Chapter 7 Predictor Variables, The Future of Composition Research

This chapter starts out a bid radical, calling MLA format into question, and going straight to the need for research methods, stats training, and numbers to make the field of Composition more respected.


The MLA argument focused on the way MLA citations refer to a living document. That works with literature, but maybe not so much with research. The author uses the example of a research paper written in the 70's. Does the author of that paper still believe what she believed in the 70's? Citing in in MLA format suggests she does, suggests that her research is a current and living document. But in reality, that researcher may have changed her mind a dozen times since she wrote that report. Who knows?

The rest of the article talks about the lack of training for comp researchers. It looked a a variety of programs, and determined that methods and stats are not being taught, or used, or valued properly.
It ends by trying to convince readers of the importance of numbers and gives examples of how often they are useful in daily life. Sort of preaching to the choir the whole article, as far as I'm concerned.

Aside: It seems I annotated our first weeks' reading properly, but then annotated the second week's reading  "publicly", so you won't see my annotataions if you are logged in to the class and not the public sphere. So frustrating. I'll pay better attention next time. Sorry, guys.

Addison and McGee: Writing in High School / Writing in College

This article talks about the lack of expertise in student writing, the causes due to budget cuts in schools, and the large (and small) scale studies surrounding writing. They try to look at studies and trends in research and at writing across the curriculum (a recent buzz word).

The study the authors conducted was funded by the CCCC. They wrote a questionnaire and gave it to a wide range of respondents.  Not sure their sample size was enough to draw definitive conclusions, although none of the conclusions were surprising.

I will investigate the partnership between the WPA and the National Survey on Student Engagement (NSSE). It sounds like something interesting that I should be following; it's about helping students and faculty improve the undergraduate experience. I'm in! Their collaboration is called the Consortium for the Study of Writing in College.  As an aside, their website is rather ugly.

The National Commission on Writing published a study that found that poor writing skills keep workers from getting promoted. Did they not know that before the study? I didn't think that was a secret.

The ACT people sponsored a study that found that we need to improve writing studies K-12. Oh?

The NSSE did a survey and the 5 areas that were studies include:
Pre Writing
Clear Expectations
High Order Writing
Good Instructor Practices
Integrated Media
The study of these 5 areas confirm the  need for "quality writing experiences throughout the curriculum."

They also looked at genres in writing and what the students were assigned to write in college. It is debatable whether the learning is transferred from one genre to the next.

The differences in reporting on pages 158-159 between the faculty and students does not seem surprising. For example, I require more than one draft of a paper. Some students, however, turn the same exact draft in as a first draft and final draft. I wonder if that has anything to do with the discrepancy in reporting. What faculty require and what students actually do doesn't always align.

There was little surprise in the survey responses to how well students think they do and how well faculty rate them. Also, the part about grammar and mechanics being ranked better at a private Catholic girls' school than at an urban school--Who would have thought? :)

The article says professors tend to not assign workplace genres out of principle. I disagree.I think they don't assign them because they haven't worked in a workplace other than the university and aren't familiar with workplace genres. They've only read about them in books. It's the same reason I don't assign lab reports to my students, even though I know how relevant that genre is for them. I don't know how to write a "real-life" lab report.

As the authors look forward, they stress the following:
That colleges must pay attention to other forms of writing.
That NSSE and WPA collaboration should be a model for future research.
That we need to diversity types of writing assignments and foster transferrability.
That we don't necessarily need more research. We need to compile and analyse what we have and disseminate it.

Composing Research, Chapter 3

Reading Chapter 3 of Cindy Johanek’s  Composing Research: A Contextualist Paradigm for Rhetoric and Composition.   It's called “Numbers, Narratives, and He vs. She: Issues of Audience in Composition Research” on pages 56-86. Using hypothes.is to annotate. It looks like, except for Dr. Zamora's introductory post, that I am the first one there. 

So far, this reading makes me embarrassed for the researchers Johanek mentions. She talks about the fear of math and stats, and even says "our" referring to math anxiety. That's a perfect example of why NOT to use first person when writing. She is assuming too much about her readers, just because she assumes they are "composition" people. She implies that comp folks disparage, don't understand, or fear math, and then she goes further and quotes those who see it as unnecessary or as drudgery. Cringe worthy.  Seems people are angry when composition scholars use quantitative data at all. (Makes them feel stupid, insecure, maybe? So the answer is to get mad, dismiss, belittle, or complain?) Some researchers apologize for using data.  The author seems to want to address this as wrong, but isn't getting to the point very quickly.

It took me until "mode" to understand why Johanek was talking about bowling randomly in the text. She's explaining math terms like average, mode, and standard deviation. OMG.

Johanek says that some researchers acknowledged that their readers would not understand or would be fearful of the statistics in their report, but didn't offer any explanation. Is it their job to help their readers through math ignorance or anxiety? Steen calls these readers "innumerate." :) Should the authors also explain any words over three syllables to avoid alienating or angering readers who have less than adequate vocabularies?

And let's admit it: Words tell more lies than numbers do. (68) 

Shepherd's opinion on page 71 that science that doesn't include female opinion is like Nazism is ridiculous. Johanek is getting to the point that she disagrees with these wild pronouncements.

Sullivan is silly, too. She decides for me, because I am a female, what kind of research I must do. But what if I don't want to do it her way? Who is she to make rules for all? Johanek disagrees with her, too.

Storytelling. Words tell stories, and so do numbers. Both are valuable. "We should all become the best drivers we can, ready for any road" (83). She is being very careful about saying that the researchers and readers need to understand the numbers, too.

 

The author concludes by saying we need to include the feminist, understand math as a storytelling language, and accept the narrative. Well said.

Purdy and Walker's "Liminal Spaces and Research Identity"

It's always exciting to start reading one of these assignments and find that it's specifically about first year writing (FYW) in college. I'm probably the only one who gets psyched about this, but it's so relevant to my day-to-day, that I can't help but think this is awesome. This article talks about teaching research to first year students, which is exactly what I'm doing this semester, with a brand new syllabus.

I agree that students come into the course not as empty shells, but as people who already have varying degrees of research skills and expertise. We as FYW instructors have to meet them where they are and teach them to build upon the skills they already possess. We have to show them, also, that they do indeed have research skills. In my experience, most of them don't consider what they do online "research."

The article touches on the use of textbooks to guide undertrained grad students or adjuncts. I hear this type of jargon all the time. Yet, at both schools where I have taught English, it is a handful of tenured folks who do a poor job semester after semester but cannot be disposed of. Grad students and adjuncts must prove their worth every semester. Those who don't, don't get invited back. The distrust of grad students and adjuncts is misplaced. It is the tenured folks who make their own rules, attend no meetings or workshops, don't update their skills, and use the same outdated syllabus year in and year out that ruin the first year writing program. /end rant

I don't use a textbook in my class. If I did, I would use The Bedford Book of Genres published by Bedford/St. Martins. I have that book and sometimes refer to it to make my lesson plans. I don't have the students buy it.

Note to self: Check out these venues for undergraduates to publish:
-Young Scholars in Writing
-The Journal of Undergraduate Multimedia Projects (JUMP)

I agree that to tell students all research must start in the library is silly. First, it's not true, and second, it denies that they have research capabilities that they already use. Also, the stage, or linear model, is not accurate either. But how, then, do you teach a process? I had each student discuss their challenges and process in front of the class. For some students, the research process was almost linear. For others, it was recursive ad nauseum. We talked about the differences in the process for different students, and how each person ultimately got it "right" regardless of the "shape" of the process.

On pages 16 and 17 the authors make assumptions that I don't agree with. For example, when the Internet Detective writes that some web sources may be unreliable and that students should "wise up" to the web, I think that means to develop information literacy, while the authors think it means "students cannot be "wise" to the ways of the World Wide Web without replacing thieir existing practices." I think their interpretation is a stretch to support their own agenda. Further, the authors respond to Tenson by saying that she expects "students to leave behind rather than build on what they already know about navigating digital research spaces." In the text they referenced by Tenson, I did not get the impression that that was the message.

Positioning the library as the required starting place for academic work is both impractical and inaccurate

Exactly. The authors also point out that checklists, linear paths, and one-size-fits-all approaches to research don't work. Agreed.

Students are not considered as equals by the academy, and their reseach skills are not valued if they aren't those of the academy. They need to be valued as "knowledge-makers" instead of just learners. This would constitute a new identity. The discussion of "polluted and polluting" is interesting. "Narrow practices" don't allow students to think of themselves as researchers and squelch rather than encourage creativity.

The authors advocate studying students current research practices so we can create better teaching materials. Understanding student's existing skills will allow us to adapt our pedagogies to better serve students. We don't want them to abandon their skills, but rather to build upon them.