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)