interviews, and Krystina and Courtney presented on ethnography.  Good job. For each presentation I raised questions to make sure you were examining the assumptions that lay beneath the research. What was the nature of "truth"?  What was the relationship between researcher and subject(s)?  What did the researcher assume about the way the world worked?  What were the researcher's values?

We finished class with some practice interviewing - and I strongly suggested that if you do interviewing - that you do some practicing before collecting the data for your project.

For next week:

Read:  "I didn't do anything important," The Oral History Review 36.1 2009, available through Kean University data bases; Summerfield in Griffin

Blog 10: Research project writing

4.5 Ethnography

Final DA Projects are Due next Thursday.


Notes from class 


Ethnography

Participant observation = researcher is in the research situation

Purpose = to represent the perspectives of insiders to the culture you are studying

Ethnography is made of “thick description”

Purpose to understand values, identities, beliefs, cultural practices

Often move between reflective and objective perspectives

Characteristics of ethnographic writing

First person

Starts with an arrival story => sets up what the ethnographer will learn

What might you notice when you take ethnographic notes

Who talks

Who has power

Culture= clues to classroom culture are:

Way you talk

Way you look

Way you are dressed

Diversity

Similarities /differences among students

Indications of trust

Associations – relationships

Gender dominance

Individual agendas versus group agendas

On-topic versus off topic participation

Tone of voice, eye contact, body language

Ethnographic activity
In the class presentation on ethnography I directed you to Alsop's classification of the different ways ethographies are of interest in English Studies (119).
1. as literary works (ethnographies as a literry genre)=> like Diane Bell's book
2. as a form that contributes to and shapes other genres: novels (like Moby Dick), auto/biography - like Grealy's book
3. As a tool for studying writing process and literacy learning
4. as a tool for studying cultural behaviors and groups surrounding reading and writing


I said I would give a presentation on that classification - and that after the presentation you would work in groups to classify six books in the categories we discussed.  
AND - all the while you would be taking ethnographic notes to characterize the Discourse community/social dynamic of our class.


You did a GREAT job on this.  I was interested in some the following: 

• that most of you took notes ACROSS groups rather than on dynamics within your own group
• your observations about the teacher's use of humor + sharing personal information as contributing to the class dynamic (as we noted in our discussion - humor is dangerous + two edged)
• your identification of different sub-groups within the class
• different levels of participation

pretty interesting.


For next week:
We will start with Courtney + Krystina's presentation, then cover interviewing.  ALso - we are going to spend some time making sure all of you are started with your research projects.

Read: Visual Literacy for All:  A Fourth-Grade Study of Alice in Wonderland  http://www.readingonline.org/articles/voices/edinger/,  Griffin in Griffin

Blog 9: Final DA project + send your Final DA project to course email

3.29 Visual analysis

New and emerging technologies - the printing press, photography, film, television, the internet and new media we haven't even yet imagined have made images integral to our literate communications.

Texts now important to literacy studies now include: children's picture books, movies, web sites, blogs, you-tube videos, facebook and other sns, instagram, icons & visual elements of digital representations, magazines, newspapers , physical space itself, catalogs, architecture, graphic novels.

We then took a look at the Kean web site on academics, and you pointed out some of the ways you "saw" the site.  Among other things, you identified issues associated with placement, color, justaposition, intertextuality, image content, the lack of coherence among the images, and symbolic associations to particular images.  As I pointed out - your initial analyses drew from all three approaches discussed by Rose - and our discussion then became about learning and applying Rose's terminology to the analysis.  My notes for Rose's  chapter (and the basis for the rest of my part of the class discussion) are posted to the right as Notes for Rose.

During the second part of class Wyndesha and Svitlana presented on Farrell, Arzipe, and McAdam's essay.

For next week

Read:  Livingstone, Alsop in Griffiin

Blog 8: What methodology do Farrell, Azipe & McAdam use in their study?  What methods?  How did their assumptions shape their research findings?  Why is or isn't this a valid study?

3.15 Workshop!

Tonight I handed out signed permission forms so you can get started on data collection - and we talked through how to ask research participants if they are interested in your study; how to introduce the permission forms, and how to set up initial interviews (including signing + keeping copies of permission forms).  After the study is complete you need to pass out debriefing forms.

Discourse analysis project
We reviewed the criteria for your discourse analysis essay (assignment sheet to the right).  They include statements of:
1. what  your analysis shows => focus for your essay
2. what lens/methodology  you use to examine your data (refer to the lenses in Bloome et al, and for methodologies refer to the 4 sample essays in chapter 3)
3. evidence to support each point to develop your focus

The rest of class was spent conferencing /discussing your research projects and DA papers.

For next class

Read: The Arrival, Farrell, Arizpe & McAdam (passed out in class); Rose in Griffin

Blog 7: Post draft DA project 

3.8 Discourse analysis

Tonight we talked through three of the methods for discourse analysis - led by EXCELLENT presentations from your classmates. I am hoping you paid close attention to the ways the researchers framed their focus (the research question) and how they used evidence from the transcript as evidence to support their answer to that question.

You spent the next section of class looking at one of the sample transcripts posted on the blog (to the right).  (There are 3 transcripts: adult learners, gamers, and chatrooms.)  These transcripts were produced by typing out a written representation of conversations from interviews conducted from 2005-2007.  You spent some time thinking about what was going on int he transcript about chatrooms, and identifying evidence to "prove" that was what going on.  We ran out of time - so there was not much chance to discuss your findings - but hopefully it gave you some experience looking at conversations representated on "paper" and analyzing features of the language, micro-macro relationships, context, and power relationships.  We also (briefly) looked at how to break up or re-organize transcripts into "story" units.  This visual re-organization can allow you to ask questions about what is going on in terms of the sequence of stories through looking at signals for the beginning and endings of stories, the ways the teller tells the story, differences among repeated tellings & similarities and differences in the ways the teller evaluates or represents the story (eg scary vs funny).

I introduced the Discourse Analysis assignment (posted to the right) and talked through the requirements.

For next week:

I hope to look over your blogs on your research projects and get back to you - hopefully with some indication about what the next step is.

Classtime will be spent doing group work, conferencing & writing for you DA projects (or to set up your research project if you need some help there).

Blog 6:  Choose a transcript for DA project & identify your approach for your DA project (methodology & methods =draw from sample essays in Chapter 3, and frames from Ch 1)

Specifically - give your best shot to

stating a research question (what does this transcript show about. . . how does it relate to larger cultural stories about. . . & what complications does it introduce with respect to. . .)

selecting an analytic or methodological frame (from among the 4 essays in Chapter 3, or some combination of the lenses from chapter 1)

List the points you will make to support your answer to the research question

list what you will use as evidence.

The more specific you are - the more you will have to work with next Thursday.  If you are stuck - schedule a conference.  My most open day is MONDAY.   and 

Conference schedule for the week of 3.5

All meetings are in my office:  CAS 324.


Monday
11:20 Svitlana
11:40  Michael Callahan
3:30  Lauren
4:00 Andre

Wednesday
10:20  Michael Vandenberg

Thursday
12:15  Alex
3:30 Sarah Brittain
3:50  Wyndesha
4:10  erin

7:30  Jen


Jill and Kristyna - if you send me some writing for your interview questions - maybe we can do part of this by email?

3.1 Introduction to discourse analyais + sign up for conferences

We defined discourse analysis + discussed the 4 different perspectives set forward by the authors as ways to see data within discourse analysis .  We pretty much talked straight through the book - but with lots of attention to putting the language into plain English.

You then worked on naming + classifying some of the "moves" in the transcript from the chapter - and then developed a theoretical story to describe relationships among the kinds of moves you identified.  For example = we named the different kinds of power moves.  Katie's "verbal authority" move by using the terms "we" and "need to"; Michelle's control of material resources = keeping possession of the crayons, and her challenge to Katie by asking pointed (irritated) questions.  We talked about these two different styles of  seeking authority and observed that while Michele's strategy may have worked in a grade school classroom - it wouldn't work when she got older, where as katie's might.  And so on.  You can re-read Bloome et al's analysis to get a fuller take on the micro-macro method (with a focus on language - so it is also social linguistic) and with some attention to power, and historical-social context => as we pointed out, the approaches overlap.

You also signed up for conferences - which I have posted as a separate blog.

For next class:
Read Chapter 3 and Alex, Michael, Erin, and Andre will talk us through the four different methodologies.

2.23 Auto/biography & creative writing as research methods

NOTE:  The presentation list, and the schedule for your research conferences are published as separate posts (click in Blog archive).

Tonight's very rushed presentations were both about covering research methods in auto/biography and creative writing - and about modeling practices for doing your research methods presentations.  One thing I didn't incorporate into my presentation were opportunities for the class to write (to gather their thoughts, pose group solutions to questions, analyze problems presented by the material).  It would be a welcome component of your presentation to invite students to collaborate among themselves, review the essay, write possible answers to the questions you will pose.  These moves often stimulate more extensive, more deeply thought discussions.

Evans and autobiography
Evans' article begins with discussions of the contributions & pitfalls of auto/biographical research. Points from the discussion  of the reading are posted to the right (# 2 under Notes/ Discussions). 


Jessica Stern's Denial.  I have posted the "outline" I used for my presentation to the right.  Your contributions to the discussion were what really made this interesting.  Thanks for the good talk!

What Cook says about creative writing as a process.  The essay is written in 4 sections - if you can state the main point of each section (with a quote to support it) you will have some ideas fo the controversies surrounding creative writing as a research process, and what current theorists state as what it "does".


In opening remarks Cooks observes why creative writing/writing process is not usually considered a research method: 


1.  often considered spontaneous or unconscious (as opposed to rule driven and conscious)
2. not economic (the long way is valued rather than avoided).

Cook maintains that neither of these "reasons" stands up as a mandate for excluding creative writing from research methods.  Writing process can be "watched" and much can be learned through those observations, and sometimes the "longway" is better than systematic, algorithmic approaches - which may curtail or overlook exploration + discovery.

The body of the essay considers why writing/re-writing should be studied as research process.  And as we observed in class, no matter what kind of research you do - you will be writing.  As stated in this essay - your research will be enriched watching how the writing process can help you discover the form for your writing, the focus for your communication - and new knowledge that magically arises from richness & complexity  of language itself.


In class - we briefly used the methods narrated in "Composing 'Teacher Training' " both to brainstorm a (pretend - maybe possible?) creative writing project. 

Writing process as discovery: Following Pope's process, we - responded to a journal prompt, did some clustering and freewriting, talked about what how we might focus the piece and suggested doing some "focused" freewriting.    Although we didn't complete Pope's whole process - the idea was to think about how after writing some "episodes" or "scenes" that helped to suggest what her focus might be, Pope engaged in what is more commonly recognized as research by visiting (and observing in detail) the setting for her piece, interviewing people who have a different perspective on the same material or have important information; and connecting her work to theories/facts/other research associated with her piece. 

Throughout the "real" research part of her process, Pope continued to write - to journal (reflect on, plan, assess  and gather ideas); cluster (open up ideas & identifty categories associated with a central concept); freewrite (create associative, unedited sequences of writing related to an idea or focus) and talk to peers and advisors and "experts"  (to gather more ideas, assess or validate her current plans and writing, envision new ideas for focus, organization & development).  Her writing process was recursive - in that it looped through as series of practices for generating, organizing, articulating, and evaluating (deciding whether she liked them) ideas.  After she had a draft - she continued to loop back through her writing process as she revised - and perhaps most importantly - she "watched herself think."  In this way - the essay presents a kind of model for how to use creative writing as a research process.


For next class: 

Read: Bloome et al, Chapter 1 & 2

Blog 5 :  your research question revised

I suggest that you post Blog 5 after receiving feedback to your earlier posts (hopefully over the weekend) and after your conference.  The idea is that by the end of next week you will be able to get started on this project.

So we should be pretty much back on the calendar from here forward.  See you next week.

2.23 Schedule of conferences for research projects

If you are not scheduled for a conference for your research project - send me an email so we can set one up.  All meetings take place in my office: CAS 324.


Monday
12:00  Sarah Brittain
1:00 Svitlana  Chaykivska

Tuesday
12:00 Michael John Callahan
12:20  Jill Arnold
12:40  Wyndesha Cooper

Wednesday
12:40  Michael Vandenberg
4:30  Andre Jones

Thursday
12:00 Alex Kuck
3:30  Kristyna Lombardo
3:50  Courtney Benn
4:10 Erin Hagan

2.23 Research methods presentations - sign up and discussion

The guidesheet for doing your presentation is posted to the right.  I "modeled" the presentation style in class with respect to Jessica Stern's Denial, and I gave a very short example of what is expected in terms of the "interactive" element.  The for the activity is that you engage the class in using the research method, or in critically reflecting on how it works.  If you are unsure about how to design an activity - my office is CAS 324 and you can schedule a conference.


Discourse Analysis: Bloome et al, sample discourse anlaysis essays in Chapter 3. (Help me out if I got your chapters wrong)

1.  An interactional socialinguistic perspective on an instructional conversation: Talking  opportunities for literacy learning into being, Mandy Smith, p. 79.   ALEX 
2.  A sociaocognitive perspective on the discourse of classroom literacy lesson, Susan R. Goldman, p. 93. ERIN

3.  The moral order of questions and answers: 'What kind of person is Dee?'  Douglas Macbeth, p. 105.  MICHAEL

4.  'What kind of person is Dee?' : Interrogating Black female identity in Alice Walker's 'Everyday Use' by Stephanie Power Carter, p. 119.  ANDRE

Visual Analsyis:  The Arrival, by Shaun Tan WYNDESHA,  SVITLANA

Farrell, M., Arizpe, E. , and McAdam, J. (2010) Journeys across visual borders: Annotated spreads of 'The Arrival' by Shaun Tan as a method of understanding pupils' creation of meaning through visual images. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 33 (3). pp. 198-210.

Ethnographic Methods:  KRISTYNA, COURTNEY

Livingstone, Sonia. “Internet Literacy: Young People’s Negotiation of New Online Opportunities." Digital Youth, Innovation, and the Unexpected. Edited by Tara McPherson. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008. 101–122

Interviews   MICHAEL , LAUREN

Visual Literacy for All:  A Fourth-Grade Study of Alice in Wonderland  http://www.readingonline.org/articles/voices/edinger/

Oral history:  SARAH, JILL

I didn't do anything important," The Oral History Review 36.1 2009, available through Kean University data bases

Qualitative methods: "Is Oral History Good for You?" The Oral History Review  37.2
DEBORAH , JENNIFER

If you are not signed up for a method = send me an email. 


Conferences for research projects

2.15 No Class

I am sick - so there will be no class tonight.  I am sorry to cancel class - especially because we meet only once a week.

For next class (February 23):

Read:  Pope, "Teacher Training" + "Composing 'Teacher Training'"; Cook in Griffin

Blog 4: What is Stern's methodology?  what skills does she use?  How do the limitations of autobiography identified by Evans apply to Stern's essay? 

The Pope essay "Teacher Training" is posted on the blog, and I will scan in the "Composing Teacher Training" essay and email it to your Kean email - hopefully  by the end of the weekend. 

We will move through these two sections quickly.  Also - look through the remaining methods - and decide which method you would like to sign up to present on (see the Research Methods Presentation list = #2 under Assignments)..

2.9 Using model essays + research with human subjects

We spent the first half of class looking at Fetterley and Moreno as "model" essays.  We began by looking at each essay in terms of:

• focus
• methods
• methodology
• data (what counted as evidence)
• findings

We described Moreno, an ethnographic study, as follows.
Focus: bicultural students, pedagogy, literacy (and how it connects to identity)
Methods: textual analysis (of Raymundo's writing), ethnographic observation
Data: Raymundo's writing, theoretical writings by other researchers, observations
Methodology: postcolonial => critical pedagogy

We then looked at the essay in terms of the way it was built.  You worked in groups to identify Moreno's research question, the form (sections = by heading and what was the focus for each section), and the "moves" she made in each section.

Our analysis of Moreno was as follows.
Research question:  how can college literacy instruction help multicultural students resist colonialization- or as she puts it on 223 (how can we change universities from being " a tool for control and colonialization, considering here that literacy in institutional settings is also used to socialize students to the uses of language and discourses in eductational institutions."
Sections= introduction, background, presentation of data, conclusions.  I pointed out that research essays often have 6 sections=> Introduction, context, methods, data, discussion , conclusion.

In general, research essays are organized into similar sections - and make the :
Introduction: Connect to the research literature, discuss/introduce relevant theory, identify a problem, state what current research (this essay ) will do/add=>articulates the research question
Context: describe where, when, under what circumstances data are collected; identify/describe group, participants, or materials studied; explain selection of subjects; this section can also introduce more theoretical background
Methods: describe what was collected , how much was collected (sometimes as part of a larger study) & why the methods were used
Data:  these sections usually use data to make a series of short focused points: they introduce and idea, present a "set" of data (in Moreno's case these were excerpts from writing, or quotes from Raymundo and his classmates); and then discuss how/what the data show with respect to the idea.
Discussion: this section generally makes connections among the points made in the data section = and expands upon connections between theory and data in a more extended way
Conclusion: . Reiterates points from discussion in light of theory or general cultural circumstances or theory (returns to or "answers" the research question); calls for particular kinds of actions related to the essay's findings, identifies questions raised by the study and calls for more research

Developing research questions
One objective for class this evening was to explore the difference between a focus and a research question.  You wrote about possible focuses for your research on your last blog - and you have some great ideas.  As we saw in Morena - the research question shapes the whole project.  Your research question identifies your subjects, implies your methods, and frames and organizes the focus of what you will do.  For example, when we write down the focus for Moreno's study- we knew it was about bicultural students, literacy, teaching and colonialization.  The research question placed those factors in relationship to one another - and expressed a purpose in terms of what to look for.


Working with human subjects
The class concluded with an introduction to working with human subjects.  The Consent & Debriefing forms - what you will use with your subjects- are posted to the right, in the Course Documents section.  We will talk more about this as you get closer to conducting your research.  You cannot begin any work with the participants in your study until:

I receive written confirmation from Kean's IRB
You have completed the NIH training and sent me your certificate
We have agreed upon the plan for your study
You have received written consent from your participants

 The directions for completing your NIH training are posted at Assignments. You need to send me the link for your completed training by February 20 (if you have trouble- we have one more class to talk about it).

For next week:
Work on IRB training

Read: Evans in Griffin;  Sample autobiography as research essay: introduction and chapter excerpt for Jessica Stern's Denial  http://jessicastern.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/denial_excerpt.pdf

Blog 3 : do somemore  writing to map out your research question => pose several (related) questions that you might ask.  You may not be able to state what you want to study in just ONE question, and you may need to do some explaining/exploring to set up your question(s).  This is a place to put your ideas in writing - so your classmates and I can give you feedback.  

Have a good weekend - and see you next week.

2.2 Introduction to methods used in Writing Studies

This evening's class was spend laying the groundwork for the course.  We talked through the major assignments in more detail, discussed your research interests, looked at the readings associated with the particular methods we will be studying, and closed with a discussion of why it is important to have training in research methods and methodologies.

Research essay 
The research essay is your chance to do some guided work "trying out" the methods from the course.  The idea is for you to choose a topic you want to study; your topic can be related to your project for Senior Writing Seminar, to your future vocation as a teacher or writer, or it can simply be something you are interested in studying - so long as their is a focus on language, literacy, literacy learning and teaching - or "discourse" (you will have a better feel for what counts as discourse after we work on discourse analysis).  I introduced the assignment and talked with you about possible topics so that you would have time to work into your projects - which are due at the end of the term.

I realized as we were talking that if you were going to do research you would need approval from Kean University's Institutional Review Board for your projects.  I submitted to forms for requesting permsission - and will give you an update on where we are with that next week. My impression is that you will be able to conduct research projects that involve human subjects, but that there will be some limitations on the kinds of projects you can conduct.

Presentations on readings & sign up
You also looked at the list of presentations for the methods we will study, and I talked through the sample readings and the assignment sheet.  If you have further questions - bring them to next class - and we will talk them through.  Meanwhile - read through the sample methods essays and think about which two methods are a match for your research - and identify 2 or 3 methods you might like to present on.  You will "sign up" during class next week.

Research Interests
We spent most of our class time talking about your research interests, brainstorming ideas, and thinking about what methods (and methodologies) connect to your interests.  You were great at generating ideas with classmates, and your contributions are what is going to make this class really work.  You are not "committed" to the ideas you put out there - we are still in the brainstorming stages - and no one "owns" any particular area of research.  This is a chance to try out and explore your interests and ideas.

Discussion of Griffin
We did not spend much time on skills, methods, and methodologies (I can get back to that on your blogs) - but we did talk through reasons for (and against) "institutionalizing" training for writing studies researchers, and the underlying assumptions of reactive and proactive approaches to research training.  Points in favor of providing researchers with methods training include the facts that it
1) makes researchers more conscious of the ways assumptions and methods shape what they can and can't discover in their research;
2) provides them with a broad range of approaches to choose from.

Points against providing up-front training are that researchers can pick up what they need in the field, and that it can categorize and make formulaic understandings of research - so that decisions about how to study problems may in fact become less creative and contextual.  My hope is that Griffin's approach (and the approach we take into this class) will be flexible enough that this second drawback does not become a problem for us.

Good discussion - and I am very excited to watch your research ideas as they develop through this course.

For next week:
Read: Moreno (link under Course Readings at the right), and Fetterley, available in the Kean ebook resources under The Resisting Reader,  If you try to access this link from home - you will need your library barcode.  "A Rose for 'A Rose for Emily'" begins on page 34.  

Blog 2:  Write in some detail about your ideas for a research project.  Think about your focus (what you will study); what questions you will ask, who you might talk to/observe/work with to find answers; what kinds of places or things you will need to study, and so on.  The more brainstorming you do here, the more I will have as a basis to give you feedback.

In class we will use discussion of Fetterley and Moreno as a way to characterize the genre expectations and the form of research essays.  We will also talk about methodologies and methods in these two studies.  

And - you will sign up for your presentation essays, and we will continue talking about your research ideas.    

1.26: Introduction to course

We spent tonight talking about the structure of the course, the major assignments, and the text books and how we will use them.  You did some writing and talking about what kinds of ideas you were interested in exploring/researching and what kinds of approaches to research you might do to "work on" those projects.  In theory that conversation was going to lead us back to a discussion of particular methods you could use to work on your projects, but while we did have a discussion that  introduced the ideas and language that we will be using for the course, we kind of got sidetracked defining research, and discussing what it meant to conduct research from the perspectives of different methodologies or research paradigms..

Defining research
We had an informal discussion about what made research different from other kinds of exploration after some conversation we had a list that identified research as:

• having a purpose (hypothesis or a focus) = some outcome in mind
• gathering/recording data in systematic ways
• subjecting the data to some kind of analysis or interpretation that leads to
• conclusions or generalizations relevant to the purpose 

That's pretty good considering we haven't read the book yet!

Methodologies

As we continued to talk, we observed that the same study could be carried out with different assumptions about what counted as a "fact" or "the truth," about how to decide which "truth was right " (if there was more than one), and so on.  We talked - briefly about critical approaches to Literature as different methodologies -assumptions, values and beliefs that form the basis for defining what is true, what counts as evidence, and the "right" ways to conduct research.   


For research methods, the approaches have been classified into four general groups.  Methodologies in each group have approximately the same assumptions about:  the nature of reality, what counts as knowledge, and the right way to conduct research .  You might try filling in the assumptions about reality, knowledge and conducting "good" research for each category. Also - see if you can give some examples from your experience with critical approaches for each group.  For example, Feminst and Critical Pedagogical approaches are example are in the Transformative group.  The more "approaches" we can name and classify  - the easier it will be for you to recognize and classify methodologies in the example essays.  

Research methodologies     
Postitivist

Constructivist

Transformative

Pragmatic


Blogs!
You spent the rest of class creating your blogs.  It was particularly frustrating since many of the computers blocked access to the Blogger site.  I will look into what was going on - and if the computers present us with on-going problems, I will look into getting another computer lab.


I have posted your links to the right - and will be watching for your first post.


For next class:

Read:  Griffin: Introduction, p. 1 -16

Blog 1: Use what you learned from the reading to write a definition of methods, methodologies + skills

In class we will continue to use and talk about ideas introduced by Griffin (make note of any questions, confusions raised in the reading), and then hopefully make some connections between these new ideas and your research agenda.  We will review the methods studied in this course - and I will give a more in-depth presentation on the particular methods - and the essays we will read as "examples" of those methods.  

Thanks for your good work tonight, and see you next week.

Welcome to English 3029

This is your course blog.  It  will be a place for you to check on and keep track of what we do in class.  It is also a "file cabinet" for documents ( assignment sheets, readings, protocols, the syllabus and calendar) - and  a clearinghouse for links to useful sites.

As you can see - this blog takes up where my last ENG 3029 course left off.  There may be  some revisions  to assignment sheets & readings - but browsing back through posts from the previous course will give you a feel for what we will do.

I'm looking forward to meeting you and enjoy the rest of your vacation!