5.1 More presentations

Tonight's class finished off the presenting/collaborating/soliciting feedback process for your final projects.  If you get stuck or find you do not have enough material to move forward - be in touch with me or your classmates. 

Projects will be due May 13 by noon. 

How to turn in your work.
All evidence of your data collection (in most cases this will be the transcript, and it is already available on the site), data analysis, and writing process should be posted as word documents on your file cabinet page on the transcripts site.  Title the documents with your last name, what the document is, and its sequence in the analysis/drafting process. 

For example, my third time through data (where I might have sections of transcripts with highlighted or annotated sections to point out features I am interested in) would be submitted as ChandlerData3.   If I developed drafts for my paper in sections, I might title files  ChandlerDraftIntro2, or ChandlerDraftAnalysis3, etc.
The idea is to provide organized evidence of your writing process.  I am assuming all it should take is titling already existing files and browsing them up to the file cabinet page.

Your final project should be titled ChandlerFinal - only with your name.

What we will do on the last day of class
In addition to responding to any last minute requests for workshopping, feedback, and or other support, we will revisit the list of language assumptions that we discussed early in the term. 

If there is time, I also hope to spend some time writing/reflecting about where you might go, what you might want to do with the tools/ideas/practices we studied this term, and do some group brainstorming about what worked (or not) in the course.

See you next week!

4.24 Presentations

At the beginning of class we finished the discussion of how points will be allocated for work throughout the term.

500 points for notes from participation, presentations on theorists,  in-class "experiments",  contributions to class data base (including the oral history, pre-/post class data, replies to questionnaires, writing to prompts etc); presentations on your projects, and contributions/suggestions to classmates during the workshopping process.

500 points for the final project to be allocated among the 3 areas defined on the assignment sheet as follows:
Final essay: 100
Data + analysis:  300
Writing process: 100

Location of data/analysis for your project:
I asked that you use the invitation-only data site as a repository for your in-process analysis, data

Presenatations: Mary, Robyn, Heather, and Luis presented an overview of their projects.  I sent my notes to individual presenters, and in-class comments on identifying/re-stating focus, selecting a method for anlaysis, connecting to the research literature, and pointing out the importance to writing studies were thoughtful and well-stated.  Thanks for your good participation.

4.17 Workshop: schedule for presentations

Regarding posts to the blog:  If you have confidentiality issues or choose not to post your draft writing to the blog, post it as LastnameDataAnalysis, on the 5002transcripts site(I can't believe I got the wrong course number, but oh well).  That way it will ONLY be available to our class. 

Blog (or post to the transcript site): your for your presentation on your project so far.

Analytic approach:We started class by discussing an approach for analyzing your data where you begin by stating your question (writing into it) and look through the data in some depth, with your question in mind.  Then:

1. Identify a section of text (gut choice) that works as data to explore your question
2. ANALYZE that section of data in terms of:

• Content – what does the text say?

• Positioning: narrator's relationship to content, other speakers, other stories + context

• Language choices/structures

• Any critical lens from any of the other theorists

3. State what your anlaysis suggests with respect to your focus/research question (write this out in some detail)
4.. Go back to the your transcript as a whole and looke for text that has "features" or other examples of what you found from your anlaysis.5. Choose another section of text and repeat 2-4.

 

Presentations:  You signed up for presentations as follows:

April 14: Robyn, Luis, Heather, Maria, Mary

 May 1: Heidi; Nikki; (Maria, Luis Maria); Wayne, Andre

 

For the content of your presentation (post your writing so far where we can open it & follow along):

State your focus: what are your research questions?  What do you see in your data?

Discuss why your connection to writing studies (briefly)

Discuss your methods/critical lens +mention lit that presents those methods

Talk through some of the examples/stories you use to make the points for your focus (we can definitely be of some help in terms of developing/deepening analysis) + be clear on the point each discussion makes with respect to your focus

Most important: give us a heads up re what kind of feedback you want
 

We also discussed the assignment sheet, and the overall form for the paper.

Intro=> states question + problem it addresses (importance)

Methods= how you will analyze your data; methods you will use + NAMES you give to what is going on in your data

Present data: what's going on in data (use your NAMES for what is going on in your data)

Discuss data: say what data means/implies regarding focus; what does this text say/show with respect to my question?

Reflect/conclude

4.10 For next class - catch up

One of the things we would have done in class tonight was to go over the assignment sheet for the research project to allocate points.  I have posted the assignment sheet (also to the right) so you have the parameters/criteria for its different parts.  In class next week we can decide how you want to allocate points.

At this point I have talked with just about everyone, and almost all of you have identified a solid focus for your projects, have identified texts from the course to guide your theory + methods, and are beginning to identify specific sections of data you will use to develop/illustrate your ideas.

If you are still hazy on any of the above - schedule another conference before next class.

For next class (same post = but placing you at your next step):
Blog: Keep working on the focus (write it a number of different ways = but not as a formal introduction), think about the theorists you want to use and think about the ideas that connect.

Identify sections of text (stories) from your transcript (or other observations) and write about what they might "show" with respect to your focus.

Develop some sections of text (focus, statements about theorists, block quotes from transcript + discussion) that you can work on in class.

We will use the blogs as a basis for an in-class workshop, similar to what we had planned for this week.  Also we will pick up Bamberg.

4.3 Shuman and = I think these projects are actually coming together!

Tonight we continued our discussions of methods for analyzing "talk" and "stories" as a way to "re-tell" experience.  We started class with a quick review of Amy Shuman's "Exploring Narrative Interaction in Multiple Contexts."  She framed her discussion in terms of ownership/entitlement; uses of genres/performance styles; intertextuality and dialogic narration; and narrative and socil/political membership categories.  I was impressed how within each category the creation of the stories was an interactive process = shaped both by the narrator and the audience in complex, contextual ways. 

We spent the rest of class writing/reflecting and conferencing about your projects.  The charge was to frame the focus of your study, and identify the theorists you found useful for talking about what you are seeing in the stories you expect to study.

This weeks' discussion shaped up with a summary of projects that went something like this.

1. Luis is focused on how a particular big story associated with teachers being the "validators" of student writing can be detrimental to student development.  He observed that teacher feedback is built into school as a measure of the value of student work. Couple this with an acute focus on audience concerns when writing, and students can lose their internal compass for directing them toward what they value and don't value in their writing. Luis uses stories from his transcript and reflective writing to illustrate when this Big Story about the value of writing works to teach writing - and when (if internalized and generalized) it can hold writers back.

1. Mary is interested in looking at teachers' roles in creating "narrative contexts" that are inviting spaces for talk.  She was thinking of stories from her interview that represented classroom conversations where teachers "talked" or "constructed conversations" where she felt less that willing to participate; these stories contrasted with other stories about teachers who made a "relaxed" atmosphere - places where students had room in the unfolding interactions within the classroom.  One possibility would be to analyze those representations in terms of the characterizations of how the teachers/students talked.  Another idea would be to notice/reflect on conversational dynamics within a classroom - and think take careful notice of the similarities differences between the conversational moves (role assumed by the teacher/assigned to the students/roles students chose for themselves/floor time etc) in the classroom - and those represented in the positive/negative stories.  In particular - there were different conversational spaces at the Charter school, and in the adult learner class.  One important reflection so far has been that the conversational dynamic is neither determined wholly by the teacher, nor by the students.  Theorists: Shuman, MacAdams.  (We had a detailed talk before class = that's why this one is so long).

Mary + Luis were suggested as conversation partners for next week.

2. Maria is thinking about the effects of not having a language community where you can practice the discourse you write in.  Becasue she grew up in a spanish speaking home, personal talk was Spanish, and English was for school.  When zhe began writing persomal material, she felt lost, because the language forms weren't there to express what she was feeling.  She could write in English, but not personal English.

Writing is different from talk - but as pointed out by Bruffee & Gee  & Heath- we are socialized  n the larger forms for authorizing our claims, relating to our material through TALK. (writing and talk are not enetirely separte)

Analyze data to : characterize the consequences of not having a talk/writing discourse => what did it make it hard to do? what did it keep you from doing?

how did the writing center your relationship to private writing?  WHY? 
look at stories about where you shared
maybe examine writing process for private pieces and how it changed in light of writing center

interaction is necessary for thinking
writing is a kind of thinking
talking is necessary for writing

school writing (which models a kind of thinking and talking it vales) is different from private writing

without a model/examples of private writing +> private writing became a part of "me" that became unsayable => lack of discourse for private writing

don't know the forms for communicating the kinds of things M. might say in private writing

contrast between CNF courrse + WC talk

data:
analyze stories about successes with writing (academic) = example of how Bruffee + Heath work = you were in a Discourse community = combination of talk & writing and way of being - socialization process

private writing stories

stories about not sharing private writing (shows lack of



2. Writing for healing and self awareness.  Focus on benefit & purpose, what it can do.  Will use the transcript to identify the surface stories.
discussion = how writing can find "points of entry in the surface stories"; identify the "felt sense" of the unprocessed expereince that surrounds and is evoked by those stories => put unprocessed expereince into words (Perl); re-storying so that you idenfity a story that is really yours and based on your expereince = will write about the role of writing in doing those things

Heather is exploring writing and ownership with systems (is this going to connect to your thesis work?) She is thinking about the way language systems of dominant stories code authority for some identities and exclude or "de-articulate" lines of reasoning/ownership for other identities (am I mixing this up with your thesis)? 
She is thinking about Dufy and Chamberlain - and systems approaches to deconstructing/re-authoring some of the stories that were untellable (or at least untold) within the interview context?  Is that right?  Again, I suggested Maria and Heather, but I am thinking Robyn and Heather might be the better match.

3. Nikki is thinking about authority over writing that is developed through peer modeling - peer communities = where peers are the audience, and will interpret stories from her transcript as models for re-featureing authority in the classroom.  Stories - about Key words = mentoring.  Theorists: Shotter, Chamberlian + Dufy => look at which of the social constructionists in this collection work best)

3. Wayne is thinking about conversational constrictions placed by teachers on students through the simple fact of their identity.  He will analyze stories where he remembers not saying things/or telling a story in a particular way within the interview situation (eg lit teachers teaching him writing) Again, we can develop this at the conference = 2:30 Monday

4. Heidi = analysis of transcript for what was NOT said = unstories, feelings that are known, but not yet entirely tellable, exploration of the role of writing in  "storying" (writing the Chakras) Conference 3:30 Tuesday

4. Robyn: how the literacy myth/big stories about "how writing is" are  not true (examples from transcript) Contrast with the story of what reading/writing/learning are supposed to "be" and how they feel.  Conference Tuesday 1:00-1:30.
Although Robyn and Heidi were suggested as partners = maybe Robyn and Heather, and Maria and Heidi?

5. Lewis - considering several possibilities associated with polished stories, "parenting" and learning.  Conference 2:30 Tuesday.

5. Andre: is going to document how course activities worked in terms of allowing more conscious consideration of discourses surround writing (chandler's appropriation of Andre's lanugage).  In his own words, he is going to write about what the course did for him.  He is going to look at conversations with classmates, his conscious application of felt sense, any writing in-class to prompts (in particular the exploration of mundane traumas), and feelings that prompted writings on the blog.  Through analyzing these materials, he will "discover" what he learned and how he learned it with a focus on encountring and de-bunking "myths" (discourses) surrounding writing.

For next class:
Blog: Keep working on the focus (write it a number of different ways = but not as a formal introduction), think about the theorists you want to use and think about the ideas that connect.

Identify sections of text (stories) from your transcript (or other observations) and write about what they might "show" with respect to your focus.

Develop some sections of text (focus, statements about theorists, block quotes from transcript + discussion) that you can work on in class.

Read:  Bamberg, 99

In class we will go over the assignment sheet for the research project, talk about "small stories", and you will workshop your projects.

3.27 Research projects

We started with a quick review of the orientations in the projects described by Dan McAdams.  His essay nicely summed up three different appoaches:

narrative in the context of discovery: inductive approaches where a close look at the stories within the data "suggests" particular themes or patterns which in turn suggest a "theory" about how certain kinds of stories are told or what they mean ;

narrative in the context of justification: after ideas/possibilities have been suggested for how or why particular stories are told, the analysis of a set of narratives told within defined circumstances might be used to test "the validity or varacity of the theories, hypotheses, or insights defirved from the first step (narrative in the context of discovery);

using narrative to test extant theories: in this application, a fully formed theory or set of hypotheses drawn from existing theory may be tested by examining a defined set of stories told by a defined set of narrator for purposes and in contexts suggested by the theory.

We then spent the rest of class discussing possibilities for your projects.  I have pasted in my (somewhat elliptical notes) below.

Wayne

Springboard stories – lots of stories where he was faced with adversity and then rose to it

W against the teacher – other times as got older bonded with teacher

Idea of Wayne being a "superhero" = one person who became motivated and then rose to the occaison

How influences affected W's confidence =what "invitations" to writing

Got to college had teachers who "invited" W to open up to writing in a different way

Even when younger – positive/negative invitations in different circumstances

What happened to Wayne – in terms of his stories about points of connection – where W became interested in writing

Point= share with other teachers the many points of connection with students – the many ways students connect/become interested

Analyze the features of experiences that act as "invitations" to writing

 

Heather

Seeing in trancript a lot of concerns about ownership and privacy in personal writing

Ways writing was (not) successfully shared

There is a deep story here – that underlies the personal issues with privace

For H a classroom setting – couldn't be negotiated successfully => needed to have (components/control) = had to be sharing with someone with the same interest = to learn to write

Learning to write had to be a setting that was peer oriented

Hierarchical setting of classroom makes it an inhospitable place to write

 

Robyn

Common theme = romantic idea of what its like to read/writing and the struggle of reality

Start with reading a book – that didn't do well with – but liked – but didn't have an understnding

Wish that would get lost in a book – reality didn't match

Term paper in the honors class – about Great Gatsby – didn't turn out that way

Journal writing – romantic idea of a diary – what it would mean = reality of it being very different

 

Expectations set up by big cultural stories about what literacy/reading/writing is "supposed" to be

 

Bialostok, Steven. (2002). Metaphors for literacy: A cultural model of White, middle-class parent. Linguistics and Education, 13(3), 347-371

 

Bialostok, Steven. (2008). Using critical metaphor analysis to extract parents’ cultural models of how their children learn to read. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 5 (2),109-147.

Luis

Talked a lot about reading = but when it came to personal writing, themes for academic writing = very confident, usually worked well, even if teaching wasn't helpful = still managed

Personal writing = talked around it a lot, when it came to sharing, was never an instance of going out there and offering = more about someone asking for it

Wasn't until friend asked to write (with L) that did it, writing poetry – wasn't until another friend asked – that shared poetry, journaling – also very closely guarded

Ways of inviting students to share personal writing

The fact that an experience is articulated in writing is what makes it dangerous to share

Agenda at school = never produce authentic (what you care about) work

School keeps students safe because you can avoid producing authentic work

Composition assumption = good writing is engaged writing

Teacher boundaries = say they want "engaged" writing = but there are still boundaries of academics

Look at different ways invited into writing he valued see if there are ways for that to happen in school

Content, form, function + what did you learn to DO in that writing – that you weren't learning to do at school

 

Maria

Was looking at personal writing as part of the private self – and academic writing as the public self

Spoke about personal writing but didn't TELL anything about personal writing

Looking at the language of talk – more comfortable with talk about academic writing

But personal writing – not formalized, not boundaries – very reluctant to talk about that (would reveal M's own voice)

About students writing in their own voice (Elbow) and be able to translate that into the "academic" writing

Ideas that were already thought about

Language – in constructing the essay = put the ideas out there, made them new – and not M's

Where how should that idea be contemplated – that language makes knowledge

 

Andre

Being a product of this class

What makes A a writer – like reading/writing = no = compulsion/urge to want to write something and make people want to read it despite all the obstacles

Never wanted to stop writing

Listening to interview – realized that it wasn't until started getting around other writers – that began to feel comfortable with writing

Since this class have been applying all exercises – things are coming up that trying to work out

Doing exercises, writing about self writing, writing about what A feels when he writes

When write in school – can write=> everybody has an opinion = but structured in a way that is not necessarily creative

Writing "for serious" = there – almost like have aphasia – there are ideas but there aren't words for ideas

Writing as being, thinking, feeling, saying= want to do it

 

For next week:

Send your transcript to the course email.  It does not need to be perfect - or even proofread =>but it does need to be sent to me before the end of the weekend if you want full credit for this part of the course.

 

Schedule a conference to talk about your project.  My office hours are  1:30-3:30 M-Th  (I can see you from 3:30 - 4:30 if that is going to be necessary - but I will need a heads up so I know to be prepared for my 4:30 classes ahead of time).  We will use this time to nail down your research plan - what you might want to read (if anything, in addition to what we read for the course).  We will also spend some time looking through your data.

Read:  Shuman, Interactive Storytelling  p 125 in Holstein & Gubrium

After we talk about interactive storytelling, we will spend more time writing/analyzing data/workshopping writing for your research projects.

 

Perhaps most important, we will also work out a timeline and a set of evaluation criteria for the research project. 

 

I am really pleased with the work and the thinking we are doing for this course.  I feel like I am learning a lot!

 

 

 

 

Worksheet for developing a research plan

1. Familiarize yourself with your topic:

• do some general reading about what others have written on your topic
• create some brief summaries of what others have written (keep track of your sources)
• make a list of the ideas/questions others are bringing to your topic

2. Identify a research question:

Develop a list of questions you might want to explore with respect to your topic

Strategies to deepen and focus your question. You might open up deeper thinking about ideas that interest you by asking and answering further questions about:

• causes and effects;
• classifications or definitions of the concepts your are studying;
• relative value or importance of ideas associated with your questions;
• the history and evolution (etiology) of ideas within the questions you are asking;
• consequences for students, writers, or some group associated with your question;
• relationships among the actors, actions, context, and consequence within the
• interactions you plan to observe

3. Decide what you need to know in order to answer your research question:

Do some further reading about ideas/research associated with your question + note the

questions other researchers have asked + how they answered them.

Using what you have found from your reading, map out the kind of information you will

need to answer your question.

4. Formulate a research plan that includes:

1. Statement of purpose (what you hope to show/discover)
2. Detailed statement of your research question(s)
3. List of the information you need to gather
4. A preliminary list of sources (work by other researchers)
5. Plan for gathering your information that includes:

• who/what you will be studying
• where/how you will collect your information
• what methods you will use to conduct your study
• what methods you will use to analyze your data

5. Additional writing to break your work into do-able tasks or areas of exploration

6. A timeline for gathering, analyzing + writing up your data

2.20 Narrative analysis - thinking about research projects

We started class by going over the terms set up in the reading - big stories/small stories; surface stories/deep stories; polished stories/growth stories.  During discussion we also touched on some of the story/language forms that can indicate identity relationships and value systems that the individuals in the conversation may be unaware of.  These include moves to distance the speaker from the material, the constellation of language features that establish subject positioning and agency, and so on.
 
In our discussion we noted some questions you might ask yourself about your choice of story forms - particularly the movement among big stories/polished stories=> small stories/growth stories (listed below).

• what experiences do I tell as big/small stories?
• what kinds of big/small stories do I tell?
• how do I "use" big stories/small stories (for what purpose? in what contexts? regarding what subject material? etc.)
• how do I cast/re-cast the same story when I tell it in different settings/contexts/circumstances?

  In the discussion of big stories, I directed you to the example/discussion of the ESL test, in Chapter 1, and the "parts" of big stories identified by William Labov.  This elements - while not always present-  often form speakers unconscious understanding of what a story is and how it should be presented.  As pointed out in the chapters, big stories generally represent experiences that have been processed, or that fit into cultural stories in ways that make them a good fit for the more or less formulaic requirements of big stories. 

Small stories are more fluid, less formulaic, and often are associated with material the speaker has not yet packaged into a clear understanding.  The "small story" elements of Lorena's retellings of The ESL Test => in Friends, create an example of a sort of small story/big story hybrid.  Lorena tells many of her experiences as big stories - they are a form she resorts to regularly in her talk.  At the same time, in telling/re-telling the ESL test = where each version (which has big story features) is re-cast in light of conversational input from Sally - the story as a whole unfolds as a kind of small story that evolves and takes on new meanings through the back and forth between the speakers.

I did not spend much time on small stories - and for some of you they may be important components in the thinking that takes place in your interview.  As we have been noticing in the readings from the Lock & Strong collection, the interactions between speakers are places where meanings are realized. 

Additional references for small story analysis are listed below.

 

Bamberg, Michael. (2004). Talk, small stories, and adolescent identities. Human Development, 47, 333-353.

 

Bamberg, Michael & Georgakopoulou, Alexandra. (2008). Small stories as a new perspective in narrative identity analysis. Stories & Talk, 28(3), 377-396.

 

Bamberg, Michael,  De Fina, Anna, and Schiffrin, Deborah, (Eds). (2007). Selves and Identities in Narrative and Discourse. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins

 

De Fina, Anna. (2008). Who tells which story and why? Micro and macro contexts in narrative.  Text & Talk,  28(3), 421-442. 

 

The articles are available through the Kean Database, and I have Bamberg, De Fina, and Schfiffrin, if you'd like to take a look at it.

 

Possible projects:  The second part of class was devoted to discussion of what you are noticing in your transcripts along with discussion of what you might want to do for a research project where you can work with/develop/dig into the ideas we have been opening up in class. Ideas include:

 

1. Using a narrative analysis of interview talk to identify and classify the kinds of mundane writing traumas that students bring to the classroom

 

Variant of 1. Noting the kinds of stories (related to writing) that are told as big stories v small stories = as a way to explore what kinds of experiences are "more processed" with respect to writing (this analysis could provide insight into experiences that students are left "holding" with no real way to process )

 

2. Using narrative analysis of the interview + reflective analysis of your experience to explore how interviewing opens up new ways for writers to relate to their writing (as opposed to writing literacy narratives)

 

Variant of 2. Looking at how/whether the talk in the interview used/paralleled any of the models for talk set forward in the essays in Lock & Strong =  provided ways for participants to gain a more conscious understanding of what is going on in their writing

 

3. Exploring how teaching practices soothe or make more difficult the kinds of writing issues (mundane traumas) set forward in the interviews

 

4. Exploring how the nature of writing connects to the kinds of mundane traumas documented in the transcripts

 

We will keep working on this list - but I am starting to feel like we have a start.

 

For next week:

Read: McAdams, 15-33 in Holstein & Gubrium; read Ramirez & Chandler (posted to the right)

Blog: whatever you are writing so far

 

Do some more definite thinking about what you will do for a project.  In some ways - the two readings are examples of different kinds of projects - using story analysis as a basis for an argument about how the world works (creating a theoretical story). 

 

Class will begin with a workshop on where you are with your analysis of your interviews.  We will also decide where/how to make the transcripts available as a shared database - so email me a copy of the complete transcript prior to class, and I can post them wherever we decide while you are working.

 

Great class tonight and see you next week!  We are definitely into the fun part of this course.

 

 
 

 

3.6 Cultural stories and re-authoring relationships to writing

Note:  I posted Chandler, Chapter 3, to the right, under Handouts.

Chandler.  The first section of this piece illustrated how dominant cultural discourses about literacy and "success" shape our thinking about ourselves and our accomplishments, often in ways that may not be appropriate for the community we actually live in or the particular experiences we may have had.  And while the opening story illustrated problems that can be created with dominant discourses such as the Literacy Myth or the American Dream are a bad match for individuals actual life situations, it is also true that there is "truth" in these stories, and that they do in fact serve as important elements within belief systems that can be supportive and constructive.  So - our discussion of dominant cultural discourses for writing and for school needs to be taken with a couple of grains of salt:
1) individuals connect to and "believe in" these discourses in many different ways and from many different perspectives;
2) whether a cultural story is "good"/constructive/helpful or "bad"/limiting/unhelpful depends on the ways individuals and groups relate to and represent themselves within those stories;
3) cultural stories are not about Truth -  rather they are pervasive representations that are "out" in the culture, and whether we believe them or not - shape the way we talk about a given topic.

With those caveats, we spent some time exploring our perceptions of the elements in dominant cultural stories about writing.  We came up with the following features.

good writing
has to be interesting
correct sentences
there are correct forms (genre requirements)
correct spelling
well written = readers will understand it + it will be liked
text-based ( as opposed to visual or electronic)
not fan constructed (individual author, not collaborative)

Different kinds of writing
academic, expressive, personal, journalism
novels= literature
"classics"=> the literary canon = the defining standard of "good writing" in the dominant story

how people write
you have it or not
it's hard work
by yourself
can't teach writing
inherent ability
solitary
traumatizing => if you are a "genius" writer you die young by suicide, drugs or alcohol abuse

who owns writing
white people
academics
educated people
middle class
male

We also had a short conversation about "stereotypes" within the cultural story for school/schooling.  we didn't get into this too much but came up with:

expected to meet standards
takes all the creativity out of writing
students don't like it

Again, these are reductive, one-dimensional representations, but they are certainly part of the Conversation about issues associated with school.


Chamberlain. The questions we used to apply Chamberlain's systems approach to "re-authoring" past experiences are posted on the previous blog.  As usual, we were pressed for time and didn't have quite enough reflection on how the approach works.  It is important to note that we worked through a reflective process meant to be used over a period of months, even years, and that were designed as interactive => explored through conversation.  While moving between writing and thinking reproduces some of the features of conversation - it certainly loses many possibilities for expanding perspective that are available in interpersonal talk. 

That said, and with the small amount of conversation I had about the "talking" part of this evening's exercise, it seems reflective conversations which place "problems" with writing outside the individual and within cultural systems and which invite the kinds of externalizing, contextualizing, deconstructing, and re-authoring posed by the question => pose a constructive approach for:

awareness: making "wounded" relationships to writing visible and non-stigmatizing
exploration: allowing ways to work through the cultural assumptions and systems that contribute to the writer's position (distress)
re-authoring: creating new stories about causality, responsibilities, agency, ownership and other problems within relationships to writing.

We did not have time to explore possible classes, classroom exercises, assignment series, or other pedagogical tools or personal practices to use this method - though that is the long-term intention for bringing this material into our class. 

As set up in the first part of class, there are different categories for learning to write.  Some learning tasks are about mastery of forms and correctness - including Discourse, and some are about accessing language.  Problems associated with accessing language often connect to formative experiences that allow writers to feel "authorized" (or not) in terms of their "right" to put words on a page, to control/own the meanings they produce, to value their own work, and so on.  As pointed out by Sondra Perl in her essay on working with unskilled writers - teachers need to take stock of the composing patterns and issues that student writers bring to the class

Issues associated with voice, ownership, value, and other relationships to writing connect to a significant number of the "really important things writers need to learn that we generally learn on our own" list that we created on the first day of class. 

For next class:
Read: Chandler, Chapter 3=> name the stories in your interview trancript
Blog: the set of named stories you will talk about in class + a list/discussion of some of the language features you used to do your analysis.

We will be moving on from the psychoanalytic, constructionist approach to approaches for narrative analysis, and your big assignment over the break is to finish transcribing your interview and apply some of the methods for narrative analysis introduced in Chandler, Chapter 3, to your transcript.

Come to class on March 20 prepared to give a presentation on patterns for talk that you see in  aparticular set of stories from your interview.  These  that might reveal otherwise unstated (or less well elaborated) issues associated with writing.

For example, in the analysis of Lorena's transcript, it was only through paying close attention to language that it became clear that the focus of The ESL Test => was really on Friends, right from the beginning. Of course this story is about many things, not just one thing, and that is what story analysis helps us to think about = how this is a success story, a story about conflict between two competing wishes/needs on Lorena's part, how it is both an outside in (institutional/structural) and inside-out (consequences for Lorena) story, and so on. 

As noted on the calendar, we will be moving on to narrative analysis, and spending some time developing ideas for your research projects.

Great class tonight - and have an awesome break.

3.6 Writing prompts for Chamberlain

Pre-writing = double-description:  last week you made a list of non-horrific, mundane traumas associated with your expereinces with writing.

Spend some time analyzing these prompts as external to yourself (as embedded in larger systems and power structures that surround us, operate as wholes that we are parts of, have agendas and issues that are not necessarily identical to our own, etc) .

After you have identified some of these systems, we will have a conversation about the role of these systems in bringing the issues that affected you into being.

Wrinting into Chamberlain's questions (by function)

1. Externalizing
What name would you give this problem (set of writing issues)?
So, what has X (the name you gave the problem) tried to talk you into about yourself?
How has X tried to take over your life?
When did X first enter your life?

2. Contextualizing
Where did this story take place? When? Under what circumstances? What people does it connect to?
What groups of people are associated with it - structurally?  emotionally?
What have you learned which enables this story to be (positively) important in your life?
Where did you learn that this was important?

3. Deconstruction
What do you need to assume for this story to make sense?
What were the ideas that might explain how people in the story are acting and speaking?
What are some of the taken-for-granted ways of being that are connected with the problem?
When did you first think that you might be the opposite of the role you see yourself as in in this story?

4. Building a story that belongs to you
I was curious that you thought (some feature within your representation that is OUTSIDE dominant/oppressive readings).  What does this thought indicate that suggests there is already a part of you where the domeinat story/problem has been challenged?
Can you think of a time when you were able to do something different/outside the dominant story?

5. Experiencing the experience questions (telling experiences differently)
If you had been watching yourself as a younger person, what do you think you would have witnessed that would allow me to understand your recent experiences?
Who would be able to tell me about times when you have successfully challenged writing difficulties in your life?
When you knew that you were ready, what steps would you have taken to become ready?
How willyou know when you have done enough for long enough (to resolve the problem)?

Other kinds of questions:
Orentation questions - giving advice to someone with your problem=> what would you say
Circulation quesitons - who needs to know about this probelm, how will telling them affect your relationship to them
Insider/outsider questions- who is inspired by your efforts; who has inspired you to make these efforts

2.27 Duffy and writing as trauma

We began class with a review of what we are doing in this class - and where we are going.

Discussion on 2.27 was about narrative methods for addressing trauma.  We "appropriated" Duffy's approach and turned it into narrative approaches for addressing some of the blocked, emotionally difficult, or otherwise baffling relationships that come between writers and the page.  We spent most of the class working through the definitions of trauma as they would connect to writing, and writing into (discovering and defining)  the kinds of issues that constitute trauma as it connects to and presents itself in and through writing. My notes (the points I picked out as central to Duffy's line of reasoning) are posted to the right. 

Re-stating the most important of the most important points, she suggests that:

While the "colloquial" /everyday construction of trauma equates it with natural disasters and physical/sexual abuse, the features that constitute these understandings suggest a definition where

"most traumas occur in the context of interpersonal relationships, which involve boundary violations, loss of autonomous action, and loss of self-regulation" (272)

Duffy also pointed out that persistent (strucutrual) violations of relationships, boundaries and self-regulation can be deeply traumatizing.  Because of its nature - its creation of a self that is both vulnerable to "appropriation" and outside the protection of the self that created it - writing a particularly likely vehicle for trauma.  Its deep associations with self, its inherently public nature, and the fact that its "governed" by an institution (school) which (generally) makes invisible its personal, identity-building nature.

We explored the dimensions of trauma as they connect to writing through a series of writing prompts which led to both a list of particular incidents from which we abstracted some general characteristics.

Characteristics of traumas associated with writingViolation of boundary/privacy issuesAppropriation of meaning (writing represented as meaning "against" a meaning chosen by the self)Writing as incriminating (evidence against the self)Writing as a punishment (no ownership – using writing as a weapon against the self)Misrepresentations of self/ exposure of self (can connect to misreading audience)Misreading audience (fears associated with rejection/misunderstanding => appropriation of meaning)

While this list is not exhaustive, it begins to indicate some of the issues writers bear with them as they enter college writing classes.  In general, school writing classes do not provide writers either the opportunity to share the fact that the peri mundane violations of self.

Narrative approaches to addressing traumaIn fact, we did not do justice to the method posed by Duffy.  The points are listed below.

1) establish emotional resonance = writers  step into a perspective that "meanings of a person's life are not fixed even when the events that engendered those meanings occurred in the past"

2) find a position of safety from which to view the meanings and explore whether there are other meanings available to the writer which might be helpful

3) begin a conversation with one's body

4) incorporate the experience and meaning of trauma into "language" resources (autobiography)

5) narrate the story of discovering/re-seeing/retelling traumatic events (story of coping and survival)

6) access "wisdom" that writer might want to share

Although we worked through some private, reflective practices for laying the groundwork to identify events and to begin to narrate them (steps 1-4), we did not develop what is really the point of her article.  She enjoins us to notice that in the re-exploration of material, there are many possible stories, including stories the look forward as well as stories that look back. As Duffy points out, the traumatized body does not distinguish the present (and future) from the past.  In practice, the past is an instance that, while it may have set up or "frozen" the mind into a particular pattern, is not unalterable, and that "re-telling" the meanings, or seeing differently (choosing different parts of the experience as significant) can alter future experiences that are "triggered" by a traumatic past.

The conscious realization that a given response to a writing context may be "old baggage" from past experiences that, once they are realized and reflected on, may be understood as NOT PRESENT. 

The work of re-seeing and re-telling - is the "handwaving" section of this essay (in that it is not as developed as it might have been) = but we can go back to the idea of points of entry from Shotter, and forward to the methods in Chamberlain = as ways to take apart internalized stories that keep us from our writing.  The valuable points to take from this reading are that:

• there are very likely many real traumas associated with writing - especially school writing
• these traumas can affect student engagement with writing
• acknowledging that these traumas are pervasive is (should be) and important concern of writing instruction 
• they (writing traumas) can be worked on (addressed) through the exploration of language structures

For next week:

Read Chamberlain, 106; and Chandler, Chapter 1 ( posted to the right)

 
 

 

 

 

 

2.20Language assumptions and tools for working with a continuously responding self

I have to say that this class clearly embodies the constructionist theorists who we are reading.  In our talk about language assumptions, I  found myself considering unfolding/emerging/not yet finished meanings for both particular words and for larger "conceputal chunks" in 10 statements we were discussion.  I also notice my language "looking forward" or putting itself forward in the conversation in light of what I was anticipating in return (rather than exclusively in light of my past language experiences), and I noticed conflicts in my talk which clearly connected to a "continuously responding self" who was not categorized and logiced quite the way my official teacherly self is.  So that was a lot to take in.  But from my perspective, extremely useful.  Although the class went a little more outside of the "boundaries" that are unusally in place for classroom discussions, I think it was exactly those aberrations where it was most easy for me to notice myself engaging directly with experience - rather than my representation of it.

So with that said, I have posted the notes I took on the language assumptions, and my speaking notes for Shotter (to the right under Class notes).   What appears below is more of a summary of main points covered in the two discussions surrounding the assumptions about language, and Shotter's discussion of toolw/approaches for "walking around in" a continously responding self.

Assumptions about language
As noted above, this discussion was lively and not without confrontation.  As a group, we watched ourselves struggling with words that either over generalized or too tightly confined the range of a statement, as in direct statements without qualification as in (some featuers) ARE (description) or stating that a factor was "never" applicable.  At the same time we also struggled with adverbs to limit or qualify the verb's power to include and exclude - such as the use of "typically" (what is typical?) in statement 7.  We also struggled with words like "real" and "true" (is it "real" or "true" if there is more than one  "real" or "true"?  what kind of real and true are we talking about?).

Perhaps most importantly, we found ourselves in conflict with our own earlier statements in terms of our positions a number of statements.  In particular (some of us) found ourselves both invested in (or at least partial to) the idea that words both have clear meanings or some power to correspond to what is "real" AND beliefs that meanings are contextual, created within conversations, or even (to some extent) inside an individual as a starting place prior to communication.   

Although we did not get to explore these contradictions because of time constraints = it is important to note these contradictions in light of the points made by Shotter.  These contradictions provide us with a stable point of entry into our experience of language - that is, they provide a window into our unconscious, continuously responding relationships to the forms we use to "write." 

As Shotter pointed out = one disadvantage of putting our experience into language is that it causes us to "lose the phenomenon", or distance ourselves from the experience in ways that we "forget" the parts that don't fit into the linear logic of language.  Our discussion of our assumptions - in very real ways - made clear some of the ways our EXPERINCE of language (and therefore the ways we can access it in order to write) FAR EXCEED the ways we talk about it.  In other words, what we "think" about our relationships to language (where meaning is, how we make meanings, its truth, its power => and therefore our expectations about ourselves and our abilities to use language) is a radical reduction of how in fact we experience language.  

Think about that one for a minute. It is profoundly relevant to the objectives that are at the center of this course.  It suggests that to teach writing - we need experiential tools to 'unpack' the reductive, languaged representations of what writing is and and how it works so that we can support writers in engaging their whole (conflicting, illogical, always changing, flowing into the future)repertoire of moves for experiencing and participating in meaning making.   As pointed out in class, pedagogical theory and practice posed by compositionists such as Elbow, Perl, MacCurdy and DeSalvo are approaches that respect the unconscious, felt features of the move from experience to language.  They are a start.  Work to  analyze discursive relationships between "being" and "writing" (that is to explore the ways we can use language to facilitate the leap from experience to the written word) are what we are doing in this course.

Discussion of Shotter.
At the beginning of this discussion, as a way for us to think about the two kinds of "selves" Shotter was posing, I asked you to write a description of what took place in the discussion of language assumptions from two perspectives. a "rational" self who observed and put into language what took place, and a continuously responding self who WAS IN the experience of the unfolding classroom conversation.

You noticed that the rational self sounded more or less like academic writing.  It was reasoned, took and took an "objective" stance.  You reported that he continuously responding self represented what happened in less well composed sentences, in collections of words and phrases that did not necessarily cohere into a story, had more metaphors and similes and more references to 'I" and was generally more subjective, was less edited and included words that were "inappropriate" for the reasoned representation.  It was "like freewriting" in that it was associative and felt.

What differences in these two selves means for teaching writing (or understanding one's own writing). This continuously responding self offers us a different (and powerfly detailed) perspective on our experiences => a wholly different view of 'reality'.  It represents a kind of "thinking" that is not neatly packaged in the conventions of language.  When this self appears in writing (as it often does either in a whole composition that is at the drafty stage or in the less completely processed parts of any given piece of writing) => it is often interpreted as a "mistake" or "bad writing".  Logical errors (like the kinds we noted in our discussion of our assumptions about writing), focus that leaps from one perspective to another, an excess of "felt" presence (as opposed to objectivity), language choices that do not reflect appropriate audience considerations may all be features of (unconscious) resort to an experience-based self => where the experiences have not yet been fully processed into the conventions of language.  So the problems unfold not in terms of how to "correct" the grammar - but how to distinguish between a continuously responding self and a reasoned self, how to support writers in becoming aware of diffrent realms of "being," to provide guided experiences in moving from feeling to language, and to mentor socialization in conventions for moving from feeling to  representations in (academic/whatever genre is chosen) language. 

In many ways these teaching moves reflect what process teachers do in the classroom - but the difference in the assumptions that underly those moves, and the particular tools that psychoanlytic research can provide us suggest that this is -if not a wholly new idea in teaching writing - it can at least offer some embellishments on already existing practices for invention and revision.

Discussion of Shotter's other points -dialogic practices, differences between issues of intellect and issues of will, and what is involved in judging verus deciding is (hopefully) covered in the notes.  If you have further reflections or questions - we can take this up at the beginning of class as a way to consolidate the new thinking we developed in class.

For next week
Read: Dufy, 269 in Lock & Strong;  Daniel Goleman The Brain and Emotional Intelligence.  There is a free download (you have to register) at the embedded link.  If you don't want to do that, this book is available at any bookstore, or in a kindle edition through Amazon $6.99).

Blog 5: Speculations about a project in light of Shotter

Heads up so you can think about your transcription schedule. We talked briefly about how you were doing with your transcripts. Yes, it takes a while, and you have some time to work through this.  At the same time, and to give you an idea of when you need to be finished = according to the calendar, you will be using your transcript as data over Spring break.  That is, you will be looking at "stories" in your transcript and presenting an overview of some of the narrative themes in your interview on March 20. 

What a remarkable class experience that was.  I will be thinking about it for some time.  I wish I had been more on top of pointing out how what we were doing connected strongly to what Shotter was writing about = but then I guess that is what this blog is for.  See you next week.


 

2.13 Radical relativism, Desalvo and teaching writing

Interviews:  All remaining interviews will be in my office, CAS 324, on Friday, February 15.
Mary:  1:00
Lewis: 3:00
Heidi: 5:00

I have a voice recorder for Mary, Lewis has a voice recorder I loaned him, and I am hoping you are set with your phone, Heidi.

See you soon!


We started class with a discussion of Kenneth and Mary Gergen's article on constructionism.  They advocate what they call radical relationalism in thearpeutic conversations.  Below are my notes for the talk.

Assumptions/ideas associated with constructionism as defined by the Gergens.
1. The "world" and the experiences within it are socially constructed.
"what we take to be knowledge finds its origins in human relationships. . .[and what we believe] is brought into being being by historically and culturally situated groups of people" (65) => what we know is created through an on-going, recursive "chain" of  interactions enacted through language  with people who bring their past experiences and larger cultural connections to the interaction*

knowedge, reason, emotion, and morality reside in relationships (66) => not just knowledge, but also our processes for creating knowledge, for "feeling", and for evaluating what we know are created within and through social interactions.

"social constructionist ideas tend to support those who would speak out against the dominant discourse (66) => it is a creative ideology as oppposed to a conservative ideology

2. language and language rules are central to the creation of an intelligble world
Discourse is central to the creation of knowledge. 
All knowledge is created through language and agreement on language rules
"As people coordinate their actions, a major outcome is often a system of signals or words. The words serve to name the world for the participants.  (67)

3. Values are inescapably present within declarations of what counts as "fact" (objectivity as ideology). Constructionist values are concerned not with TRUTH, but with how a particular truth will affect its "useres" = what will happen if we believe in a given truth => "traditional issues of truth and objectivity are replaced with concerns with practical outcomes" (68)
There can be many truths=> depending on community traditions for meaning making.  Constructionists are concerned with what happens to us - if we accept a given truth?

Questions for writing and writing instruction (paraphrased from the Gergens, 69=>Therapeutic communication in question)
What is it in writing/writing instruction that brings about change, learning, growth, new knowledge?
What precisely is it ablolut communication that brings about transformation?
What forms of communication (patterns for interaction=conversational patterns, relationships between writing and self, relationships to discourse and discourse communities) bring about transformation?
What forms of communication are invited in current teaching practice?  how might we be more effective?

Constructionist critique of objective (current-traditional, post-positivist), subjective (expressivist), and strategic (transformative, critical pedogogical) approaches to therapy (teaching writing) (paraphrased from Gergen & Gergen)

1. Objective (current traditional)=> realist assumptions
words are (or can be) reflectors of the real
language can (should) provide accurate accounts of what is the case (good writing)
there is a "best"/ right way to solve a problem/write
individuals with expertise can classify and "diagnose" how best to solve problems

Problems=> "forgets" that declarations of the "true" are always located within relationships (discourse=> active instances of experience and language).  Within these relationships there can be agreed upon realties, but "to tell a lie is not to misrepresent the world, but to violate a communal tradition "(70).

Problems for teaching:
this is a conservative belief system in that once a process is accepted as "right" it becomes difficult to challenge it (since challenges are "wrong").
 It justifies the imposition of dominant belief systems on non-dominant belief systems.

2. Subjective (expressivist) => subjectivist assumptions
"words we speak are held to be outer expressions of the inner world, the subjective mind made manifest"
"observations must be shared to ensure agreement among subjectivities (objectivity=shared subjectivity).

Problems=> no one has yet been able to give a defensible account of how a person's words give us access to his or her inner world.
=> readers will never make authentic connections with the subjectivity of the writer = no escape from the standpoint oe brings to interpretation.
"subjectivism is socially corrosive" (71)

3. Transformative (critical pedagogical) = strategic assumptions
communication operates as a major means through which individuals influence one another's actions
language functions as a strategic implement through which we achieve our goals

Problems=> similar to problems for subjective assumptions=individual desires/will is essentially isolated (uncommunicable)
therefore "influence" become manipulation (the imposition of one individuals' perspective on another)



New possibilities for teaching writing achieved within a constructionist assumptions
The Gergens construct a model of communication as collaborative action that posits:

• Individual utterances possess no meaning
• Meaning is realized through supplementary action
• Supplementary action is itself a candidate for meaning
• Acts create the possibility for meaning but simultaneousely constrain its potential
• Traditions of coordination furnish the major potentials for meaning
• Meanings are subject to continuous reinterpretation

If transposed to the classroom - this model allows for the interactive, collaborative creation of meanings, the creation of new knowledge, and respectful processes for considering the histories, contexts, and possibilities for idea

Re-casting the Gergens  conclusions for writing pedagogy and process
There is no mental illness=>there are  no bad writers
There is no therapeutic treatment in itself=> there is no one right way to teach= all teaching takes place between individuals/within collective conversations
Understanding a client is a form of collaborative action=>teaching is a form of collaborative communication
The effective therapist is a skilled coordinator=> the teacher is a skilled coordinator

In addition to these direct re-phrasings of the Gergens' discussion of the implications of constructionism for therapeutic dialog, we added the ideas that

• there are no teachers
• there are no students
• one major challenge in classroom conversations is to open up (re-explore) pre-conceptions about writing
• writing practices/processes/and ideas about writing and writing processes are subject to continuous transformation
• another challenge is bridging gapes between conscious meaning-making within writing and dominant discourses
• teaching writing will be continously transformed.

Summing up:
The idea in reading this essay was not to say "everything is relative" =>but rather to point out that: 1)  our assumptions about what writing is and how it works; 2) our relationship to writing; and 3) how we talk about writing => shape what we can and can't do as writers and writing teachers in profound ways.  (For examples of this => look back through the critiques of the objective, subjective, aind strategic perspectives on how knowledge is made). 

Our purpose for taking up this question in this course is to think about how our assumptions affect what is taught as "writing"; the way writers "feel" about their writing; and how we talk about writing (teach it).  We are re-examining these assumptions = so we can CHANGE them, if we choose to.

How this essay connects to your projects: This essay introduces the perspective (constructionism)  which underlies the "tools" presented in the other chapters.  The Gergens explain the assumptions + what the assumptions in this perspective can do.  The rest of the readings in this book will provide us specific sets of tools for creating conversational interactions where ideas (writing) can be seen 'otherwise" => in new ways.

Your projects for this course will engage you in using these tools to explore an issue associated with writing. That issue might be:

• how/what writers can discover about their relationships to writing through using these tools (e.g. by analyzing material from the interview or some other set of data); 
• what new features of writing these tools allow us to teach (e.g. data on applications in the classroom coupled with some measure of what students "learned" and why it is important);
• how the ways we talk about writing affects what we (can) do as writers (and how to revise those inner stories?)=>you might explore this reflectively, or through watching/analyzing data on other writers
• how to create/use writing instruction on voice, reflection, awareness of assumptions about how writing works, consciousness of our relationships to writing and deep details of individual writing processes
• anything that you feel is important to being a writer, falls outside mainstream pedagogy, and that you see a way (using these tools or others) to integrate into writing classrooms or writing practices

DeSalvo - thank you, Lewis
Lewis provided an overview of Writing as a Way of Healing. He pointed out that the thesis was that the art of writing can be personally helpful and healing.  The book was divided into 3 parts:
1. writing as healing (overview of Pennebaker and the supporting theory for the approach)
2. a process program (a step by step outline for course work through which students produce a book)
3. writing about trauma - mental and physical= discussion of practical relationships (in terms of DeSalvo's writing agenda) between writing and healing.

He noted that DeSalvo presents writing as a necessity for health; as a fixer (as in photographic fixer in that it can "hold" experience in place); and as an invitation to share with humanity.

He then gave a brief overview of the main points within each of the sections, which I am hoping are in your notes.
Frustrations with this method included:
its assumption that art grows out of pain and trauma
its grounding in interpretations of other writer's lives as "healthy" or not = as justifications for her theory (the writers themselves may have experienced these periods in their lives quite differently - and their works are not so simply summed up)
its seemingly exclusive focus on healing from trauma as a central feature of the growth and knowledge-making that writing can accomplish (writing - as a kind of collaborative interaction with other perspectives => accomplishes many different kinds of thinking and feeling tasks, not all of which are associated with trauma)
the conflicts between being its instruction to be open and responsive to the self  and to follow the (rather rigid) rules of the writing program presented in the book
its tendency to see the world through an (exclusively) subjective perspective

At the same time, we also noted that:

• the book addresses aspecst of writing that most mainstream pedagogies to not acknowledge 
• writing through trauma is a real feature of what writing can do that is often overlooked - and rarely "taught"=> for that alone this book is a "pioneer" and valuable
• there were concrete suggestions about caring for the self and writing which may not be appropriate for universal generalization - but which were useful to note
• the book offered a framework for building a writing program that could well support "writing a book"

So we are making our way through this material - and developing some language to help give us a more clear feeling for the course objectives.  Good work!

For next week:
Read: Shotter in Lock and Strong
Blog 4: Speculations about your research project - in light of the radical relativism introduced by the Gergens

In last night's class we did not get back to the "assumptions about writing" => so I would like to start class with a discussion of those assumptions - with some talk about how or whether they might have changed in light of our work so far, and what implications these assumptions have for writing/teaching writing.

After we pull that together, I would like to work on applying Shotter's method (finding points of entry, among other things) = and thinking about how it might work in writing pedagogy: how would we do it?  what would it accomplishy? 

So far so good - and see you next week.

2.6 Writing and healing: Pennebaker + MacCurdy

Note: I have sent a pdf of the chapter from Lock and Strong assigned for next week.

Can you tell me again why we are doing the oral histories/interviews about writing?
We started class with a long discussion about the interviews, the interview process, and transcribing the interviews - and that led to a discussion of the "research project" mentioned on the syllabus and the calendar.

Purpose of the interviews: Your interview provides evidence of the language, story patterns, subject positionings, and so on that you use to talk about writing and your relationships to writing.  It also provides a set of stories that "come up" in your mind when you think about writing.  The research we will be reading for the rest of the term (beginning with Gergen & Gergen) suggests ways for researchers to study, "take apart," and put back together (in new, more constructive ways) our representations (and therefore our understanding) of our identities and our relationships.  We are going to use these methods to analyze our data base, and to see if we can see some patterns in relationships to writing, stories about writing, constructive (and not so constructive) ways of telling stories about writing (and these will certainly be different for each of us) and many other things.

Transcribing.  In order to produce a record of your interview, you will "write" what you hear on the recording by producing a word document.  I suggest that you mark speakers (S for me, your first initial for you).  Your first time through - you can go quickly.  You don't have to get everything right.  I suggest (in light of the conversations we have had so far) that pretty much everything we have talked about sheds some light on writing, so you probably need to transcribe every conversations.  I suggest that you "track" where you are in the interview (especially at stories which feel important as you are listening) by noting the time (or the counter on the tape recorder) so that you move easily back and forth between the recording and your transcript.  That way, you can go back to conversations which seem relevant to what you see as emerging themes.

Keep your voice recording.  Make a copy of it.  You will need it.  The transcript is a "reduced" and much less informative version of our talk.  At the same time, it is necessary .  It holds the data still so we can look around inside it.  At the same time, for the stories you are most interested in - you are probably going to want to listen to them - to make sure you are interpreting them correctly.

Your interview data is yours.  You are not required to share it with anyone.  I am hoping each of you will feel comfortable sharing at least parts (and hopefully large parts) of your data - either through your own analysis of the material, or through making your "talk" available as data for the class.

Research projects.  The focus of this course is on the mindsets (assumptions, values, beliefs), identity stories, connections to larger cultural stories, social connections and so on that we bring to writing=> and how they affect our relationships to writing.  In particular, this course is interested in providing data on relationships between these identity features, belief systems, and social connections *(which are mostly unconscious and assumed as "the way it is") and the kinds of learning/composing issues we face as we write.

The research projects will be your exploration of issues within this general focus.  We are working toward creating a perspective where we might begin to put into words a pedagogy that includes support for students in examining their belief systems, identities, connections to cultural assumptions about writing = in ways that can allow them to become more connected, more confident writers.

This leaves out a lot of what we said in class.  In particular, Lewis' point that we are working on creating a pedagogy that provides the equivalent of "streching" or strength exercises = work that athletes must do in order to play their sport= for writers.  So a part of what we are doing is looking at the kind of fitness work and attention to the particular aspects of mind that writers need to "build up" before the hit the page running (and work on process and products).

Finishing work with Yancey.
We shared our writing/replies to Mary's reflective prompts, and I for sure am not going to be able to reproduce the excitement of that discussion.  It seemed like everyone got something out of the exercise - and what we got was both dependent on who we were as individuals, and about the way reflection (and conversation) works.  A partial list of what the exercise did for us includes, allowing us to:

• see how we represent our writing process, 
• reconsider whether those representations are what we "do" = or just what we are used to saying we do;
• note our represntations in light of what our partner said(!);
• expand on possibilities for thinking about how we write (the conversations provided us both with new language and with new ideas); 
• feel some validation for what is usually an internal process;
• and more.

Everyone had something to say - and there was a lot of investment in the talk.  So clearly, reflection = or at least the way we did it Wednesday night, can help writers think about their writing - and their relationship to writing.

Pennebaker 
Wayne, Robyn and Andre did a great job on covering the writing and healing work by Pennebaker.  His work sets up MacCurdy + deSalvo.

They began by asking the class to report on their experiences with the prompts.  Evidently, I should have given you some more set up - or pointed out writing patterns for writers who "worked through" their material, since many of you found the exercise so distressing you were unable to complete it.  Well, I guess that's information! Pennebaker's work acknowledged that writers feel "bad" in response to actually doing the prompts, but found that in the following months participants experienced positive health effects as a result of the writing.

The interpretation of Pennebaker's work is that putting feeling into langauge brings about cognitive changes by allowing individuals to simplify and externalize their feelings.  And that these changes seem to result in improved health.

They then talked us through the process - and gave examples - of how writing can "vacuum" unwanted thoughts by allowing writers to embrace the material, put it into language, and see/feel past experiences differently.  They emphasized that writers who experienced the most pronounced beneficial health effects were able to "let go" => move into a feeling/place where they became lost in the writing = where it was not about thinking.  Writers who had the most 'relief" through writing also wrote the details of the experience, and eventually (in subsequent days) began synthesizing the material (putting it together into a story) and finally that they had been able to shift (move back and forth) among different perspectives.  

I (sorry) cut the discussion of what these finding suggest in terms of writing pedagogies (and the list we came up with at the beginning of the term).  Among other observations, by many of you, Robyn pointed out that it suggests connections to voice and ownership of writing.  

I confess to being so involved in this discussion and the one about reflection and the interviews - that I didn't take very good notes.

MacCurdy 
Luis and Maria did a great presentation on MacCurdy (with me rushing them through it the whole time).  They presented the conflict between mainstream composition pedagogies and "writing & emotion" approaches = teachers are not therapists, and stated MacCurdy's point that when students write personal essays (or write at all) personal material (emotions + trauma) comes into the classroom = whether teachers "invite" it or not.

One central point to MacCurdy's approach centers in getting students to "write the details".  Writers have to go back => and they need to re-create the scene in order to put themselves there.  Writing the details can both be about getting enough detail to create a story to hold the traumatic event, and about going back and looking at "what is there" as a way to take apart a damaging, or unconstructive story that "stands in the place of" what happened - and is not helping the writer move forward and through the material s/he is working with.

M & L's presentation emphasized that MacCurdy's approach allows writers to increase their agency => to maintain/increase control over their lives through creating representations that "work" for them (did I get that right?)


For next week:
We will check in to see if there are any more reflections on/ideas to use from Pennebaker + MacCurdy, and then get into  Lewis' presentation on DeSalvo.

We will also begin the readings from Lock & Strong.  I sent you an email with a copy of the first article we are reading, and I am hoping you will all have books for the next assignment.

Read: Gergen & Gergen, in Lock & Strong
Blog: three pieces where you write the details of a writing interaction/experience