1.24 Analysis!

Paying attention to the ideas in Gee. We started class by making sure everyone had a plan for getting a copy of the text, and by reviewing what you understood as the main points in Gee's reading. I asked you to write a "quiz" where you told me what you saw as Gee's main points - and asked any questions/pointed out parts of the chapters that were confusing or that didn't make sense.  I will catch up with whatever we didn't get to in class as we work through the applications of Gee's ideas during class next week.  As we continue through the course = think about how we are using Gee's ideas, and practice using his language. 

Chapters 3 & 4 introduce 4 "tools" as Gee names them: Discourses, Social Languages, Conversations, and Intertextuality. From my perspective, these are more ideas than tools. At the same time, language researchers certainly do use these ideas to identify and classify what we do when we use language, so I guess, in that way they are tools. Chapter 3 focuses on Discourse, and Chapter 4 covers the other 3 terms (see p. 44 for the "short" definitions).


Analysis: Slowing it down + naming what we do as we think.We started out by making a list of some of the words you used to describe what you do when you do analysis. Some of the terms were breaking into parts, critical thinking, studying, coming to a conclusion and making meanings. These are all good general descriptions for analysis. Our work this morning was to pay close attention to our thinking process so we could name the different "moves" we made as we engaged in analytic process.

You worked in groups to solve a particular "brain teaser." I asked you to pay attention to, and to name the different moves you made as you tried to solve the puzzle = and you did. After each group had worked their way through to an answer (awesome) we made a list of the moves you wrote down as you worked. We then grouped the moves into categories, and the list below is what we came up with.

Analytic process for solving the puzzle.

1. Figure out what problem you are solving (identify the problem)

 

2. Coding = noticing the features in your data that are significant to your problem
Notice that there were different shapes

Noticed that orientation counted ?

Notice color ?

Codes = names of features significang in your data

3. Catagorizing

Catefories = groups of things with shared features
Name shapes = trying out what counts as being a particular shape

4. Looking for patterns
Counted how many of each shape

Grouping = which shapes occurred together

Lots of local patterns = which shapes ALWAYS went together

4. Pose a local theory
You used what you noticed about local patterns to pose a “theory” about how the big pattern is built

 

5. Test your local theory to see if it "fits" (can explain what is there) and "works" (can predict/explain the whole body of data)
Test the local pattern to see if it can make a BIG pattern

 

6. Use local theory to pose BIG theory (to explain the whole system)

In addition to noticing these steps, we noticed that this process was not linear.  Thinking is messy, it doesn't go in a straight line. You cycled through these processes, sometimes jumping from one to another - starting int he middle of pattern making and then backing up to decide which features should "count" in the pattern. For example, you might pose a local theory, find that it doesn't "work" and then go back to identify features to figure out why the theory didn't work. This new consideration of features then might lead you to different categories. And so on.

The purpose for doing this exercise was for us to analyze(!) analytic process => to identify and name the "features" of analytic process, to put those features into categories, and to pose a theory about relationships among those categories that can "explain" how analysis works. And that's what we did.

So our definition of analysis is now: 1) to break a process/problem, body of data or other subject of analysis into parts, 2)to name and classify the elements within the data, and to 3) identify patterns in the relationships between different parts so we can explain or interpret how the whole body of data works.  Or something like that.

 

Feedback:  Over the weekend, I will read over your first post and write back to you with some feedback on what I am looking for in terms of a blog post.

For next class:

Read: Gee, Chapter 1 – 4.

Blog 2: In your own words => define analysis. What is it? How does it work? Describe how you might use analysis to study something about writing that interests you.

 

Good class! Have a great weekend and see you on Tuesday.