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