History Bump

I'm a little confused. I thought we were working on the book. Did I miss something?

I'm interested in working on #6 as a Wiki project, but I have no knowledge of how to build Wikis.

I'm also interested (if we're still doing the book) in charting the history of Rhetoric and Speech Communication programs.

And Collin says that I.A. Richards is grossly underutilized in the field (Anne Berthoff being the only person he knows who has seriously taken up Richards).

So, I've got the trifecta. Do I win the lottery?

It was my intention that at least some of our work for the course would become a book. I'm still working with that intention, though it remains to be seen whether I can pull that off. Meanwhile, I'm hoping that course projects will be something that the writers will themselves get a lot out of and want to do--and also potentially lend themselves to a book. All of the sample projects that I list above fit that bill.

ccing an email I sent to Becky:

My primary interest in this class is the issue of how we understand the methodologies of other disciplines from which methods are borrowed, and if/how those understandings do or don't lead to an organized way of doing and evaluating the research that results.

I realize I'm not as adept at articulating theoretical stuff nor as familiar with the writings of theorists as some others, but I have a pretty good exposure to how other disciplines
approach questions of what's true and what's discoverable. I think.

(Interestingly, an online conversation about religion and religious education in another
context is paralleling some of the discussion here so far)

regarding possible projects, I'd like to be involved in one of the Possible Projects,
in descending order of preference, below.

1)
Analyzing and synthesizing the methods and methodologies of selected composition historians. In addition to textual analysis, this might (in the case of living historians) involve conducting interviews.
2)
Editing Porter Perrin's dissertation: Perrin, Porter G. "The Teaching of Rhetoric in American Colleges Before 1750." Ph.D. diss., University of
Chicago, 1936. I can provide a copy of this.
3)
Tracing the history of plagiarism injunctions (including how they define plagiarism and represent the student author and the source text?) in composition syllabi, composition handbooks, composition textbooks, or institutional policies.
4)
Setting up an archive of the SU Writing Program that would be accessible to researchers.
5)
Compiling an annotated bibliography of selected texts for composition historiography.
clo

Carolyn, what is the other context you're referring to about religion? I'm curious because I'm taking a course called Globalization and Religion this semester and so far the interdisciplinary crossevers are interesting.

Becky,
My knowledge and language of composition is limited so the projects listed above feel out of my reach. However, I have always had a passion for people's stories and love the idea of interviewing. What about a project that puts together (through a series of interviews) the stories of the current faculty in the S.U. CCR program? I think it would also be interesting to include interviews with students and perhaps those who have graduated from the Ph.D. program.
This may or may not contribute to the method/methodology goal.

Two other projects of interest that I have carried over from last semester:
1) the separation between faculty and the "dirty" student body...
2) and a continuation of your work noting the roots of composition history programs closely tied to the history of racism, discrimination and attempted assilimulation.

Which project do you think would be most useful to the goals of this course?
Thanks,
Vanessa

I'm particularly interested in why comp seizes on literacy ethnographies as a favorite form of qualitative research. I think I'd like to look at the ethnographic studies getting the most play in comp and :
1) Analyze the methods being used
2) Weigh in on why these particular methods appeal to compositionists
3) Measure the methods against the criteria for rigorous qualitative research (Sociology) and ethical qualitative research (Feminism)
4) Opine on what these method choices do for promoting professionalism in the field, which would seem to include investigating profitable uses of mixed qualitative and quantitative methods.

I think it could also be insightful to do all of the above, but as a survey of articles from our major journals (CCC, CE, JAC, Rhet Rev, Research and the Teaching of Eng...) to get a sense of what the discipline does (or doesn't do) with qualitative research, what forms of qualitative methods get used most often, and again, importantly, how the use of these methods shape disciplinary reputation within the academy and in political forums on language and literacy.

Here I am, Becky, under "possible projects"---