 |
New Students - Recent
Student Publications
New Faculty - Recent
Faculty Publications
Some NSF Reports
Robin Murphy and Eric Stalions are working on dissertations this year will
the support of Non-Service Fellowships. Read below for progress reports they
wrote.
Robin Murphy
I started writing my dissertation, “Post-9/11 Rhetorical Theory: A 21st
Century Composition Pedagogy,” in January. My interest in this dissertation
idea came from the rhetoric(s) that the 9/11 tragedy produced in popular culture,
and my initial conception of Post-9/11 Rhetorical Theory was to categorize
and analyze that rhetoric. I quickly found that for such an analysis to be
grounded in theory and pedagogy, I would have to develop a theory and place
said theory/pedagogy within a historical and theoretical framework of both
rhetoric and composition. As a result, I developed the theory by grounding
it in Critical Pedagogy, Culture Studies Pedagogy, and Post-Process Pedagogy.
Through this triangulation, it provides an opportunity for instructors to foster
student voice and encourage them to address civic, social, and ideological
issues.
I base my research structure on the following questions:
•
How should a Post-9/11 composition theory intersect with Rhetorical Education
and Modern Composition Pedagogy?
• How do the historic artifacts of 9/11 and Post-9/11 signify a feasible ‘contact
zone’ for critical cultural discourse?
• How is the theory categorized, assessed, and implicated in writing pedagogy?
The resulting composition pedagogy provides students with the basis to critically
examine and produce alternative compositions using their own sense of rhetorical
space via the context of a Post-9/11 society. Post-9/11 Rhetorical Theory and
Composition Pedagogy, consequently, incorporate the true intentions of the
composition community – rhetorical tradition, critical thinking, and
production of text.
My Chapters One-Three have been approved, and I’m currently drafting
Chapter Four and hope to have it ready for Chair approval in mid-November.
It was an important goal for me to have a nice chunk of my dissertation done
for the job interview process. I’m on schedule to finish my last chapter
in March, so my next goal is to defend in the late Spring and bask in my Phd-ness
most of the summer.
I think my biggest success is that I really feel like I know what each draft’s
inconsistencies and weaknesses are before I send it off to my Chair. So, to
work autonomously but also have my work and my concerns about it reinforced
through my Chair’s and Committee’s comments is great. Since I am
more confident in my ability to evaluate writing levels beyond undergraduate
writing, my self-confidence has increased when it comes to preparing for interviewing
for positions that require teaching upper level writing and research.
All of this positive reaction doesn’t mean I haven’t had frustration.
Though I have been lucky in that I have a supportive and responsive Chair,
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked myself why I’m
writing a dissertation or why I pursued a doctorate. The truth is that writing
a dissertation is hard, as it should be. Sometimes I feel like a first time
writer and wonder how I’m going to fill one page much less dozens. Time
is another frustration. I can’t seem to find enough time to read everything
I want to read, write everyday, clean my house, and prepare job applications.
And, if I have to explain one more time what I’m writing about or when
I’ll be done to a family member, I may smash my laptop over my head.
The positive outweighs the negative most days. And, I keep telling myself I
can finish…paragraph by paragraph.
Eric Stalions
My dissertation study, "Dynamic Criteria Mapping: A Study of the Rhetorical
Values of Placement Evaluators," adapts Bob Broad's (2003) Dynamic Criteria
Mapping (DCM) research model in What We Really Value: Beyond Rubrics in
Teaching and Assessing Writing. The DCM research model identifies, defines,
and maps the rhetorical values that educators "articulate" during
acts of assessment. Using the DCM research model, I analyze the rhetorical
values that guided the 2006 General Studies Writing (GSW) Placement Program's
evaluators in placing students into one of the first-year writing courses,
and I provide a focused validation argument with respect to the placement program's
evaluative practices. My dissertation's claim is that DCM can be adapted in
the GSW placement model, which employs a communal, collaborative, context-specific,
rhetorical, evaluative assessment process.
My DCM study had two parts--a pilot and principal study. I have analyzed my
pilot study data collected during the Spring 2006 Semester, and I am finishing
the analysis of my principal study data collected during the Summer 2006 Semester.
During the Spring 2006 semester, I undertook a pilot study in order to adapt
the DCM research model for my principal study. For the pilot study, I interviewed
former GSW placement evaluators and administrators and the designers of the
2006 GSW online writing placement test. Based upon the pilot study outcomes,
I employed DCM as a tool for a focused and limited validity inquiry of the
2006 GSW Placement Program's evaluative practices. During the principal study,
I employed several specific instruments to triangulate my data: questionnaires,
videotaped placement training sessions, audio taped evaluation sessions, interviews,
and program documents. I use "constructivist" grounded theory methodology
and qualitative coding software to code and triangulate my data. My dissertation
provides qualitative exemplars and quantitative codebooks and maps the rhetorical
values of the 2006 GSW Placement Evaluators.
The introductory chapter of my dissertation has been approved by Richard Gebhardt,
my Dissertation Chair, and the full committee.
According to my approved writing timeline, I will complete "Chapter Two:
Theoretical Rationale for the DCM Research Model" and "Chapter Three:
Overview of the Study" during the Fall 2006 semester and "Chapter
Four: Study Findings and Analysis" and "Chapter Five: Conclusion
and Theoretical and Pedagogical Applications of Study" during the Spring
2007 semester. As a result, I anticipate a May 2007 defense to be followed
by an August commencement.
Concerning my publishing agenda, I am currently collaborating with Broad and
several colleagues on a co-authored book concerning local DCM applications.
I will also be presenting in the workshop "Dynamic Criteria Mapping in
Action: Growing Evaluative Community Locally and Organically" with Broad
and our colleagues at the Conference on College Composition and Communication
in New York, NY, in 2007
|
