List of blogs for process writing & data/analysis

As you can see from the blogs listed below, it is not really possible to "make up" some of these posts.  At the same time, late posts tcreated in the process of finishing your project which contribute to the quality and depth of the project will receive back credit with a max of 8/10).


Process Writing
Blog 24: Post your draft so far (also send it to the course email as an attachment)
Blog 23: Post your conclusion
Blog 20:  Post a statement of the focus for your essay (what you hope to show) followed by sections of your data + your analysis where you make a series of points related to that focus
Blog 19: post drafty writing for your introduction (the more writing you post, the more feedback I can offer) 
Blog 16: Revised research plan with notes for me in terms of what kind of support you need (look at blog 4.1)
Blog 10: Write, describe, speculate about some cultural stories/Conversations associated with your focus for your research project.  Give it a shot - even if you aren't sure, put it out there and we will see where we are.
Blog 8: After working through the steps on the worksheet for the research plan, write up your research plan in terms of the following points.

Statement of purpose (what you hope to show/discover)

Detailed statement of your research question

List of the information you need to gather

A preliminary list of sources

Plan for gathering your information that includes:

·         who/what you will be studying (for example:. students in a College Composition class, how they think about the comments teachers write on their papers)

·         where you will collect your information (for example:. in interviews at Kean University)

·         how many subjects you will study (for example:. 3)

what methods you will use to conduct your study (for example:. interviews, textual analysis, discourse analysis)
Blog 1:  Post some writing which will give me an idea of what you are interested in researching. 

Data & Analysis
Blog 18: analytic memos for the data posted for blog 17

Blog 17: data you plan to analyze, dig deeper into, for your research paper

Blog 13: Analyze stories/excerpts from your transcript.  Select and post sections of your interview transcript which you might use to make a point in your essay. (you might need to listen to your recording to fill in words/make sure you have them right for these stories).   In this post, include:

•  the story/section  from your transcript = with your mark up like we did in class
•  some writing about the way language is used, the story features, or the discourses (stereotypes, cultural stories) the excerpt illustrates or connects to
• a statement of what you might use the excerpt to "show" with respect to a focus of your paper.

Blog 12: post your transcript

Blog 11: Final/revised interview protocolBlog 9:  Interview protocol for your projectBlog 6:  In class we talked about the differences among a topic, a focus, and the particular research quesstions you might ask as you conduct your research.  Each of you are in a different place in terms of developing your project - but where every you are - write into your material as far as you can go in terms of your topic, the specific focus you want to take to that topic, and (if possible) what in particular you want to find out within that focus = what you want to do in your study (your research questions = what you will ask about your data).  The more you write - the more we have to work with.

Depends what you worked on:

Blog 22: What you worked on in class
Blog 21: Whatever you worked on in class

4.29 How to turn in your final research papers, and presentations

We spent the first part of class talking through how we would assign credit for your work for the term.  I noted that there was probably a third of the class who, for one reason or another, had was unable to keep up with the posts for the blog.

I also pointed out that in order to receive credit for the data analysis (150 points)  and the writing process (150 points) portions of the research project, you would need to include links to the blogs where that work was done.  We then scanned back through the course blog and noted the blog posts which would count as credit for data analysis  And for writing process.  You need to include links to those posts in the email you send to turn in your project (as an attachment).  See post 4.29 List of writing process + data analysis posts.

SO.  We noted that while late posters should not be entitled to full credit by turning in these posts late, at the same time, it did not seem fair for them to get no credit towards the turned in blog post.  We agreed that late posters had the possibilty of earning a max of 8 out of the 10 points for late work turned in with the research project.  For those of you who have made other arrangements with me, I will honor whatever agreement we made.


I will be writing back to you with comments on your projects just as quickly as I can turn them around.
What we will do for the rest of the semester:
Thursday, we will hear from:  Melanie, John, Amanda, Nagerrah, Ariana, and Sara
Tuesday, we will hear from: David, Adrian, Jess, Florie, Melissa and Brenda
Final Projects are due May 8, as an attachment, with links to all blogs with process writing and writing associated with data + analysis.

4.24 Reviewing your writing so far in light of the assignment sheet + rubric

We started class with a review of the rubric - writing a list on the board to re-state the expectations for this project.

audience: writing to the correct audience includes your language choice (lexis), discourse (the way you use language/shape your sentences); how you establish your authority, and the genre moves you use to create the overall form of your essay.

For this essay, the audience is other writing studies researhcers, your should authorize your claims through references to other researchers and the analysis of your data; you should present your data using the "sandwich method"= introduce/set up the example (state what you will show through this example), present the example/data; then point back to the data & discuss how it shows what you said it shows);  use the CARS form for your intro; and use the language moves we have pointed out through the semester in the sample research essays.

Content: we have discussed the content for each of the major sections: intro (CARS + lit review+ methods => this is flexible, the particular form will depend on your particular topic); presentation of data and analysis; and a conclusion (see last blog post).

Focus: needs to be connected to writing studies, the focus should be set up in the introduction and developed through the literature review; the discussion and analysis should make a series of points =each of which is related back to the focus; and the conclusion should sum up and pull together the focus set up in the intro in light of the findings presented in the discussion/analysis.

Organization: this includes organization on multiple levels. In our discussion this semester we have considered the organization of the overall paper, the organization of a series of paragraphs for the presentation of data, the organization of individual paragraphs where you make a single point,  and the overall sequence of your points.

Development:  as we discussed in class when we developed the rubric and when we looked at the sample essays, development should include sufficeint discussion as well as the right kind of discussion.  There should be specific examples to illustrate the points made with respect to the focus.

After discussing these features, you looked over your writing so far, and asked me questions about/worked on your drafts.

For next class:
You will be giving presentations on your drafts.  Holly, Melanie, Briana, and Amanda have volunteered so check out their drafts posted on their blogs sometime before class.

Blog 24: Post your draft so far (also send it to the course email as an attachment)

Good work today!   Have a great weekend and see you next week.  You are almost there!

4.22 Conclusions!

You looked through the conclusions to the three sample essays, and noticed the "moves" the writers made.  We listed these moves as the following.

Connection to focus set up in the introduction
Connected to the "niche" identified in the introduction
Described the importance of the study
Elaborated/restated the findings with respect to the focus/niche
Identified limitations of the study
Set forward ideas for future research

We then noticed that while each of the essays made most of the moves - they did not do them in the same order, and sometimes not even in the same section.  At the same time, we agreed that all three conclusions were clear and well written.

We took the last couple minuted to review what we will be doing for the rest of the term.  Check back to this post.  You are almost there!

For next class
Blog 23: Post your conclusion   Refer to the points we noted in class today and see what you can do.  Even if you don't have all the language - at least you can map out what you will say.

We will start class by reviewing the assignment sheet and the rubric (one more time), and then you will workshop whatever writing you have so far in terms of what you have left to do.    Thursday's class is meant to put you in a strong position for finishing up your draft and posting it/turning it in for Tuesday, Apr. 29.  

1. Thanks for your good work today (even though I was held up at a meeting).  See you next class!

4.17 Overall form for your essay + workshop!

We spent the first part of class talking through the moves you want to make (and how much space you want to devote to making them) in writing up your research project.  This is not a formula, and different projects will devote slightly different amounts of space/writing to the different moves, so don't get too regimented about this.  At the same time, this is a reasonable overall description of how writing studies research essays are organized


Introduction = some version of Swales CARS moves
In class, you talked through some of the specific language you would move to Establish a territory (provide context, background, identify your area).
See Swales handout for the particulars.  And I hope you wrote down what you said in class - all of it was great!

At this point we mentioned that in establishing your niche you could either mention the research you are connecting to briefly - or in detail.  And that in occupying your niche, you could either describe your methods in brief or in detail.

If you choose the "in detail" approach, you have rolled the intro-lit review-methods" sections into one.  If you choose the in brief approach, you will probably have separate headings for the Literature Review & the Methods sections, and develop your detailed discussions there.

In the literature review=> you do not summarize/provide an overview of the entire article.  Refer to points from the context, findings and methods that are relevant to your study.  They may be relevant because:
your research reproduces the context/findings/methods in the study you are discussing
your research differs from the context/findings/methods in the study you are discussing

This section of your essay should account for about two to two and a half pages for a 7-10 page paper.

Presentation/discussion of data.  We have been practicing how to write this section all term.  From the puzzle, through the jokes, through analyzing transcripts => to all those analytic memos where you pulled sections out of your transcript and  named what you saw, and wrote about what it meant.
I asked many of you to talk about some of your data in class today - and it sounds like you have the idea how to do this. Look back at your short analysis essay=> there should be some pointers on how to go deeper/what to develop in the comments.

You probably want to make 3 or more solid, in-depth points about what your data shows.

• Set up your data by saying what it shows.
• Present the data (an excerpt from your transcript)
• Point back to your data by naming and identifing and discussing the sections that are important to your point.  Describe how the data shows/means what you say it shows/means. 
• Relate this finding (what your data shows) back to your focus

For this essay, the presentation, analysis, and discussion of data should be the longest section by far (about 60%+)

Conclusion.  In this section (about 10% of the total length) you sum up your findings and develop a little more discussion about what - when taken all together - they show about your focus (what your research "shows" => the answer to your research question); note any drawbacks or limitations to your study, and discuss where future researchers might go in light of your findings=> what questions are still out there? how can researchers build on your study?

Blog 22: What you worked on in class

As we agreed in class - I will look through what you posted to your blog this week (Blogs 21 & 22) on Monday and Tuesday = so you will have my comments to work with in class.  That means your post should be up by Sunday night or early Monday AM.

Good class today - see you next week.  You will be working on writing your conclusions.

4.15 Workshop!

At this point, you should be up to date on your blogs and any writing in terms of feedback.

I talked with most of you one-on-one on where-ever-you-are - and the blog post for Thursday is to post whatever writing you did in class.  Although it said on the blog we would work on analytic memos, the conferences were about introductions, literature reviews, stating the focus, how to develop the essays points and relate them back to the focus - and many other things.  I was pleased with the good work you are doing, and will write back to your posts on the weekend.

For next class, we will go through the overall form of the essay, referring back to the rubric and the sample essays, so you have a clear idea of the moves you should make and what to do in each.  We will then have another workshop.  Come to class with questions about what you need support/instruction on.

Good class today!

Blog 21: Whatever you worked on in class

Calendar for the rest of the term

April 15
In-class workshop on data-so-far or whatever you need to work on
Writing analytic memos
Blog 21:  post whatever you worked on in class today

April 17
Presentations on data/analysis so far
In-class workshop on what ever section you are working on
Blog 22: Post what you worked on in class (or any section you want feedback on)

April 22
In-class workshop on conclusions
Blog 23: Post your conclusion

April 24 
Group workshop: Use the rubric to identify what you have left to work on
Create schedule for presentations on your projects
Blog 24: Complete draft
Send your complete draft to the course email as an attachment

April 29 DUE: Complete draft for research project
In-class presentations on research projects

May 1
In-class presentations on research projects

May 6: Draft essays returned with comments
In-class presentations on research projects

May 8
Project evaluations/ reflections on course

4.10 Rubric for research project and what we will be doing for the rest of the term

Update on your projects. At the beginning of class you sent an mail to me about where you are with your project and what you need (from me) to move forward.  I hope to get to those by the end of Saturday.

What we will be doing for the rest of the term.  We took a brief look at the remaining weeks of the term as they are listed on the course calendar.  We will pretty much be workshopping, presenting, reviewing + working on writing up your research project for the rest of the term.

 Next week you will present your data (and your ideas for analysis) so far.  These presentations will be a whole class, collaborative group workshop where your classmates and I offer ideas and support for how to use your data to answer your research question.  We will also do some work on how to write up the data/analysis section.

The following week we will work on conclusions and pulling your whole essay together.  A complete draft of your final project is due April 15.

The remaining two weeks will focus on your presentations of your projects.  This is an opportunity to get one more round of feedback before turning your project in for a grade.

Rubric. We began work on the rubric by reviewing the assignment sheet for the Final research project.  You noticed that there were criteria for the final product (the project paper), data collection and analysis, and for the process you used to create this paper.  (The number of points for each part of this project is listed on the syllabus.  We will revisit this list to make sure the class feels it is fair at the beginning of next class).  The focus of the rubric we created today was on final written project.

Here are our valuations for the different categories:

audience  15
content    30
focus       25
organization 15
development 15

You applied this rubric to the first sample research project, and we were very close in our assessments of this project.  We all noted that it was a very strong project, and that it would make a reasonable model if your project was a good match for the kind of research this researcher is conducting.

For next class:

You will be giving presentations on your data so far + workshoping the body of your essay where you present (provide evidence of) your findings based on your data. 

Blog 20:  Post a statement of the focus for your essay (what you hope to show) followed by sections of your data + your analysis where you make a series of points related to that focus.  If you aren't sure what to post => just post a statement of what you want to show and sections of data which you think show or are related to your focus.  In class, we will help you strengthen and develop your "evidence" based on your data.

Good class today and have a great weekend!

4.8 Introductions

Note: If you have not turned in your permission forms - be sure to bring them to next class.

Writing introductions: We reviewed John Swales discussion of Creating a Researh Space (CARS), and you practiced using the language/patterns which he sets forwards as patterns in research writing.

Our list on the board summarize these moves as:
1. Establishing a territory
claim centrality (why your topic is important)
make a generalization about the way (your topic) is
state what other researchers have done

2. Identify a niche
- counterclaim (something wrong)
- indicate a gap (something missing)
- raise questions (extend/build on what has been done

3. Occupy that niche
- outline purpose of the project
- describe resarhc, identify findings, structure of essay

We spent the rest of class analyzing 3 research essays (selected from the posts to the right) and looking at where/how they made the moves Swales identifies.  We noticed that while each essay used the 3 moves, they did so in different ways.  The Ethnography on coaching began with a very long literature review, identified a niche (a gap= few studeis of literacies) and then wrote about the study's methods.  The essay on giftedness made a very short staking out territory identifying niche move, and then described the study = all very briefly.  Then it did a more detailed literature review  description of methods.  The WAW essay gave a literture review (staking out territory), indicated a gap and gave a more focused review of the literature and then occupied that gap.

As we talked over the different ways authors wrote their introductions, we observed when a topic requires a lot of  background from the research in order for readers to understand the research question (set up in moves to identify a niche and occupy it) = the author might want to choose a discussion of the literture (as a way to identify define terms) as a way to stake out the territory.  Clearly - the kinds of moves you make and their ordering, will depend on your topic.

For next class:
Read: the research essay you will use in your introduciton (again)
Blog 19: post drafty writing for your introduction (the more writing you post, the more feedback I can offer)

Good class and see you Thursday!

4.3 Feedback on Short Analysis papers + digging deeper into your data

I've returned the short analysis drafts with comments.  Overall they were well done!   This is your first draft and I was very impressed with how you selected material from your transcripts relevant to a focus and with the moves you made to analyze those excerpts to develop a focus.  Good writing!

In class, you volunteered (thank you) some of the points in your drafts that you were going to work on.

• Make stronger use of title and headings to focus + organize your writing
• Think about the sequence of the points: early points should set up later points, later points can refer back to and develop earlier points.
• Dig deeper into the data (the side comments should raise some ideas for ways to do this)
• Break up really long quotes.  Quote blocks longer than about 1/4 page are getting pretty long for the reader to take in.  You can shorten quotes by:
• excerpting quotes ( using // or . . . to indicate that sections or words have been left out)
• dividing long quotes into a series of related sections
• As you develop your discussion of what the transcript excerpts show, point to specific words or phrases in the excerpt
• Work on the intro + conclusion (we will spend time on this in class next week) 

The rest of class was devoted to working on analzying your data for your research project.  I am hoping you got your "analytic memos" for the data you posted to your blog for blog 17 analyzed by the end of class (the assignment for Blog 18), and I hope to have feedback for you on all writing up through Blog 18 by the beginning of next class.

To review the blog posts:

Blog 15: Short analysis paper

Blog 16: Revised research plan with notes for me in terms of what kind of support you need

Blog 17: data you plan to analyze, dig deeper into, for your research paper

Blog 18: analytic memos for the data posted for blog 17.

For class on April 8:

Read: Swales CARS (handed out in class)\

Find a research essay you can use to ground your introduction to your research project.

We will work on evaluating + writing introductions to research essays.

Have a great weekend!

4.1 Assessing Short Analysis Project, moving forward with the research project

We spent the first part of class doing some reflection on the short analysis project.  You used the rubric we created in class to assess the sample research projects and the Short analysis assignment sheet to give your project a grade, and to write a description of what you would need to work on to strengthen the essay.

Send your assessment of your essay (using + rubric) in an email, with your essay attached, to the course email.  If your point score and your suggestion for what to work on matcch/are close to mine, you can earn up to 25 points extra credit.

Grade for the short analysis project.  Because you are learning so many new concepts and skills all at once, it is very likely that even though you did your very best on this project, you saw areas for improvement when you reflected on it in terms of the rubric and the assignment sheet.  In an effort to provide a fair opportunity for you to be graded on what you have learned, how much your grade on the short analysis counts toward your final grade will be up to you.  These are the choices.

• You my decide to let the grade you get on this draft stand.  In this case the number of points you earn for the project will count towards the 100 points listed on the syllabus as credit for this project.
• You may re-write this project in light of  feedback and earn the higher grade (what you earn on the revision)
• You may choose to receive equivalent credit for this project based on what you earn on your Research project.  For example, if you earn an 85/100 for the short analysis, but then earn 135/150 on your final research essay (90%), you can elect to replace the 85 with 90 points (an equivalent percentage substituting the score for the final project for the score for the short analysis).

You do not need to decide ahead of time, with your permission I will assign whatever score give you the highest grade.

Updated Research plans.
You took a minute to write down the focus for your research project in light of what you learned/discovered from doing the short analysis project.  I encouraged you take a minute to make sure you phrased your focus in terms of the scope of your study.  In other words, because you are doing small studies, usually with only a few participants, you data is only capable of shedding light on your problem from a very limited perspective = the perspective of your participants/observations.  Therefore, you cannot answer a "big" question about "what is the best approach to teaching summaries?" or "how do college students revise?" or "how do  K-3 teachers solve problems?"  While your data may shed light on these questions, it can't answer them.  You are doing small studies, usually which focus on one participant.

So how do you need to phrase your focus and your research questions?

In terms of a focus, you will want to look at what your participant says about your focus, and use what s/he says as a way to identify "features" of the questions a larger study might want to look at.  So while your interview might not be able to say whether performance poetry is better, it can provide some detailed information about a particular instance of how one poet practices performance poetry, what she says about how her performances are different from texts, how she sees the audience as responding differently, what she does to get the audience to respond and why, what she sees as features of her successful/not so successfulperformances, and so on.  The findings of this project will be a detailed description of what performance poetry is, how it works, etc => according to one performance poet.  And that's important.

How to update the research plan:
You have spent some time with points 1 -3 so the focus for this revision will be on writing into the plan itself to open up ideas, and help you identify questions that can direct you to particular parts of your data.

Blog 16:  In light of your recent exploration of your research data, spend some time (re)writing

Statement of purpose (what you hope to show/discover): devlop this in terms of your data.  Make sure you develop a purpose that your data can actually accomplish.  Whose perspective are you exploring?  What will your participants' perspectives contribute to research on your topic?  Why is that perspective important? 

Detailed statement of your research question(s): you should write questions that you can "ask" of your data.  What does the data show about. . .?  How does my participant describe. . .?  What language patterns occur when my participant talks about. . .?  What connections do I see between the way my participant talks about. . . and cultural stories/assumptions about. . .?  Where does my participant directly state here ideas about. . . ?  Where does s/he imply her ideas about . . .?  What does it mean that she is direct sometimes and indirect other times when she talks about. . .? And so on.

List of the information you need to gather: list any additional "data" you will need to complete your project (do you need to: do follow up interviews?  an observation?  look at some writing samples?  etc?)

A preliminary list of sources (if you need a research essay => let me know.  Send what you have found so far and give me a detailed idea of what you are looking for)

Discussion of any additional data you will need to collect + how you will collect it

For next class:
1.Send your research essay as an attachment to an email with your "grade" + recommendations for revision.
Blog 16 (see above).
Blog 17: Identify sections from your transcript that you might use to develop "answers" to the questions you set up in your research plan.

Next class will be a workshop where you spend some time analzying your data/developing support for the "points" you will make in your research essay.

I will do my best to review the short analysis essays before next class so you will have some feedback on how you are doing with analysis.