Blog 16: Draft Interview Protocol (Revised)

Demographic Information

Name:
Current Occupation:
Previous Occupations:
Nationality:
Race:

Immediate Family Members and Ages:

If you do not mind, could you describe your family circumstances?

Income Level:
Growing Up:
Now:

Were you taught to value literacy?

Can you tell me a little about yourself? Where were you born? What is your family like?

Where did you live?
Growing Up:
Now:

Do you remember which elementary, middle, high school, and college you went to?

Early Exposure To Literacy

Can you tell me how and when you learned to read and write?

How did you first come in contact a student that came from a "non-standard English" home?

At Home

Do you remember your first reaction to students that came from "non-standard English" homes?

Did you and your siblings react the same to these students?

At School

Describe how you felt about these students?

Did you have to work with the students that did not come from traditional English speaking homes?

How did your teacher work with these students?

Do you know of any friends know students that come from "non-standard English" homes?

Current Exposure

Do you still have contact with any of these students?

Do you react to them the same way you did years ago or differently?

Do any of your current friends still have contact with the students?

Also

For what purpose do you collaborate with students that come from "non-standard English" homes?

What values does the educational system currently place on these students?

How/when/where/why do you see yourself collaborating with these students in the future?

Is there anything more you would like to say about students that come from "non-standard English" homes?

Blog 15

Research Question: What kind of learning issues are faced by learners who come from homes with "nonstandard English"?

The kind of research that I want to find is the age, background, education level, and etc. I believe that these all have to do with the issues that nonstandard English students have to deal with.

Questions: What do you think are some issues that these students face?

                 What are some ways that teachers can make the work easier to comprehend for these students?

                  Do you think that these students should not be included in a regular classroom?

                 

Blog 14: Short Analysis Project

The research question that I have come up with is why do some people find the shaggy dog stories to be funny and others do not? I would like to find out the different reactions from people who read them and why they react the way they do.

The codes used that are relevant to the question are background, education, age, and sex (male/female). Patterns show that less people find the shaggy dog stories to be funny than most. Shaggy dog stories cannot be possibly humorous to everyone.

My hypothesis explains the data by using the examples of peoples' reactions to the stories. It uses references: for example, observation. I observed the classes reactions to the stories and the majority agreed that the story about the panda and Friday, were the funniest. This is probably because more of the students connected with these two stories more than the others. A person's background and age seems to mostly affect a person's reason for why they would find the shaggy dog stories to be funny or not.

My overall theory is that a person would have to connect with the story and have an understanding of the joke. It seems that the majority of people do not agree that the stories are funny. It explains that everyone has a different point of view and we come from diverse backgrounds.

Blog 13

Terms From the Textbook: I'm not having difficulty with any of the terms. I was able to look up more information about the terms that were not clear to me.

Building Tasks: Gee stated in chapter two of his book that a discourse analyses asks questions about any language based on these building tasks: significance, practices, identities, relationships, politics, connections, and sign systems and knowledge.

Significance asks "How is this piece of language being used to make certain things significant or not and in what ways?".

Practices asks "What practice is this piece of language being used to enact?".

Identities asks "What identity is this piece of language being used to enact?".

Relationships asks "What sort of relationship is this piece of language seeking to enact with others?".

Connections asks "How does this piece of language connect or disconnect things?".

Politics asks "What perspective on social goods is this piece of langauge communicating?".

Sign systems and knowledge asks "How does this piece of language privilege or disprivilege specific sign systems?".

My project is about children being affected by coming from nonstandard English speaking homes into standard English speaking classrooms.

The building tasks that mostly relate to my research are significance, identities, relationships and connection.

Blog 12: Shaggy Dog Stories Data Set

Research Question: Why might some people find the Shaggy Dog stories to be funny and others not find them funny?

Ideas for features of the data: Does age range have a difference?
 
                                             Does a person's background have to do with why they would find these stories  to be funny or not?

                                             Does a person's race or sex (male/female) have to do with the stories being funny or not?

                                             Does the amount of education a person has have to do with why these stories would be funny or not?

These are just some of the questions I would look into to find out the answer to my research question.

Blog 11: Developing a Research Plan

Research Question: What kinds of learning issues are faced by learners who come from homes with "nonstandard English"?

Purpose: I hope to discover and elaborate on how students deal with being in a Standard English classroom as they come from a nonstandard English home.

Information that must be gathered: How students learn to assimilate to a Standard English classroom (hear from an actual student who has dealt with this), articles from magazines, literature, actual observations, and etc.

• I will be studying a friend (Kevin) who has dealt with this in the past and is currently in college.
• I will collect information from my mother (Carolyn) who is a former teacher and has seen what students must go through (students who come from nonstandard English homes) and Kevin.
• I would like to study 2 subjects
• I will conduct interviews, textual analysis, and observation.

Blog 10: Group Analysis

Andrea
Shana
Generra

Question: What features of the comments give information for the revision of the paper?

Coding of the comments:
Sample Writing Guide with Comments:

1. There was positive feedback and no negative comments.
2. The teacher supported the student.
3. The student was encouraged by the teacher to correct a few things without being too harsh.
4. Explains how the student should revise the paper.
5. There were examples of sources given.

Sample Process Narrative:

1. There was positive feedback and no negative comments.

2. The teacher supported the student.
3. The student was encouraged by the teacher to correct a few things without being too harsh.
4. Explains how the student should revise the paper.
5. There were examples of sources given.

Both samples help the student to revise the paper well.

Sample 3:

1. The teacher guided the student in how to revise the paper.

2. There was encouraging comments.

3. Seemed to be no negative comments.

This sample also showed that the student help a lot of help with revising the paper.

Sample 4: 

1. The comments were not quite positive, but not negative either(neutral).

2. Some comments gave good guidance.

3. Student might be confused as to how the professor wants him/her to revise the paper.

This sample didn't give clear direction in how the paper should be written.

Sample 5: 

1. There should be further explanation of the comments made.

2. Didn't really give enough advice as to how to revise the paper.

Sample 6:

1. There were positive comments. 

2. The comments help the student to revise the paper

3. Plenty of feedback is provided.

Unanswered Questions: How does the writer feel when reading the comments?

                                     Are the comments positive/negative?

                                     What are the similarities between the comments?

Blog 9

I was not in class for the group work due to being sick but joined Shana, Andrea, and Generra's group.

We decided to use the paper that Andrea for the assignment. These are our ideas and comments so far.

Question:

What features of the comments give information for the revision of the paper?

Coding of the Comments:

1. No negative comments, but positive feedback.
2. Supports the student in a positive manner.
3. Encourages the student to keep writing and edit where necessary, without being aggressive.
4. Gives examples of sources that can be used.
5. Explains what needs work and follows up with how to "fix" the revision.

Student Reactions:

Andrea - This was my paper that we were working on. I did not have any hard feelings about the comments from my professor. I thought I was doing the assignment wrong, but I was assured that I was not, and it gave me hope that I will complete the paper without worrying to much about it. To me it was all positive feedback.

Shana -

Generra -

Pose a Question:

We did not get this far yet. We have no question as of today.

Blog 8: Develop a Research Topic

Research plan:

Children come from all types of different backgrounds and some even speak languages other than English. I will use Katie and John as two examples. In Katie's home her parents speak Spanish and a minimal amount of English, but John comes from a family that speaks only English. How are these students affected by each other and the rest of the classroom since they both come from totally different households? Are they positively/negatively affected?

I'm looking to find data from internet sources, magazines, books, and etc.

I will conduct my research by interviews, observations, and etc.