English 703

English 703, Spring 2005

RESEARCH METHODS IN COMPOSITION & RHETORIC

University of Wisconsin-Madison

INSTRUCTOR: David Fleming

CLASS MEETINGS: R 1:00 - 3:30, 7105 H. C. White Hall

CLASS EMAIL LIST: english-703@lists.students.wisc.edu

OFFICE: 6187D H. C. White Hall

OFFICE HOURS: W 1:00 - 2:30; F 11:00 - 12:00; & gladly by appt.

PHONE: 263-3367 (o)

EMAIL: jdfleming@wisc.edu

1. DESCRIPTION.

English 703 is an introduction to research methods in composition and rhetoric and is intended to help graduate students in this and related fields become more comfortable with the ways knowledge about writing and writing instruction is produced. The course is organized around a small number of big questions – who writes? how do they do it? what is the nature of the texts they produce? how effective is our teaching of writing? what stories can we tell about writing and writing instruction? what are the contexts for writing and learning to write in our world? – on the belief that research usually begins not with method but with uncertainty, doubt, dissatisfaction, and curiosity. Methods follow from and are secondary to the questions we ask and the goals we have for answering them. Starting from those questions, we'll work our way through several self-contained research projects, most of them collaborative, each ending in a short paper or presentation. We'll be ecumenical in our approach not only to questions but to methods and methodologies as well. We'll also be reflective about the ethical and epistemological problems involved in doing research. And we'll try to resist the tyranny of the dissertation – that will always be on the horizon for us, but I want to see "research" here in broader terms, as something that covers all kinds of inquiry, including teacher and action research and program assessment. I also hope to make connections between the kinds of research we do and the kinds we ask our students to do. An undeniable point of reference for us will be English 100, or first-year composition, but the course should be relevant to a variety of concerns and goals.

back to top

2. ASSIGNMENTS.

Expectations for reading and discussion will be high. Please come to every class meeting with good questions and comments about the day's readings and respond thoughtfully to the questions and comments of others.

Each unit of the course will involve a project; some of these will be conducted in pairs or small groups; some will be undertaken individually; at least one will be conducted by the whole class together. Each project will culminate in an oral and/or written presentation of approximately 5 pages or 10 minutes long each.

Project 1: Writers and Writing in the Early 21st Century. The first project will be a case study of a writer writing. Our primary methods will be interviewing, process tracing, observation, description, and analysis.
Project 2: Features of Student Writing in English 100. The second project will be an empirical analysis of a corpus of written texts. Our primary method here will be (critical) discourse (text, linguistic) analysis.
Project 3: Assessing the Effectiveness of English 100. The third project will be an empirical study of some aspect of teaching practice. Our primary methods here will be the survey, focus groups, and/or experiment.
Project 4: English 101 & 102 at UW-Madison, 1967-1971. The fourth project will be a historical study of some aspect of the teaching of writing here at UW-Madison. Our primary methods will be archival research and oral history.
Project 5: Mapping Madison's Discourse Spaces. The fifth project will be an ethnographic study of writing in our community. Our primary methods will be participant observation, interviewing, mapping, and document collection.

Details about these projects and their final products will be negotiated as we proceed.

back to top

3. HUMAN SUBJECTS.

Any research involving human subjects must follow strict federal and university ethical guidelines. Every student in English 703 must, at a minimum, read the information on the first two websites below and complete the tutorial on the third within the first three weeks of the course.

For general information about Human Subjects Protection from the UW-Madison Graduate School, click here.

For specific guidelines about human subjects research, go to the websites of the Social and Behavioral Science IRB (Institutional Review Board) or the Education Research IRB.

For UW-Madison’s Human Subjects Protection Tutorial, click here.

For guidelines and policies concerning student research at UW-Madison, click here.

For CCCC's Guidelines for the Ethical Conduct of Research in Composition Studies, click here.

For the Nuremburg Code, click here.

For the Belmont Report, click here.

For the federal Common Rule, click here.

back to top

4. TEXTS.

Readings in the class will come from the following texts, all available for purchase at University Book Store on State Street.

Johanek, Cindy. Composing Research: A Contextualist Paradigm for Rhetoric and Composition. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 2000. 0-87421-292-8. $21.95 paper. [J]
Kirsch, Gesa, and Patricia A. Sullivan, eds. Methods and Methodology in Composition Research. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992. 0-8093-1727-3. $26.00 paper. [KS]
Mortensen, Peter, & Gesa Kirsch, eds. Ethics and Representation in Qualitative Studies of Literacy. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), 1996. 0-8141-1596-9. $30.00 paper. [MK]

In addition, there is a required coursepack [CP] for sale at Bob's Copy Shop, 37 University Square (257-4536), for $30.00. A listing of the articles and chapters in the coursepack can be found by clicking here.

back to top

5. CALENDAR.

January	20	Th	FIRST DAY Introduction to course
			Emig [CP]

			Unit I: Who writes and how do they do it?
	27	Th	case studies interviews and process tracing
			Herrington & Curtis [CP]; MacNealy [CP]; deMarrais [CP]; Prior [CP]; Mortensen [KS]
February	03	Th	on story-telling and generalizing
			Kramp [CP]; Newkirk [KS]; Firestone [CP]
	10	Th	the ethics of research
			Anderson [MK]; Newkirk [MK]; Brueggemann [MK]; Williams [MK]

			Unit II: What is the nature of the texts they produce?
	17	Th	linguistic / text / discourse analysis
			Witte & Faigley [CP]; Barton [CP]; Huckin [KS]
	24	Th	critical discourse analysis; on coding & theorizing
			Powell [CP]; Grant-Davie [KS]; Miller [KS]
March	03	Th	positioning ourselves and others
			Harding [CP]; Sullivan [KS]; Ede [KS]; Mountford [MK]

			Unit III: How effective is our teaching of writing?
	10	Th	focus groups & surveys
			Palmquist [CP]; Kleiber [CP]; MacNealy [CP]; Charney [CP]
	17	Th	empirical research
			Johanek [J]

	24	Th	SPRING BREAK

			Unit IV: What stories can we tell about writing & writing instruction?
	31	Th	historical research: archives
			Connors [KS]; Brereton [CP]; Paine [CP]
April	07	Th	positioning ourselves in historical research
			Royster [CP]

			Unit V: What are the contexts for writing and learning to write in our world?
	14	Th	ethnography
			Cintron [CP]; Athanases [CP]
	21	Th	ethnography continued
			Moss [KS]; Sullivan [MK]
	28	Th	multi-method and teacher research
			Kirsch [KS]; Ray [KS]; Mahiri [MK]; Ray [MK]
May	05	Th	LAST DAY