DA post for 11.21.13

Discourse Analysis

Blog post for 11.21.13

 Hutchby and Wooffitt – Chapters 8-9

            At this point in the semester, everything I read is filtered through my lens of data analysis and what is relevant for that project.  Because of that, Chapters 8 and 9 were particularly helpful.  The section on Children’s talk connects to my work in Reading Recovery.   On page 194, H and W state, “… two types of research can be identified.  One type prioritizes the development of linguistic skills that children acquire on the way to becoming competent members of the surrounding adult language culture.  Much of this research draws on the empirical findings of developmental psychology.  The second type prioritizes the linguistic competence that children possess and manifest as part of their membership of the indigenous language cultures of childhood, which can be more or less independent of adults”.  I think in Reading Recovery, we think about the first more than the second, though there is attention given to the second.  In most of our students, we deal with the difference between the language the kid uses orally and independently and what “book language” and “school language” require of them.  Many of the students we serve are very far away in their use of sentence structure from book talk.  This is true whether the kid speaks a language other than English primarily, or if the student is from the mountains and speaks like parents, grandparents, cousins etc. who use very different types of phrases and words.  For both students, learning the literate language is a challenge and one that takes time to develop.   On 195, the authors reference a “developmental” framework that students pass through as they become more competent users of language.  In RR, we use a book/tool called Biks and Gutches – it offers several different diagnostic instruments to assess a student’s language competence.  The student is asked to repeat back a number of sentences that are said orally by the test administrator.  It is interesting to see what the child retains and what they omit from the provided sentence.  The child’s performance of the task helps teachers to select books.  For example, if the child consistently omits “is” - as in the sentence ‘Mom is driving’ and says only ‘Mom driving” (which is very common of inexperienced readers/language users) then a teacher may not select books with ‘is’ or she will know that this structure will take more effort for the child because it is not a part of their language structure.  This type of instrument assumes a developmental framework and encourages teachers to instruct just beyond a child’s independent competence.   

            On 197, the authors talk about the various environments that seek to “ensure changes in behavior by the child, or to manage and regulate children’s behavior” – this is definitely true in RR, where we are trying to change the rate of literacy acceleration of a child identified as at risk in terms of their literacy learning.  My entire interaction on the video that I am analyzing has as its goal to change J’s way of being literate.  This section made me think too of earlier discussions we have had about why educators are so concerned with change.  It is what we are supposed to do as teachers, so I think it is hard to let go of when we become researchers.

            P. 202 was especially relevant to my data analysis.  In this section, the authors are talking about repair instances of a speech impaired individual and a therapist.  This made me think of my video where the student I work with repairs his speech numerous times – there are several instances when he starts one way and then changes courses, or when he tries to find the appropriate label – “easy” (not hard) or “Grandfather” or “letters” or to ask a question about bold print.    I also take some time to figure out what speech sounds he can make “s” “O/W”.  I do this for instructional purposes which are known to me because I was the teacher in the video, sot it is hard to talk about these without referencing my rationale!   On page 205 the authors talk about how there may be implications from looking at speech difficulties and interactions around them to think about how they might be resolved or accommodated in family interactions.  The lesson framework in RR is designed to be an ongoing conversation between teacher and child as they negotiate various literacy tasks.

            I am continuing to think about Questioning in my data – I ask a lot of questions on the video.  J asks some questions.  With my questions, I know what I was after – so again, that makes it difficult to analyze without including my rationale.  But, I could examine the question and look at what happens next (next turn proof) to see how J takes it up.  If I say a question served as a prompt that called him to do something, then the accuracy of my analysis can be seen through how he actually deals with the question.  I do agree that I ask more questions than he does and that I am highly directive in my interactions – but, I am charged with teaching the child to read and within a relatively short amount of time.  Every time we read about teachers and their questioning, it seems like it is in a negative light, when it is actually what we are supposed to do (I think)…

            One of the features of the transcript that I am really interested in thinking about is how Jake uses ‘Let’s see”.  He says it a number of times in our lesson and it seems like it buys him some time to problem solve, or he is pausing, or he is backing me off a little or letting me know he is problem solving.  Over and over in the interaction, I praise him for thinking, so maybe he is letting me know he is thinking with his “Let’s see”.  Not sure yet, but am thinking about it.

Chapter 7 in H and W and Eight Challenges for Interview Researchers – Potter and Hepburn

            Both Chapter 7 and the article on interviews made a lot of the same points.  We read the article in Advanced Qual, so it was a nice refresher about the things that are often taken for granted in interview data – the biggest assumption being that people actually say what they think – that there is a definite link between the two. 

            I like how the chapter discussed the 3 different types of interviews and the shortcomings/strengths of each from a DA/CA point of view.  It sounds so ridiculous for an interviewer to ask questions in the same order, in the same way, without regard for what the person being interviewed is saying.  This made me think of scripted reading programs that are delivered “onto” the children with no regard for how the child is responding.

Discourse Analysis Means Doing Analysis: A Critique of Six Analytic Shortcomings – Antaki, Billing, Edwards, and Potter

            As I read this article, I was thinking about the articles I had read for my lit review.  I saw several of the shortcomings that were discussed within my articles.  The article on Coaching Discourse really did very little true investigation of coaching discourse.  The author quantified the “dominance” of the coaches by looking at how many turns a coach took.  Also, the author summarized the findings and talked about groups of issues that came up – roles and responsibilities, being the expert, and standardized testing.  This is the kind of summarizing that the authors of DA means Doing Analysis were talking about – it reduces the complexity of the actual language of the coaches and simplifies the participants’ words.   

            I find that when I am struggling to understand something, I will over quote – in time, as I write more and reflect more, I am able to explain the quotes or tie them into the context…but, an initial step for me is to include the quotes and ponder what they mean or what I want to say about them.  I thought it was interesting that over quoting was mentioned in this article.  I think of it as a step along the way to analysis.

            I really liked how the authors included the entire transcript and then went back to it when discussing the various critiques - an interesting way to demonstrate their points.

            Number 4 – The Circular Discovery of (a) Discourses and (b) Mental Constructs, made me think about what I would like to do with my data when J continually says “Let’s see”.  I would compile all of the quotations and then look at the contexts in which the phrase is used as a “discursive resource” – what is J doing when he says “Let’s see”?  What do I do when J says “Let’s see”? – do they have something in common?  Is there a pattern in when he consistently says, Let’s see?

            I liked this quote and want to include it somewhere in my paper… “Original analysis should seek to show how established discursive devices are used, in new sets of material, to manage the speakers’ interactional business.  What is required is to show what the feature does, how it is used, what it is used to do, how it is handled sequentially and rhetorically, and so on”  and “Good analysis always moves convincingly back and forth between the general and the specific.”

 The Generalizability of Discursive Research – Goodman

            Great points made in this article too – I liked how he talked about telephone answering behavior as following a set pattern and the work on invoking applause – there are certain features of language and conversation that are generalizable.  I heard on the radio the other day – it may have been NPR, that the utterance “huh” sounds the same and means the same thing in most languages – confusion, “what?” – I thought that was fascinating.  I thought of this as I was reading this article.   Article also gave a nice reminder about the idea of transferability.  I think we have talked about the idea of “vertical generalization” – which is about theoretical transferability across context – but I have never heard that term.  Have we discussed it before and I just blipped out?

            Nice reminder too about DAM and that in DP the focus is on action and not cognition…”social action refers to the interactional accomplishment that a piece of discourse brings about” – this also made me think about the “Let’s see”.

            The section about “existing prejudice to justify further prejudice” blew me away.  I had a very similar conversation with someone recently who as a gay parent said they would never encourage another gay person to be a parent.  I was speechless in the conversation (astounded at the internal homophobia) and it was like alarm bells went off in my head when I read this.  I was shocked at the discourse and didn’t know how to respond!    That was a personal response, but it was still very meaningful and helpful as I sort through what happened in that interaction!

Course Reflections

Of all the classes I have taken in my Doctoral Program, this one has been the most challenging and the most enjoyable.  The conversations and discussions in class were really good – very much in the spirit of a “seminar”.  The challenge and the enjoyment of this class have been one in the same.  The readings were challenging simply due to volume – there was so much, and building the time into my schedule to complete them all thoughtfully and blog about them well was tough.  At the same time, the readings held my interested and seemed to be well placed as I was doing my analysis or writing my lit review – there was much just in time learning for me as far as the reading go.  Some of the readings were incredibly dense!  I would read and reread and write about the reading, and still would not have a clue.  For these readings, the class discussion and your debriefing were particularly helpful.    The assignments were few but intense.  Doing the lit review of articles in my field was eye opening.  So many of them say they are doing DA, but really aren’t.  This was part of my critique, but would have been even more part of my critique had I read the Antaki article before I read the critique.   Conducting the lit review allowed me to think about how my potential study would fit, and how there truly is a gap in the literature.  The analysis is slow going – I am still working on it!  The class debriefings about the various discursive resources was helpful, as was the ongoing list that was kept to remind us of what we had read about and how we might apply it in our study.   But, the analysis is huge and even with all the instruction around it, I still find myself wondering if I am “doing it” right or approaching it in the right way.   It was helpful in class to hear that our attempt is but one attempt and there are several aspects of the discourse that might be interesting or relevant to a researcher.   I enjoyed the data sessions and got as much out of helping others with their data as I did with working with my own data – maybe even more because I wasn’t clouded by my own perceptions of my interactive data.  I wonder if it might be possible to include even more time in data analysis.  Not sure how this would be possible given the time constraints of the semester, but it would be helpful.  Perhaps this is what DART is for…

Atlas.ti – wow.  I think about where I was almost a year ago with Atlas, and the phrase “You’ve come a long way, baby” comes to mind.  I remember purchasing ATLAS and thinking “What in the world?” when I opened it up for the first time.   Now, I feel really comfortable with Atlas and look forward to using it for my comps and my prospectus and my dissertation work. I even felt comfortable enough to show my classmates how I used Atlas to code my lit review.  I remember seeing my Advanced Qual classmates using Atlas for a lit review and having no idea where to begin.   I am really thankful that I was able to learn about Atlas over the course of a year (Advanced Qual, Digital Tools, Discursive Psychology, and now in DA).  With each project I grew more competent and felt confident to use Atlas in ways that worked for me.   I do wonder what it would have been like to do a Digital Tools course and focus exclusively on Atlas ti – the entire class.  I know I could have used my DT projects to do this, but there were so many other things I wanted to think about and learn about. 

 I think that being forced to use Atlas was a good thing – we were gently forced though – many times it was stated that if it became too much we could let it go, but we were highly encouraged to keep at it.  I am glad I did.  I feel like I have a tool that will be really useful to me in the future with other projects.  I also find myself talking with professors about Atlas – my chair and I have been working on a project together, and I uploaded all of our readings into Atlas.  When we had our first discussion, I had coded all of the readings and could quickly reference a quote or a memo to elaborate on our conversation.  I think she was pretty amazed at the tool and she could see how the program wasn’t ‘coding’ anything for me – this was an assumption she came to the table with, and actually seeing Atlas in use showed her that it simply was not coding the data for me.  Another professor actually began to use Atlas because I was using it in my Advanced Qual class for a project we were working on together.  She went to an IT workshop to learn more, and attended an info session that you conducted.    I have had a really good experience with Atlas ti. and am really glad that I can use it well right now – I think it will be tremendously helpful with my upcoming projects and especially my dissertation.

 Thanks!  I am not sure what I will do next semester without a Paulus class…haven’t had that since my first semester of my program, and then I didn’t know what I was missing!

11.6.13 Blog Post

11.6.13  Blog Post

 

Workshops

            I think you asked us to blog about how this is going for us.  I forgot to include it for last week, so will combine them both.  When Hollie presented, it was wide open – which I think was good for all of us.  We had the time to look in an “unmotivated” way and discuss what we were, seeing, what we thought was interesting etc.  We talked a lot about questioning and the point it served, and we talked a great deal about the student’s response/or lack thereof…which has made me think about my data, I will get there in a bit.

            I was absolutely fascinated by Emily’s data.  Students from TSD were videotaped having a book discussion.  Emily had transcribed all of the signing that took place in the discussion.  The video was of little use (so we thought) to Hollie and I, as we don’t know how to sign.  We poured over the transcript together and talked to Emily about what we were noticing – how different students took the floor, how much wait time there seemed to be between turns etc.   Then, we all started to watch the video.  I was blown away.  I have never thought about how much gesture and eye contact matters within the deaf community (sounds ridiculous, I know).  There was one section where a student was talking (signing) and the girl to her right was paying no attention at all.  Not looking at her, not turned toward her etc.  She was missing all the signs.   I thought about how that is so different from a “hearing” high school class.  You don’t have to look like you are paying attention (turned toward the speaker, making eye contact) to be taking something away from the conversation.  So different in the deaf community.  I wondered about including more about gestures etc. in Emily’s work. 

            Both of these data sessions have given me insight into my own work.  I have read the transcript and watched the video of my little guy and me.  I noticed that I ask a lot of questions – some of them are rhetorical, some really mean..do this, and some are genuine in the sense that I don’t know the answer and I need him to tell me.  It might be interesting to look at the questions I ask and the purpose they serve.   I also notice that he asks me lots of questions – “How I did?” to get me to assess his reading, “What dat mean?” when he noticed bold print at the end of a line, and “How dat go?” when he can’t remember a particular language structure.

            From Emily’s data, I have thought more about gestures. The little guy in the video has difficulty with his speech.  He is very hard to understand sometimes.  I can see his frustration at times, and his confusion about things through his expressions.  I can also see how much we smile, or laugh or appear generally positive with one another through our body language. I wonder how to include that kind of information because so much of the info is inferential. I haven’t recorded a great deal of gesture in my transcript and wonder if I should.

 

 

 

Since you shared these articles with us  in DP, I have been wondering about what kind of on-line or textual data I could analyze with Reading Recovery.  Next year, I will have a training group of Teacher Leaders, and I remember as a TL having to write reflections about my work with students to my trainer.   These are similar to the portfolio reflections I read about in one of my lit review articles.  The researcher looked at graduate students who were teaching for the first time and saw how they changed over the course of a year.  I could do this sort of thing with RR reflections from teacher leaders.  Might be very interesting.

 

The article about the undergraduate students made me think about my students in REED 430 who write reflections on the readings they do each week.  Though they are allowed to write about whatever they notice, whatever they have questions about, whatever they think is interesting, I find that they write summaries.  For many of them, they do not escape this and write summaries the whole semester.  For others, they let go as our time together progresses and we just communicate about the material with one another. I find that their responses get more authentic as the semester progresses and as they let go of the “right” way to do a reading response.   I would like to look at the responses I have gathered over the 3 semesters I have taught.  I wonder what is going on in those exchanges!  

 

Looking forward to class tomorrow night and getting some feedback on my data.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gee Units 3 and 4

10/30/13


I really liked the Theoretical Tools in Unit 4.  Of course, they made me think of my Reading Recovery group.  Especially when he talked about intertextuality.  When I think back to my pilot project, where I talked with Reading Recovery Teacher Leaders about their experiences of PD and I observed PD sessions, there were so many references to Clay's text or to common experiences we had all had together.  Because I had once been affiliated with that group, I had the insider perspective and could understand the text references.  Had someone else been doing a similar study on this same group, many of those references would have been lost.

The Big D discourses are also part of the RR group.  There are certain ways we use language and certain ways we think together that only happen in that group.  I don't use the same kind of language in any other context - even when it is other teachers and we are doing a PD kind of thing.  What our regional RR group has created together is really unique - specific to all of us that have worked together over the years to construct it.  It is interesting to go to reading conferences and meet other Reading Recovery Teacher Leader groups.  Though we use the same common text and have similar training requirements etc., we are REALLY different in how we talk and engage and what we place more emphasis on in how we work with kids and teachers.  I think that is pretty fascinating.

Early in the reading, I can't remember where exactly....I remember thinking about context and knowing that it DOES matter.  There are certain people who have been mentors to me through the years - and I actually think differently in their presence.  I can feel a shift, and I am on some higher plane with them, because of them.  One was a grad student I worked with when I was an undergrad.  Her name was Jean Hunt, and she got her PhD in the Psychology department years ago.  We would have these really interesting conversations, and I would never know what we were going to talk about.  She was brilliant and I think that my thinking was changed just when I was around her.  Another was my former title 1 director, Denise Wilburn (she wrote the Mismeasure of Education book with Jim Horn) - same thing happened with her.  I thought differently in her presence.   And now, with Sue Duncan, a co-worker of mine at GSU.  So, I think that context does matter, but how do you talk about it, how do you even address it?   I can't explain why it happens (the thinking shift) I just know that it does.

I liked GEE better this time.  Maybe it was the theoretical tools?  I also do really like his examples and the questions after.  It would be interesting to talk to people in class about some of those passages (if we had time).  Would be interesting to hear people and their different takes on things.

10.24.13 DA - Gee Units 1 and 2

10.24.13 Gee Units 1 and 2


Gee irritates me, though I am not sure why.   I find myself questioning everything he is saying.  Is it because you don't like Gee?  Is it because others go on and on and on about how wonderful Gee is?  I get like this about books and sports teams. I don't want to read you or cheer for you when people tell me I should.  I don't know....

On page 3, I disagreed.  He is talking about incorrect verb usage - when children are using a "rule" and overgeneralizing.  He states - "Whey they say things like "go-ed" instead of "went", they often do not pay attention to correction even if they get it from adults."  In these kinds of situations, what tends to happen is that the adult naturally supplies the correct very form, but doesn't correct. 

Child - "Daddy goed to the store?"
Adult - "Yes, Daddy went to the store"

Over time, the child begins to use the "correct" form of the verb because she WAS paying attention.  Why else would you ever change or grow and how else would change or growth happen? 

We do this all the time in Reading Recovery lessons.  We make the "correction" not seem like a correction, but like a natural language interaction.  There are several instances in my video where the little guy I am working with uses "incorrect" grammar.  After reading a book, he looks at me and asks, "How I did?".  I ask him, "How do you think you did?"  I accept his message. And then answer him in grammatically correct language.  I wasn't aware of it as it was happening.  I wasn't thinking, "I need to correct that"...we were simply two people communicating and using the language reserves we have to send a message.  I got his, and he got mine.  As he then offered the evaluation "Good".  

On page 19, I disagreed.  He says, "Thus we have to reconstruct the context as far as we can".  Not really.  In DP, we didn't attend to the context, and there was plenty to be found in the interactions as they took place.

On page 20.  I agreed.  He is discussing the share time example and talks about how teachers are not always aware of what they are doing.  They have a perception that things are going a certain way, and that perception is not always right.   That has been my experience in working with teachers for the past 15 years.  And, I think that is why RR training has been so important for me and for the teachers I work with.  Really being reflective and examining and analyzing what we are saying and how it impacts students is central to our practice.  Using the one way glass, video taping lessons, having conversations about specific actions between students and teachers bring us closer to an idea of "what happened".  Now, we have talked about how we can watch video tape and have different versions of truth....I agree.  And I also think we can get closer to the essence of an experience with reflection.  We can all take different things away, but reflection matters and can make a difference for teachers.   Gee says, "We can discover new things about ourselves when others study us or we consciously reflect, after action, on what we have said and done." 

I thought a lot of what he said about context is covered in the idea of "next turn proof".   Different labels for the same concept?

This made me think of RR training (p.47) - "When people communicate, they are trying to do things with each utterance and with a whole set of utterances taken together.  They have local goals or purposes for each utterance and larger, more global goals for a whole set of connected utterances."
In training sessions, our immediate (or local) goal is to make sense of what is happening.  We are observing and talking together to try to build some kind of theory about the reader and teacher we are watching.  We don't come in with a particular agenda...we are watching the live interaction and trying to make sense of it.  Our larger goal is to impact the student's process positively.  We come together to problem solve for that particular child and teacher.  To shift things so that they child accelerates more quickly (I guess we do have an agenda...).  The even larger goals is to refine teacher decision making.  By watching so many lessons and talking through so many lessons, we are logging our "expert hours" and becoming better at zeroing in on difficulties students face in reading so that we can do something different.  I am thinking of Gladwells's book Blink - he talks about needing 10,000 hours to become expert at something.  As a community, we come together in this way to improve our practice.

Last comment - the breaking down of language structures made me think about how difficult texts can be for students, not necessarily because of the individual words but because of the text structures..."What shall we do?" is a very tricky phrase for a 6 year old to read, even though the words 'what, we, do" are easy words.  As he discussed each of the different kinds of phrases, I was reminded of the impact of language structure on students who speak a language that is different from "book language" - whether the student actually speaks a different language (Spanish) or speaks with a dialect (southern Appalachian).  The little guy in my video is a prime example.  He is as far away from "book language" as a non-native speaker of English.

Verdict is still out on Gee...

DA 10.9.13 Price and Johnston Proposals

10.9.13

Discourse Analysis

 

Joshua Johnston and Elizabeth Price Proposals

 

I am looking forward to seeing Elizabeth and Josh again tomorrow evening.  I enjoyed their presentations this summer in Discursive Psychology, and want to know more. I don’t have specific questions for them, but there are topics I’d like for them to talk about.

1)      I would like for both of them to update us about where they are now in the process.  We read the proposal, but where are they on their dissertation work now?

2)      I would like for them to share their timelines with us.  I am really trying to wrap my head around  how much time I should allow – I want enough time to collect the information I need and do a quality analysis, and I don’t want this process to drag out.  I want to know what is a reasonable amount of time to give myself.

3)      I hope that they both talk a great deal about their analysis process.   Both proposals detail the steps in the process, but I want to hear how it is going now and what they are constructing with the data.

4)      I also hope that they will both share extracts from their data and share their analysis work around the extract.  We did some of that with both of them last time, and I am hoping for more of this.

5)      Lastly, I would like for them both to share more about their experiences with DART. 

I am also glad Hollie and Ann will be covering the syncing of transcript and video.  That will be very helpful! 

DA 10.2.13 Conversation Analysis - Hutchby and Wooffit - Chapter 4-6

Discourse Analysis

10.2.13

Conversation Analysis – Hutchby and Wooffit – Chapter 4-6

 

“The conversation analytic mentality involves more a cast of mind, or a way of seeing, that a static and prescriptive set of instructions which analysts bring to bear on the data” (p. 89).

I like that there is some structure to the analysis, but not a lock step “mandate” for how the analysis is done.  I think the same can be said for RR teaching and teacher leadering.  There is a “way of seeing” and “being” that is not prescriptive, but is analytical and similar from RR Teacher and Teacher Leader.   This way of seeing and being is cultivated over time.  I am thinking that CA might be similar.

Three procedures/stages of Conversation Analysis

1)    Locate potentially interesting phenomenon in the data – ‘unmotivated looking’

2)    Describe one of the instances (collect many) formally and concentrate on the sequential context

3)    Return to the data to see if other instances can be described in terms of this account.

The purpose of this work is to formally describe large amounts of the data which can explain all the examples which have been collected.  This quote sums it up… “In other words, conversation analysts aim to be able to describe the specific features of individual cases, and at the same time bring those specifics under the umbrella of a generalized account of some sequential pattern or interactional device” (p.90).

As I have been re-transcribing my video, I have been thinking of these “interactional devices” and potentially interesting examples.  A few ideas have come to me:

1)    I use commands a lot when I talk to “Jimmy”.  This might be interesting to look at.

2)    He also says, “Let’s see” or “Hmm” a lot, and I feel like this is buying him some time.  He is thinking, working, and is seeming to communicate that to let me know he is doing some work.

3)    We also laugh a great deal.  Sometimes, the laughter is around misunderstandings, and other times, I am just reacting to something he does.

4)    I am not sure where this fits, but his language is really interesting.  Rarely does he speak in complete and grammatically correct sentences.  He speaks using individual words or short phrases that are not standard English.  I noticed that I almost instantly implant the “correct” grammatical phrase he is attempting.   (This is definitely a practice in Reading Recovery, but I am wondering if this is something that can be examined through a DA lens too).

 

Page 92 outlines three important principles of the CA method

1)    The insistence on rigorous, formal descriptions

2)    The attempt to maximize the generalizability of analytic accounts

3)    The serious attention given to ‘deviant’ cases

This would be a good overall question to be asking of our interactions…

“What interactional business is being mediated or accomplished through the use of a sequential pattern or device; and how do participants demonstrate their active orientation to this business?”(p. 98).   “Jimmy” and I clearly have a routine in our interactions.   It will be interesting to see how an utterance is responded to in the next turn – so, I can look at how Jimmy responds to what I ask, or vice versa.

 

On page 106, the authors say, “In other words, it is absolutely necessary that conversation analysts are either members of or have a sound understanding of, the culture from which their data have been drawn.”  I agree that this would be very important in order to make sense of the context.   However, so much of what I know about RR is “invisible” to me.  It might be difficult for me to do “unmotivated looking” because I have been looking in a motivated way through a Reading Recovery lens for a very long time.

I also noticed a great deal of overlapping talk in my video with Jimmy.  Sometimes, I have him read with me or say something with me in order to practice a particular language structure etc.  Other times, he jumps in to read with me or do something with me.  I direct some of the instances, and he joins in with others.

           The talk in RR is most definitely ‘institutional’.  There is similarity between teachers and lessons across varying context…there are certain roles and ways of interacting that all RR lessons hold in common.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Discourse Analysis

9.8.13

 

Doing Conversation, Discourse, and Document Analysis – Tim Rapley – Chapters 1-5

 

What a breath of fresh air this text is!  So much of what I read was familiar – a review of all of my qualitative research classes, but Rapley has a way of saying things in a unique way and enhancing my comprehension of what was already on the way to understanding.   For example, we have read over and over in the DP class and this class about how events are both historically and culturally situated.  Rapley offers some great examples to bring these concepts into focus.  To help the notion of historically situated come into focus, Rapley gives the example of how audience behavior has changed between 1880s and the current day – and offers various factors that contributed to that change (p. 16).   To explain the idea of conceptually situated events (p. 20), he talks about how individuals behave differently depending upon where they are – how we tell stories differently depending upon who we are around.

                The chapter on ethics was mostly familiar as well.  But, there was one thing that Rapley suggested that I don’t believe we have discussed in any of my qual classes.   On page 29, Rapley talks about how you should give participants a way to contact you after the event so that if they changed their minds they could ask you to destroy the recording (if they were interviewed etc.).  I imagine former participants could find me if they wanted, but I know I wasn’t explicit in saying, “This is my contact information if you change your mind.”

                I was reminded of a situation in one of my research projects on the bottom of 29, top of 30.   While I was observing, one of the participants began to talk about the sexual molestation of a relative.  This topic was not the focus of my research and was shared only because the teachers I was observing were receiving training on child sex abuse.  In the middle of the observation, I made the decision to stop recording field notes because I didn’t want to jeopardize the relationship I have with the person who was disclosing and the other participants in the group.  It was an awkward situation though, and I wasn’t really sure what to do.  I just didn’t feel comfortable recording that sensitive information that wasn’t really relevant to my research topic – other than the fact that the participants know one another well enough to share that kind of information.

                When I read The Art of Case Study, by Stake when I had advanced qual, I was surprised that Stake didn’t think audio recording was necessary.  He felt recording reflections after an interview or observation (and taking field notes during the encounter) was sufficient.  For me, that isn’t the case.  I agree with Rapley when he says (on page 39), “I always try to audiotape, for some very pragmatic reasons: I want to interact with the participants….the tape provides me with a much more detailed record of the verbal interaction than any amount of note-taking or reflection could offer.”

                In chapter 5, I thought Rapley really stressed the importance of going back to the primary source (the actual recorded event) and not relying on a secondary source (the transcript).  There were many times he addressed this issue….

-          P. 50 – “What is key to remember is that you base your analysis on the recoding and your field notes.”

-          P. 59 – “I personally do not like doing any analysis from just transcripts alone.  I find them rather flat reproductions of interactions as you can easily be ‘misled’ about just what is it that is going on and miss the nuances that you gain from hearing a specific tone or voice or pace of speech.”

-          P. 59 – “Through re-listening to your recordings you constantly re-engage with just what it is that is going on at specific moments in that encounter.”

-          P. 64- “The transcript is always secondary, a memory device.”

-          P. 70 – “A finished transcript should never be the starting point of your analytic work; it is in and through repeated listening or watching your recordings and in and through the ongoing process of transcription that your analysis should be based.”

The last quote is particularly significant….the act of doing the transcription is actually the vehicle for analysis.  Doing the transcript allows you to interact with the data and forces you to listen and be present with the information.    I think I learn so much when I transcribe, and why I would hesitate to “send out” the recordings to be transcribed by someone else.

 

Some ‘technical challenges’ of video analysis: social actions, objects, material realities and the problems of perspective – Paul Huff and Christian Heath

 

                In this article, the authors talk about the methodological concerns of videotaping and video analysis, particularly about selecting the camera angle.   For my project in this class, I am going to look at a videotaped interaction between a child and me when he was in Reading Recovery and receiving one to one lessons.  I used to video tape this little boy often, because he had significant speech difficulties and I found him hard to teach because I couldn’t always understand what he was trying to say.  I selected the angle for the video tape because I wanted to see him and hear him and see where I was missing what he was trying to communicate.  I didn’t select the camera angle for a research purpose – other than the authentic one, which was to understand him so that I could teach him.  Only now am I using the video for analysis and that is for secondary reasons.   If I wanted to publish my analysis, I could address this choice as part of my reflexivity statement – sharing with readers the context of the creating of the video recording.

                This paragraph seems to summarize the difficulties I will face when I begin my analysis – “… choosing where, what and when to film, how to categorize and transcribe the data that are collected; how to select fragments to analyses from a corpus; how to develop an analysis that resonates with the collected materials and how to present analyses to audiences or in conventional research publications” (p. 257).

                I thought this was a great definition of “multi-modal analysis” which I have read a number of times but hasn’t been as explicitly defined – “the repeated scrutiny at extraordinary levels of detail of how talk and visual conduct in the material environment” (p. 256).

                The discussion of the mid-shot convention was interesting, and I could see it being useful in some situations.  In thinking of my possible dissertation topic - Reading Recovery Teacher Leader professional development, I can see how selecting this camera angle would be appropriate.  Though I might not have all of the teacher leaders in range, I could look specifically at a smaller group of teacher leaders.   But, I think much would be lost, as the interaction is among the entire group of teacher leaders.  It might be more appropriate to forgo the video all together and just do audio taping of everyone.   I still have time to consider this, but I am glad to have read this article now, as it will inform my decision as I get closer to the time.

                On page 273, Luff and Heath say, “Video can provide unprecedented access to a domain and can provide an invaluable resource that can be subjected to repeated scrutiny not only by the researcher but also by colleagues.  A convention has emerged for video data collection that seems to support this kind of research activity, particularly the analysis of focused interaction.”  I agree with this statement and can see how looking at student/teacher interaction in Reading Recovery (one-to-one) might be more appropriate for video analysis.   This is something that happens all the time in RR – teachers video tape their lessons with kids in order to get better at teaching them.  They do their own “analysis” and “research” – of what they say, of what the kid says, of how the ‘talk’ influences the students literacy processing.  Videotaping in this setting is typical, and both teacher and student get used to the camera and don’t act any differently than if the camera weren’t present.   I can see video being very useful to look at these interactions.

9.25 Discourse Analysis post

Discourse Analysis

9.25.13

 

Rapley – Doing Conversation, Discourse, and Document Analysis (Chapter 6-10)

 

            I enjoyed the readings for today.  I always like when the texts provide the transcripts and then the analysis after the transcripts.  On page 76, as I was reading the analysis, I was thinking about how, in my experience, this is what we do in conversation – we find a way to connect to what other people are saying, to link our perspective or information onto what they find to be salient.  I was thinking about this especially in relation to working with kids.  I am wondering if I will find this sort of linking/connecting when I watch my Reading Recovery lesson.

            I am curious too about what I will find in the lesson in terms of question-answer sequences.  I have seen the video several times, and I am remembering a moment when the student asks me a question “what ‘dat mean?” he asks, as he points to some bold print in the text.  When I watched lessons and observed teachers interacting, I always thought it was meaningful when students felt comfortable enough to challenge a teacher or ask a question.  To me, it meant a level of comfort and trust which had to deal with the power differential between teachers and students.  In these chapters, we read about power and context, and while I think analysis should focus on interaction as it unfolds, I am also very aware of power that exists outside of the interaction.  This is a bit of a struggle for me to make a decision about.  I guess I think both are important!

            On page 81, Rapley talks about the organization of agreement and disagreement and the feature of storytelling.  With both of these organizations of talk, I thought of Reading Recovery teacher training sessions.   There is so much discussion and pondering and wondering.  Often people “put out” their understandings and others either agree or disagree and site evidence from the interaction between teacher and student to back their claim.  Sometimes, people go off on story telling rants – often (in my experience) this is a filibuster of sorts.  It takes people out of what is going on with the teacher and child in front of us (behind the glass), and to a place where the teacher is totally in control of the version of events and cannot be questioned.  If I decide to do the investigation of RR TL for my dissertation, this will most definitely be a place to notice.

            I was blown away by the information by Kitzinger and Firth in the indented paragraph on page 85.   It is such a taken for granted form of education for rape prevention – that the woman says no.  I wouldn’t have thought about this as “counterproductive” because it is just something I have not questioned….and, I consider myself a feminist!  This makes complete sense to me now…clearly I haven’t thought enough about this important issue!

The bottom of 89 reminds me of our conversations in Digital Tools this summer – “you can see how documents and related technologies both constrain and enable our actions and interactions”.     As I read this chapter, I was thinking through all of the possible documents that are related to Reading Recovery – both lessons and sessions.  With lessons – the teacher keeps a lesson record which she writes on during the interaction.  She also keeps track of known words in reading, known words in writing, running records of oral text reading, a tower of progress grid that shows changes in text level reading over time as well as writing samples, and an alphabet book.  With Reading Recovery teacher sessions, there is a session agenda, the texts or articles the teachers read from and use, and charts that are generated by teachers in sessions.  All of these would be appropriate to collect and include in analysis.

The section beginning on page 95 – which talks about the video analysis of the Rodney King beating – was interesting.  This quote stood out “What is important to note is how, through their actions, they collaborate to build a way of how to make sense of the images on the video.”  In Reading Recovery sessions, we do this with both live lessons and with videos that we watch.  We discuss and replay (either in video or in recollection) of interactions and try to make sense of the happening.  Most of the time, we come to a consensus of what we saw…and, there are times when we don’t and people hold to their “truths” and their “claims” of how they are making sense of student behavior or teacher/child interactions.

This quote on 97 also stood out to me, “So what the analysis of conversation allows us to do is to try to document the ways that people and things organize specific institutions and institutional tasks and identities.”  So, Reading Recovery teacher and student create what happens in Reading Recovery together.  And, teachers in Reading Recovery, with their teacher leader, create the “norms” for what takes place – we organize what it means to be in a lesson with a child or what it means to do Reading Recovery training sessions.