• Posts

    Blog Posts

    To earn full credit for a blog post, you must compose 300 words in response to the prompt, and you must quote and cite an assigned source. Below is a list of graded blog posts this semester, linked to corresponding prompts: If you want to discuss your blog grades or make-up any of the above work, reach out to me by April 25. If you completed the blog post from the first day of class about your collaborative marshmallow build, five extra credit points will be added to your final grade. You will be assigned to write an About page before the end of the semester. Details to follow. There…

  • Major Assignment

    5/9: Revising the Autoethnographic Essay

    Last class, you used this rubric to move forward on your Autoethnographic Essay. Our conversations about your work focused mainly on integrating the following types of evidence in your essays. Today you will work in pairs or groups of 3, to read each other’s drafts. It will help to have our Autoethnographic Essay Rubric accessible while reading. As you read, take notes on the following to discuss with the author: Before we end class, you’ll create a new page on your website for your final essay. You will also start working on your About page. Take a look at my example of an About page for some guidance of what’s expected.…

  • Major Assignment

    5/7: Drafting the Autoethnography

    Access the Autoethnographic Essay Rubric for use during today’s class. Using the rubric as our guide, we’ll look together at an excerpt of Rainey’s autoethnography to understand how that text fulfills expectations of the rubric. This is your chance to ask any questions about the rubric to better understand expectations of the assignment; this is also my chance to revise anything on the rubric that needs clarification. Access the draft of your Autoethnographic Essay that you brought to class today. Using the rubric, identify what area you need to develop first. You will have time in class today to write and revise. HOMEWORK Come to next class with a more…

  • Major Assignment

    5/2: Autoethnography Revisted

    Welcome back from a long break from our class. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading Rainey’s and Smith’s autoethnographies assigned over the break. We’ll consider these texts as sample autoethnographies and identify conventions of each that will help you move towards your final autoethnographies. Looking at Models of Autoethnographic Writing We’ll split into groups and take time to re-familiarize ourselves with Rainey’s “Her Own Voice: Coming Out In Academia with Bipolar Disorder” & Smith’s “Collaging the Classroom, the Personal, and the Critical: Autoethnographic Writing in the National Writing Project.” Address each bullet point below with specific examples from the text. What can we transfer into our autoethnographic writing? For our purposes,…

  • Major Assignment

    4/16: Mapping your Autoethnography with Data

    Working with Datasets Access your dataset by looking at your coding tables you created for homework. Carefully read these tables as together, as if they were one text. Using a highlighter, pen, or other signifying tool, mark any codes that are similar across the tables. You may want to denote one set of similarities with an asterisk (*) and another set of similarities with a particular color. After reading your coding tables, make a list of the similarities that occur across your dataset. Then, take time to note any outliers, themes or ideas that stand out as unique. After you work independently on your data sets, we’ll come together to…

  • Major Assignment,  Posts

    4/11: Grounded Theory Coding

    For our final project this semester, you will assume the role of researcher of our ENGL 201W class, using grounded theory coding to make sense of the written data available to you on our WordPress site. We will practice coding today so you are prepared to code data before next class. Grounded theory coding is a form of data analysis that involves labeling & defining written text (also known as qualitative data). Charmaz describes grounded theory coding as “the process of defining what data are about. Coding means categorizing segments of data with a short name that simultaneously summarizes and accounts for each piece of data. Your codes show how…

  • Posts

    4/9: In the Final Stretch

    Plans for our end-of-semester work have changed, so I’ll use today to go over our new final project. We’ll take time to answer questions and discuss next steps. As an introduction to grounded theory, we’ll look briefly at Charmaz’s text, your next reading assignment, and discuss the example of coding that Charmaz models. We’ll then collaboratively code sample text in class. I’ll end class by asking for a volunteer who would be willing to offer one blog post for us to collaboratively code next class. HOMEWORK READ Chapter 5 from Charmaz’s book Constructing Grounded Theory (available on Bb).

  • Posts

    4/2: Finishing our A.I. Syllabus Statement

    Today will be our last day working in-class on the A.I. Syllabus Statement. In the service of finishing this assignment, here’s a roadmap of today’s plan: ANNOUNCEMENT Our next class on Thursday, April 4, is cancelled. Andrea will be in Spokane, WA at a conference. HOMEWORK DUE TUESDAY, April 9: I’m using this planned time off to ask us all to reflect on the writing and collaboration we’ve done throughout the semester. You began by writing collaboratively in, what I’ll call, a traditional sense, writing a single document together like Ede & Lunsford, Efthymiou & Zea, and McNamee & Miley. You then moved to consider the kinds of agency you…

  • Major Assignment

    3/28: Composing Our A.I. Statement, part 2

    Quick Check-In It’s been awhile. Let’s take a moment to check in. To access our one-question check-in, scan the QR code or go to menti.com and use this code: 5490 0350. Just a reminder to reach out at andrea.efthymiou@qc.cuny.edu if you need to talk about this class or other happenings related to your life at QC. We can find a time to meet. Final Drafting of A.I. Statement Last week, you began drafting subheadings and topics that our A.I. Statement should address. You may want to look at back at our last class meeting to recall the synthesizing you did of materials. Andrea has consolidated some of the section and…