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August 28, 2006
on writing centers & conference-conversations
i need better resources. i brought these home from the library:
Briggs, Lynn & Meg Woolbright, Eds. Stories from the Center: Connecting Narrative and Theory in the Writing Center. Urbana, IL: NCTE. 2000.
Grimm, Nancy Maloney. Good Intentions: Writing Center Work for Postmodern Times. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton Cook P. 1999.
Sperling, Melanie. "I Want to Talk to Each of You: Collaboration and the Teacher-Student Writing Conference." Research in the Teaching of English. 24: 3 (Oct. 1990). 279-321.
i was hoping for something pedagogical, methodological, about talking to students about their words-on-pages in ways that don't pre-determine everything for them so that you're really only hearing yourself echoed back. i didn't find it.
a few minutely-useful gems:
sperling
terms from her abstract: this is a "descriptive quantitative discourse analysis of conference talk across students and descriptive qualitative case study analysis within students" (279); in more words "analysis is thus in two parts: (a) a descriptive quantitative analysis, across cases, of teacher-student writing conferences for the six focal students, based on their conference transcripts, and (b) descriptive case studies within the six individual students across time, informed by all data sources" (290)--picking the 2 for the latter was based on maximum contrast.
interviewing w/o influencing is impossible: much of the purpose of this study is to show "how, participating in the explicit dialogue of teacher-student conversation, students collaborate in the often implicit act of acquiring and developing written language" (282).
how not to write this disclaimer? "while, as case study students from a descriptive study, they do not 'represent' a larger population of students, they make up a fair microcosm of the variety of students in this ninth-grade english course" (285).
coding/classifying: "i studied the conferences for content as well as for structure as both...had functional relevance. in identifying discourse categories...i was guided by the work of campbell (1986), green & wallat (1981), gumperz (1982), mehan (1979) and wells (1981)" (290)--> but as a loose basis, not a determining guide. "i designated each conversational turn as either (a) request, (b) compliance, (c) offer, (d) acceptance, (e) question, (f) answer" (293)
teacher she observed met w/students having already commented in writing on their first drafts & was bringing those comments to them at the meeting(?); then "using his comments as a springboard" he'd initiate conversations by asking questions (307).
grimm
reminder: the culture of the academy is a culture. indoctrinating others into it--or studying the failures of their indoctrination--is still indoctrination.
to one of her students, "because he was born into the dominant culture, he has been rewarded for understanding and following the dominant expectations. and because his white middle-class background is congruent with the cultural milieu of school, he is able to discern what is expected in terms of topic development and structure. to him, school has been fair, and it seems intuitively obvious that one would follow directions and do what the teacher requires. to him, truth lies in the details of the assignment sheet" (101) <--& if we assume this is blanket-true, we lose touch completely w/reality.
Posted by ttobryan at August 28, 2006 02:14 PM