Looking ahead: Ideas for Upcoming Ethnographic Project

10/13/2020

Hello All. Just reminding you to check the syllabus for all of the changes to deadlines for the upcoming weeks. This is an asynchronous week. Remember that I reduced the reading substantially and am instead using this week to 1) help you manage the workload for the midterm portfolio and 2) to start to think about how you will complete the ethnography/case study.

OVERVIEW: In order to post, you'll need to read the material in the Bhattacharya to get an overview of what qualitative research looks like and what kind of qualitative research will work best for you. For a complete discussion of the project, check out the assignment page for this project--mostly remember that this is not a big assignment and you don't have a ton of time to complete it so you want to identify a manageable site and research question for the purposes of fulfilling this assignment.

WHAT TO POST: Please post your idea for the site of your qualitative research. Indicate who would be involved and how you would have/get access to the site and the writers you would be observing. Secondly, indicate what kind of qualitative research you would be doing (mini-ethnography, case study, auto-ethnography). If something in the Bhattacharya appeals to you in terms of conducting research for your project (interviews, surveys), and want to pitch that you are welcome to do so. Finally, make an attempt at a research question. A good research question is more than half the battle of a successful research project.

NOTE: Just saying, the last time I taught this class, a fair number of folks in the group expanded this project for their final project due at the end of the semester. So you might think about this as a first phase of a larger project. It might help you to focus your idea into something manageable for the short term but flexible in case you really like what you produce and want to go deeper.

10 Comments

Nicole Moscone

10/13/2020 03:39:26 pm

I am interested in conducting a case study of one of my classes at Rogers Middle School in Rockland. The participants would include 8 students, both male and female, who are all placed in my lowest level reading class. To conduct this case study I will observe the participants for an entire class period in which they are revising their rough drafts and producing their final drafts. My research question is what are students’ attitudes towards writing and how does it affect their writing? I will observe their behavior/body language as they write, the questions they ask me throughout the writing process, the struggles they seem to have, and etc. I will also give students a questionnaire to acquire more information about their attitudes towards writing and their perception of themselves as a writer. I will use these observations, their questionnaires, and their essays to reflect upon how their attitudes affect their writing. Further, I could use the information gained to make implications about how teachers can help students form positive attitudes towards writing.

Katelyn Fitzsimmons

10/14/2020 05:31:04 am

I will be conducting a case study of my freshman English class at Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational Technical High School in New Bedford, MA. My class consists of 21 students who are in an independent level English class. I will observe the revision process of a two paragraph writing prompt: What makes someone a hero? I am basing my research around the question, how does teacher feedback influence writing? I also hope to issue student surveys on the effectiveness of teacher feedback on their writing process to further investigate this question. From this case study, I hope to explore the effectiveness of teacher feedback and how it influences the student writing process.

Andrea Hicks

10/14/2020 06:25:40 am

I am considering conducting a case study related to teacher feedback given to student writing. I would collect writing samples from a group of students (number TBD) and give feedback that contained mostly positive comments with a couple of very specific critical and constructive comments. The students would revise their work based on my feedback. For another writing sample done by the same group, I would give feedback that is mostly critical with specific positive comments. To compare, I would use the same rubric to evaluate the final piece of writing. I will also be conducting reflection interviews with students regarding both “sessions” in order to see how they felt about where their writing started and their final product. The question that I am trying to answer is: What is the most effective kind of feedback for middle school students? We will have to look at the writing itself and the interviews in order to acknowledge both the quality of writing and the student engagement.

Clare Nee

10/14/2020 08:21:39 am

My idea for my qualitative research is to observe undergraduate writing students working with Dr. Torda’s fellow for guidance, assistance, and developmental strategies to make them better writers. Although we are in the early stages of planning, I think that it could be interesting to attend 2-3 different sessions with different students. I would be doing more of a case study ethnography, because I want to use interviews with both the students and the fellow to get a more rounded perspective of the function of these interpersonal, one-on-one sessions and the ways that it improves the students as writers (rather than merely their writing, as Stephen North states). I’m also interested in learning their perspectives on how remote learning has impacted their sessions and if it has helped or hurt the process of writing. Since I will be conducting interviews, I don’t think that it is necessary to additionally offer a survey. I think that the interviews, for my idea anyways, are more helpful because it is more personal and individualized to each person’s experience and perception of such. The questions that I am looking to explore are: How does remote learning impact the writing process, are remote sessions as effective as in person sessions, and how do student-to-student writing sessions improve writing beyond the potential growth that the classroom offers alone?

Maeve McDonagh

10/14/2020 01:14:11 pm

For my ethnography project, I am planning on observing a couple of sessions at a writing center between a peer tutor and different students seeking help at the center. I have reached out to the director of the writing studio at Bridgewater State to set up a way for me to observe some of these sessions. I would like to observe the interaction between the peer tutor and student to see how receptive the student is to what the tutor is saying and what methods the tutor uses to address the student writing in a way they will be responsive to. After the observation I would like to give each student a questionnaire asking how helpful they felt the session was and what they took away from the session either in terms of revision strategies or strategies for future writing. I would also want to interview the tutor to see what strategies they felt that they used in the sessions. I would use this data to answer the question: how can peer tutors most effectively address student writing? In other words, what are the most effective methods to not overwhelm or discourage the student writer while also helping them improve their writing?

Diana Cross

10/14/2020 03:57:40 pm

I’m also considering conducting a case study with my ELL students although the number of students that I’ll observe is still TBD but likely somewhere between 4-10 students.
I’m having trouble deciding between two research ideas.
I think it’ll be important to survey my students to obtain honest feedback and perspectives about their feelings towards composition for either research question.

One question I’m considering researching further, is, “How does writing anxiety shape a student’s writing performance. How is the student’s “product” impacted by anxiety-provoking factors such as preparation, time, vague directions. I could survey students initially to get a better understanding of the individual student’s feelings towards writing.

To do this research, I could give students two short writing prompts. One prompt could be made to sound like it was a “higher stakes” writing sample, timed, with vague directions and little or no help. The other prompt could be previewed with a “lower stakes” presentation where students have ample time and directions are clear with support.
Timed exams such as MCAS do not truly measure a student’s writing ability. I want to demonstrate this on a small scale. Afterwards, I could compare writing samples and ask for student feedback.

Another research question that I’m thinking of asking is inspired by Clark’s discussion in Chapter 5 Assessing Writing, does designing a student-centered writing assessment improve student learning and writing overall? For example, Clark discusses framing an assessment or writing task to let students know the purpose and rhetorical situation of the writing assignment. She also suggests asking students to write an “instructor note”. Although designed for older students, I’m wondering how these techniques may improve overall writing performance?

To do this, I’m planning to have a short prompt, likely a personal narrative. I’d like some of my struggling students to receive the student-centered approach, and other advanced students to receive vague instructions. I want to measure their feelings after by giving them a survey and to see if I can make any correlations to the instructions and writing performance.

Erin Slayton

10/14/2020 05:34:58 pm

I will be conducting my case study on my coworkers’ 11th grade AP Language class. The students will be discussing rhetorical strategies, using ads as visual rhetoric. My coworker plans to model an example to do as a class, and then students will be working to analyze self-selected texts. I do not yet know if the advertisements will be video or pictures, so this will add an interesting dynamic to the observations.

The research questions I am interested in pursuing are as follows: 1. What critical analysis strategies do students use to deconstruct visual texts? 2. How does student choice influence participation?

I plan to observe the class and take note of how students write about visual texts and I am curious to see what kind of things they observe. I am interested to in recording the audio of the class, and work from what Bhattacharya refers to as the “constructionist” approach, transcribing reflections that construct meaning based on my interactions in the class. I’d like to use student work as “archived materials” and perhaps reflect on my observation though a phenomenological point of view, as I’m interested in more than just how these students interpret and read the class advertisements, but rather, on a larger scale, how we as humans decode visual texts and explore what skills it takes to practice critical visual literacy. In regards to observing how student choice influences participation, I plan to follow up with a student survey to see if the opportunity to bring in their own texts helped inspire participation in the activity.

Kyle Rego

10/14/2020 06:52:36 pm

As I was reading Bhattacharya this week in preparation for this post I found myself interested in a few different methods of qualitative research at the same time. I thought it might be a cool idea to blend autoethnography, interview study, and narrative inquiry. I will write a narrative about my experiences with my “Academic Level English 12 -- British LIterature.” I have long believed that the curriculum at the heart of this class is foolishly misguided and inappropriate for the student population who represent its audience. In the Bridgewater-Raynham Regional School District, the level of “Academic” is comparable to “College Prep B” at other schools (or it was when I took those classes at Mansfield High School in the early 2000s). This is the “lowest” of three levels of 12 grade English--Accelerated, and AP being the levels above it. Many, if not most, of the students I work with in sections of these classes are reluctant readers and writers yet the curriculum for the class is something that would keep Dr. McClintock and Dr. Crowley busy for hours--in fact it keeps them employed. It is cumbersome and difficult and I believe that it gives the students the wrong impression about the value of English as a field of study. That sounds grave, and perhaps--as usual--I’m speaking in hyperbole. Yet I’m not the only person with these complaints. All the teachers in my department that teach the class I’m speaking about have said the same things for years. My main question is: WHY AREN’T WE DOING SOMeTHING ABOUT IT? I would like to use this qualitative research in order to suggest that a change must be made through a cultivated collection of narrations of my experiences teaching and the experiences of my students taking the class. More seriously though, my research question might look something like: Does the study of British Literature at the “Academic” level help students feel prepared to write at the college level? What does the study of British Literature offer to students who do not plan to attend college after high school? Those need work. My idea needs work. I feel like I have the seed of an idea, but it needs some attention and development.

Carl Olson

10/14/2020 07:18:11 pm

For my ethnography project, I plan to observe remote tutoring sessions at a community college writing center. I would observe 4-8 different sessions in order to get a wide enough sample. The participants would include peer and professional tutors as well as students. These students may be coming to the writing center for help with a variety of different writing assignments from multiple different courses, such as English Composition I or II, Preparing for College Reading, a literature course, or a writing across the curriculum course such as psychology or the sciences. These students also come from a diverse array of backgrounds, identities, and levels of English language acquisition. My guiding research questions are: How effective is tutor writing assessment over remote video conference? What difficulties or challenges arise when assessing writing in this online environment compared to face-to-face? What ways do tutors have to adapt their assessment practices in this online environment? I will keep a journal in which I will write my observations of these sessions. After the observations, I plan to interview the tutors to get their perspective and understanding. I hope to use this ethnography as a means to explore the ways tutors’ assessment of writing change in this environment.

Kimberly Wynn

10/20/2020 09:28:29 pm

For this assignment, I am interested in conducting an auto-ethnography with one of my 9th grade Honors level classes. The class I plan to use in my research includes a total of fifteen students who are a mix of hybrid (in person & remote) and fully remote students. My students for this class are in the process of writing a multiparagraph essay for our Short Story Unit, which includes several process steps, with the prompt specifically focusing on exploring how literary devices are employed in “A White Heron” to convey a central message to the readers. Because we are all learning how to best navigate and survive the challenges of effectively teaching writing in our current climate, I am interested in exploring following ideas in my research:
1) How does student choice/flexibility in the process steps impact the quality of the final “product” in the hybrid/remote model? (In other words, do students appear to need more rigidity or flexibility in the process steps? Why/Why not?)
2) How does teacher feedback impact students’ attitudes/confidence in regard to writing? What does teacher feedback look like in this climate? (In other words, what does effective teacher feedback look like for each step of the process and how does it impact students’ writing anxiety?)

I plan to give my students a brief reflection of the writing process during hybrid/remote learning, which will focus specifically on identifying what they find challenging, what they find comfortable, and how they use teacher feedback (what is helpful/not helpful).

My ideas are still evolving and my research questions are not completely set in stone, but what I have explained here in this post is, at this point, what I envision for this assignment.

Looking ahead: Ideas for Upcoming Ethnographic Project

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