The Rhythm of the Blog and next semester's requirements

There's a pretty smart fellow in my field by the name of Collin Brooke who teaches at Syracuse up in NY. One of the things he teaches is "Network(ed) Rhetorics." As an active scholarly blogger, i don't read as much in this area as i should. And so i can't really pontificate on networks and networked rhetorics to the extent that i should be able. (Also, in case you're wondering, there's another brilliant scholar in my field named Jenny Edbaur who also talks extensively about networks.

Anyway, the reason i mention all of this is b/c Collin has a really good post on his class site about the rhythms of writing in/for a network.

A few of the things he articulates over here include:

• the importance of writing regularly: b/c of the fact that weblogs compell you to write small amounts on a much more regular basis, you end up producing much more writing than you really think. So, while the work may seem easier - and usually it is - it's not necessarily less rigorous. It simply feels this way b/c the writing is not due in huge, stress-inspiring chunks.
• writing regularly as a requirement: one of the things i wish i would have articulated earlier in the semester or in my syllabus is a weekly writing requirement. Many of you wait until midterm and the finals to compose all of your 22 and 45 required posts. This defeats the purpose of blogging in a number of ways. One, you aren't establishing any type of rhythm. Two, the posts tend to be token efforts, disengaged. Three, this procrastination (for which i must ultimately accept some responsibility) creates the type of student stress and ill-will towards writing that i'm trying to counter with the blogging element of my requirements. There are more reasons, but i'll wrap up with this final one: Four, if you don't visit your blog regularly, if you don't lurk on others and play around on the net, it's more of a challenge to achieve the type of technological comfort i'm hoping our consistent access will grant.

I have more to say on this. Check back for more later...

Sample annotated bibilography entry

Taylor, Denny and Catherine Dorsey-Gaines. Growing Up Literate: Learning
from Inner-City Families. Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Heineman, 1988.

Denny Taylor and Catherine Dorsey-Gaines' Growing Up Literate is a really good example of rigorous ethnographic methods in action. Their Appendix (B) is a fabulous model of a proposal and they have a plethora of sources on method that they cite throughout. I probably won't post all of my notes on this text. However, this morning, while reading Chapter 3, "Literacy and the Children at School," i was struck by the practicality of their opening paragraph. In its entirety:

In a book that focuses so specifically upon learning in families, you may be wondering, “Why a chapter on children at school?” The answer is clear: To understand the ways in which children learn at home, it is essential that we know something of the ways in which they are taught at school. What we present in this chapter are small pieces of data that we have collected: a description of four-year-old Jarasad’s graduation from the day-care center that she attended; a day of observations of Shauna in her second-grade classroom; and an account of an incident in school that occurred when Danny was in seventh grade. Each piece was chosen for the insights that can be gained from them into the lives of the children we have been visiting as they move out through the concentric worlds of their own imagination and experience. It is important for us to emphasize that this tentative arrangement of data is presented to raise questions. It is not a classroom ethnography or sociolinguist analysis. For such research we turn to the work of Boome (1983), Florio and Shultz (1979), Gimore and Glatthorn (1982), Green (1983), Heap (1986), and McDermott (1976a and b), whose research has helped us appreciate the extraordinary complexity of the ways in which classroom contexts are embedded in and constrained by the everyday world (social, cultural, and political) in which we lived. (99)

This chunk of text is an important one to consider when devising my outline of observation and fieldwork. In order to design a study that is realistically doable, I will not be able to, by myself, do both a classroom ethnography and a non-school (or whatever you want to call it) literacy ethnography. Observations will be key, and I will, indeed make such regular observations (will i?), but only for the sake of understanding and knowing something about other literacy and learning practices and the effects they have on my chosen domain of focus

Proposal - a model

Qualitative Research Network at CCCC 09 October 2006

My project is exploring realizable methods for reconnecting syncretic mind-body training practices to educational spaces. In a pilot study of five, male, twelfth grade student-athletes my data supported claims that both kinetic and sensory-engaging activities heightened the learning experiences of my subjects. A follow-up pilot study of approximately 70 freshman English students that I’m currently conducting is producing preliminary data that seems to be supporting some of the data/findings from the student-athlete pilot study. That is, students claim to be more engaged, they perceive themselves to be learning more and more efficiently, when there is, for example, physical activity, peer group work, out-of-the-classroom meetings, and immersive activities. The claims made by many of these students are that the traditional classroom is boring, intellectually oppressive and uninspiring.

Using as a theoretical framework John Dewey’s philosophy of experiential learning, Lev Vygotsky’s theory of the development of higher psychological processes, and Debra Hawhee’s method of sophistic training my project seeks to explore methods for reconfiguring the traditional classroom. My hope is to design an ethnographic study that will allow me to compare the training methods of student-athletes to that of regular students. In truth, my hopes for this networking forum are quite simple: How can I design a semester- or year-long ethnographic study that will allow me to explore my still developing Grand Tour Question (which is, roughly – Are student-athletes’ methods of acquiring and making meaning of new content more effective than the methods of regular students? If so, what are the differences in training methods and how can these methods, realistically, be applied to a classroom?)?

The dissertation study I’m trying to design will be ethnographic. I will observe, take field notes, interview, collect cultural artifacts, and code and interpret the data. I will most likely conduct the study at the institution at which I teach (an NCAA Division II school), though my hope is to avoid using any subjects that are students in my classes. Data collection will go on for one academic year (Fall and Spring semester), with the possibility of follow-up interviews, surveys, or questionnaires in subsequent semesters.

Interesting research on street signs

Thought you all might enjoy this. The study of language in use is a fascinating thing!!! The following interesting lil nugget of information is taken from Mary Sue MacNealy’s book, Strategies for Empirical Research in Writing (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1999):

Street signs provide a good example of the need for more research and the importance of disseminating the findings. For instance, the research has well established that words in all-caps take longer to process than words in mixed case letters, and that readers use cues other than serial processing of the letters to comprehend a word (Just & Carpenter, 1987). Why then do many street signs give the names of streets in all caps? Some effort is being made to make street signs easier to read: at some busy intersections, signs bearing names of intersecting streets are now hung above the entrance to the intersection rather than placed on posts at the corner. Overhead signs bearing street names would certainly help a person wanting to make a left turn onto a particular street because driving in the curb lane in order to read signs on posts would hinder access to the left-turn lane on streets with two lanes in each direction. Wherever they are placed, street signs should be in mixed case rather than in all caps because people use the overall shape of a word to ehlpe them decipher thee words, and this shape is last when the word is in all caps. (3)

Ha ha

This guy thinks he's soooo funny.

Question assignment

Per our lab assignment from Thursday, here is the text i read on plagiarism and the value of plagiarism detection services - it's quite interesting. As well, below is the subsequent question:

If plagiarism, as text linked to above claims, is often the result of a sophisticated literacy skill and long-studied process of writing do you think students who are new to the academic writing process should be given the "academic death penalty" for plagiarizing? First, consider what your definition of plagiarism is (compare it to the definition of plagiarism supplied by Clancy in her comment towards the bottom). Second, respond in a comment to this post to Mike's (the author of the text) thoughts about catching plagiarists and about the role of process writing.

Question

I found an interesting article on the testing of a nuclear fusion reactor. For whoever decides to read the above article, the question i'm curious to have responses to is this:

Nuclear fusion is a clean energy alternative to, among other things, oil. If such clean energy alternatives are available any time in the near future do you think that America will make a serious effort to convert from fossil fuels? Why or why not?