Proposal / Ethics
Ethical Self-Analysis
Overview of Study
1. Briefly describe your project as you see it today.
Honestly, I don’t know what my project is. During the semester, I examined my Lit 113 discussion board. I was trying to characterize what was going on in the discussions students were having online. I wanted to see of what was happening was really a discussion, or simply a bunch of talking heads speaking past one another. As the discussion I analyzed progressed, it became more and more dialogic, and less static, but this hasn’t really lead me anywhere. It just hasn’t sparked my interest.
I also recorded a class lecture about “Themewriting.” Themewriting is a term William Coles, in his text, “Composing: A Self-Creation Process,” uses to describe the sort of academic writing students complete that has no connection or bearing upon them as individual students or thinkers; themewriting is characterized by ambiguity, hyperbole, an obvious and apparent disconnect from the writer’s character, convictions, from their “self,” and, finally, by slavish attention to correctness and a simple form or structure, the five-paragraph theme. This was a good lecture. I think I finally found a way to explain a describe this phenomenon in terms my students could understand. I used an online cartoon video to emphasize my point. Additionally, I composed a “mock” essay at the computer, projecting the text on the whiteboard, to demonstrate the process and how themewriting is really just a trick to be played.
I also analyzed an early lecture that asked the students to consider, “Why bother learning to write well?” This lecture went well too, and based on the students’ questions and responses, I felt like they were coerced into thinking about the role and function of writing, and writing instruction, in the context of their lives as beginning college students.
I’m also interested in looking at how students build identities in online classes. In F2F classes, there are myriad markers that develop and establish identity, but in the online environment, many of these markers are not present and students are forced to develop their identities using the words they choose to contribute. I’m not quite sure where this might lead, but my hunch is that students able to negotiate this difficulty are more successful in the class, and as writers overall. These students seem to understand the social nature of communication, and are able to manipulate image and identity. This has something to do with voice, and a student taking control over their language and their use of it. I wonder though if online classes foster this development more than F2F classes, even ones with a large online component.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about peer review, and trying to find some way to make it matter. For example, in any given semester, I receive a number of e-mails similar to this one:
Can you please take a look at my rough draft for this 3rd essay. I need critiques, and I feel as if I'm not getting that. I'm not pleased with the (late) middle portion of the paper, as well as the ending. As I wrote this I didn't know where to bring it to an end. It ends too abruptly....what can I do to fix this?
This student is pleading for a substantive response, something she hasn’t been given from her peers, even though we discuss peer response with each rough draft. I explain to them feedback and revision occurs on three levels – content, structure, and editing. We practice responding on the first two levels. I assume they know how to edit a peer’s paper because this is often the sort of response they offer to peers regardless of what they are told to do.
This is one of the responses the student above is reacting to:
The first sentence tells me exactly what I will be reading about. It is the bones of the essay. I enjoyed reading your essay very much, and thanks for sharing. It is nice information to have for civics class.
This response references what Peter Elbow terms the “Bones” of the essay, or the essay’s underlying purpose or focus, beyond the subject or topic, but rather the author’s stance towards that topic, but it reveals little to the original writer about the reader’s understanding of the essay. The responder explains that this is “nice information for a civics class,” but does not qualify the statement. What is nice information for a civics class? Why is it nice information? Why does the information matter?
I read an essay recently by Nicholas Mauriello and Gian Pagnucci. In this essay, Pagnucci and Mauriello discuss a pilot they completed in peer feedback. The authors took two sections of beginning college writers, and paired them with writers from another school, and the students shared and responded to papers back and forth. I like this idea, and I’d like to try it. It crossed my mind that it would be neat to pair my students with a class from another country, not necessarily a writing class, but an English class. Paulo Freire writes, “education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students” (53). Ideally, this is what should happen with peer review. I’m not suggesting that students should be placed in the position of grading their peers work, but it is their job to evaluate the ideas and structure, based on their reading, experience, and understanding of the words on the page. In truth, many of my students do not feel the authority or power to evaluate a peer’s work. Maybe in working with students who are trying to learn the language, as a second language, they might feel more legitimacy in responding to the writing.
Or, maybe the distance and anonymity would help. My hunch is that this is not so important because even in my online writing classes, there are very few students who even bother to respond to a peer’s work, even though the threat of an entire paper grade rests on their substantive and thoughtful response to their peers through out the semester.
This whole issue of peer feedback is a messy one for me. My biggest question is what can I do to foster significant feedback between peers in a writing class? What else can I do to improve the substance of peer feedback?
Location
As a participant in the classroom context within which the feedback is given, I have a stake in the results. From my perspective as a writing teacher, I feel offering substantive feedback, taking the time to consider and examine another’s’ words, can teach the reader much about themselves as a writer, and actually improve their writing.
In positioning myself with regard to this project, I imagine one of the largest obstacles to my understanding the student’s experience and perspective with feedback is my role as teacher. I have evaluated and offered feedback on thousands of student writing samples. As a teacher, I could probably chart my own progression through various stages and types of feedback. I recall, vividly, for example, as a 1st year teaching assistant, editing and proofreading my students’ essays. The first batch of essays I graded took me 16 hours to complete -- a single section! As I grew and matured and a teacher, this sort of response became tedious, and I suppose my own feeling of the futility of such feedback prompted me to seek alternatives. In the end, I have many hours of trial and error to account for the stance and attitudes I have towards the value and function of feedback, something I am asking my students to develop in a matter of 16 weeks. The difference here, however, is that I was never given any formal instruction regarding how to respond to student writing, and I am trying, in my classes, to explain to the best of my ability, the role and function of feedback.
Methods
How am I going to gather data? I imagine the data I will gather will be collected during the course of my regular classroom practice; however, I would like to involve the students explicitly, giving them some sort of stake in the project. Thus, in addition to fieldnotes, and collecting samples of feedback, I would like to interview students regarding their past experiences with providing feedback, their understanding of the principles I am presenting to them, what barriers they sense to giving feedback, and how we might work to improve the situation.
What are the ethical implications for students involved in such a project? Well, I suppose participation in such a study must be voluntary, and students should understand the whether they choose to participate or not, there will be no direct bearing on their grade for the course; however, active participation, because they are graded on the feedback they provide to their peers during the normal course of the class, they might benefit over those who choose not to participate, but to volunteer does not guarantee a better grade, while, likewise, failing to participate does not guarantee a lower grade.
If I chose to involve students less in data gathering and meaning-making, I might analyze samples of students’ feedback, offer voluntary written survey questions, and gather fieldnotes as students complete feedback exercises; I might also analyze sample papers in class and record students’ reactions, questions and comments and extrapolate from these.
Subjects, Subjectivity, and Relationships
The communities touched by such research include students, me as classroom teacher, and possibly other professionals in the composition field.
I have power over the students. In the end, I will assign them a grade based on the feedback they tender, as well as an overall grade for their development as a writer in my course. Assuming this project, or something like it, becomes part of my doctoral dissertation, my UMSL advisor will have power over me.
There is the potential for my abuse of the trust my students place in me as a professional and their teacher. Potentially, some of their work, thoughts, ideas, maybe even words could be lifted by me and passed off as my own without attribution. Overall, however, I believe such work will strengthen the trust students have of me as we work closely to define and reconcile a common issue we both confront in our separate roles and teacher and student.
There is also the potential for the harm of individual students by other students. For example, in an essay about the death of a loved one, a multifaceted and emotional issue, it may be that under normal circumstances, students asked to respond to such work rely on ambiguity and trite, but safe, statements, however, in asking them to respond substantively, a student might inadvertently offend or hurt the other student’s feeling by responding inappropriately. To combat such a possibility, it might be advisable to include a statement in the syllabus, consent form, with each activity, that if one feels uncomfortable in responding to an essay because the issue addressed feels too emotionally or personally charged, they may opt out of responding to such work.
In the end, I hope to empower students by offering them a participant role in the research and results. This feels essential to me as a teacher and researcher.
Consequences
I do believe different kinds of consent may be required. In addition to a blanket consent to participate, since I plan on involving students heavily and including their perspectives, and words where appropriate, and individual consent to publish is in order for those student who compile material that will be used in some substantive manner.
I’m torn regarding anonymity. On the one hand, if student work is included, those students should receive full credit for their participation and contribution. This raises the stakes for them. It also legitimates their perspective, showing them the power and efficacy of their language and ideas.
I’m concerned, however, about attributing work that I might criticize in some manner. For example, above, I included as a sample the feedback provided by one student to another, and suggested that this feedback does not go deep enough to be of any help to the writer. Honestly, as I was writing that piece, I considered how the writer might respond, and I recast the text to adopt a sort of aloof, academic tone that I hope conveys that I am critical of the response, but also understanding in suggesting ways the response might be improved. I am not criticizing the individual, but rather a sample of text.
I can guarantee, however, that if an informant disagrees with my characterization of a sample of writing, or the implications of an idea or experience that was shared with me, I will offer the individual and opportunity to rebut my interpretation, or, if they choose, I will remove the offensive material.
Overview of Study
1. Briefly describe your project as you see it today.
Honestly, I don’t know what my project is. During the semester, I examined my Lit 113 discussion board. I was trying to characterize what was going on in the discussions students were having online. I wanted to see of what was happening was really a discussion, or simply a bunch of talking heads speaking past one another. As the discussion I analyzed progressed, it became more and more dialogic, and less static, but this hasn’t really lead me anywhere. It just hasn’t sparked my interest.
I also recorded a class lecture about “Themewriting.” Themewriting is a term William Coles, in his text, “Composing: A Self-Creation Process,” uses to describe the sort of academic writing students complete that has no connection or bearing upon them as individual students or thinkers; themewriting is characterized by ambiguity, hyperbole, an obvious and apparent disconnect from the writer’s character, convictions, from their “self,” and, finally, by slavish attention to correctness and a simple form or structure, the five-paragraph theme. This was a good lecture. I think I finally found a way to explain a describe this phenomenon in terms my students could understand. I used an online cartoon video to emphasize my point. Additionally, I composed a “mock” essay at the computer, projecting the text on the whiteboard, to demonstrate the process and how themewriting is really just a trick to be played.
I also analyzed an early lecture that asked the students to consider, “Why bother learning to write well?” This lecture went well too, and based on the students’ questions and responses, I felt like they were coerced into thinking about the role and function of writing, and writing instruction, in the context of their lives as beginning college students.
I’m also interested in looking at how students build identities in online classes. In F2F classes, there are myriad markers that develop and establish identity, but in the online environment, many of these markers are not present and students are forced to develop their identities using the words they choose to contribute. I’m not quite sure where this might lead, but my hunch is that students able to negotiate this difficulty are more successful in the class, and as writers overall. These students seem to understand the social nature of communication, and are able to manipulate image and identity. This has something to do with voice, and a student taking control over their language and their use of it. I wonder though if online classes foster this development more than F2F classes, even ones with a large online component.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about peer review, and trying to find some way to make it matter. For example, in any given semester, I receive a number of e-mails similar to this one:
Can you please take a look at my rough draft for this 3rd essay. I need critiques, and I feel as if I'm not getting that. I'm not pleased with the (late) middle portion of the paper, as well as the ending. As I wrote this I didn't know where to bring it to an end. It ends too abruptly....what can I do to fix this?
This student is pleading for a substantive response, something she hasn’t been given from her peers, even though we discuss peer response with each rough draft. I explain to them feedback and revision occurs on three levels – content, structure, and editing. We practice responding on the first two levels. I assume they know how to edit a peer’s paper because this is often the sort of response they offer to peers regardless of what they are told to do.
This is one of the responses the student above is reacting to:
The first sentence tells me exactly what I will be reading about. It is the bones of the essay. I enjoyed reading your essay very much, and thanks for sharing. It is nice information to have for civics class.
This response references what Peter Elbow terms the “Bones” of the essay, or the essay’s underlying purpose or focus, beyond the subject or topic, but rather the author’s stance towards that topic, but it reveals little to the original writer about the reader’s understanding of the essay. The responder explains that this is “nice information for a civics class,” but does not qualify the statement. What is nice information for a civics class? Why is it nice information? Why does the information matter?
I read an essay recently by Nicholas Mauriello and Gian Pagnucci. In this essay, Pagnucci and Mauriello discuss a pilot they completed in peer feedback. The authors took two sections of beginning college writers, and paired them with writers from another school, and the students shared and responded to papers back and forth. I like this idea, and I’d like to try it. It crossed my mind that it would be neat to pair my students with a class from another country, not necessarily a writing class, but an English class. Paulo Freire writes, “education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students” (53). Ideally, this is what should happen with peer review. I’m not suggesting that students should be placed in the position of grading their peers work, but it is their job to evaluate the ideas and structure, based on their reading, experience, and understanding of the words on the page. In truth, many of my students do not feel the authority or power to evaluate a peer’s work. Maybe in working with students who are trying to learn the language, as a second language, they might feel more legitimacy in responding to the writing.
Or, maybe the distance and anonymity would help. My hunch is that this is not so important because even in my online writing classes, there are very few students who even bother to respond to a peer’s work, even though the threat of an entire paper grade rests on their substantive and thoughtful response to their peers through out the semester.
This whole issue of peer feedback is a messy one for me. My biggest question is what can I do to foster significant feedback between peers in a writing class? What else can I do to improve the substance of peer feedback?
Location
As a participant in the classroom context within which the feedback is given, I have a stake in the results. From my perspective as a writing teacher, I feel offering substantive feedback, taking the time to consider and examine another’s’ words, can teach the reader much about themselves as a writer, and actually improve their writing.
In positioning myself with regard to this project, I imagine one of the largest obstacles to my understanding the student’s experience and perspective with feedback is my role as teacher. I have evaluated and offered feedback on thousands of student writing samples. As a teacher, I could probably chart my own progression through various stages and types of feedback. I recall, vividly, for example, as a 1st year teaching assistant, editing and proofreading my students’ essays. The first batch of essays I graded took me 16 hours to complete -- a single section! As I grew and matured and a teacher, this sort of response became tedious, and I suppose my own feeling of the futility of such feedback prompted me to seek alternatives. In the end, I have many hours of trial and error to account for the stance and attitudes I have towards the value and function of feedback, something I am asking my students to develop in a matter of 16 weeks. The difference here, however, is that I was never given any formal instruction regarding how to respond to student writing, and I am trying, in my classes, to explain to the best of my ability, the role and function of feedback.
Methods
How am I going to gather data? I imagine the data I will gather will be collected during the course of my regular classroom practice; however, I would like to involve the students explicitly, giving them some sort of stake in the project. Thus, in addition to fieldnotes, and collecting samples of feedback, I would like to interview students regarding their past experiences with providing feedback, their understanding of the principles I am presenting to them, what barriers they sense to giving feedback, and how we might work to improve the situation.
What are the ethical implications for students involved in such a project? Well, I suppose participation in such a study must be voluntary, and students should understand the whether they choose to participate or not, there will be no direct bearing on their grade for the course; however, active participation, because they are graded on the feedback they provide to their peers during the normal course of the class, they might benefit over those who choose not to participate, but to volunteer does not guarantee a better grade, while, likewise, failing to participate does not guarantee a lower grade.
If I chose to involve students less in data gathering and meaning-making, I might analyze samples of students’ feedback, offer voluntary written survey questions, and gather fieldnotes as students complete feedback exercises; I might also analyze sample papers in class and record students’ reactions, questions and comments and extrapolate from these.
Subjects, Subjectivity, and Relationships
The communities touched by such research include students, me as classroom teacher, and possibly other professionals in the composition field.
I have power over the students. In the end, I will assign them a grade based on the feedback they tender, as well as an overall grade for their development as a writer in my course. Assuming this project, or something like it, becomes part of my doctoral dissertation, my UMSL advisor will have power over me.
There is the potential for my abuse of the trust my students place in me as a professional and their teacher. Potentially, some of their work, thoughts, ideas, maybe even words could be lifted by me and passed off as my own without attribution. Overall, however, I believe such work will strengthen the trust students have of me as we work closely to define and reconcile a common issue we both confront in our separate roles and teacher and student.
There is also the potential for the harm of individual students by other students. For example, in an essay about the death of a loved one, a multifaceted and emotional issue, it may be that under normal circumstances, students asked to respond to such work rely on ambiguity and trite, but safe, statements, however, in asking them to respond substantively, a student might inadvertently offend or hurt the other student’s feeling by responding inappropriately. To combat such a possibility, it might be advisable to include a statement in the syllabus, consent form, with each activity, that if one feels uncomfortable in responding to an essay because the issue addressed feels too emotionally or personally charged, they may opt out of responding to such work.
In the end, I hope to empower students by offering them a participant role in the research and results. This feels essential to me as a teacher and researcher.
Consequences
I do believe different kinds of consent may be required. In addition to a blanket consent to participate, since I plan on involving students heavily and including their perspectives, and words where appropriate, and individual consent to publish is in order for those student who compile material that will be used in some substantive manner.
I’m torn regarding anonymity. On the one hand, if student work is included, those students should receive full credit for their participation and contribution. This raises the stakes for them. It also legitimates their perspective, showing them the power and efficacy of their language and ideas.
I’m concerned, however, about attributing work that I might criticize in some manner. For example, above, I included as a sample the feedback provided by one student to another, and suggested that this feedback does not go deep enough to be of any help to the writer. Honestly, as I was writing that piece, I considered how the writer might respond, and I recast the text to adopt a sort of aloof, academic tone that I hope conveys that I am critical of the response, but also understanding in suggesting ways the response might be improved. I am not criticizing the individual, but rather a sample of text.
I can guarantee, however, that if an informant disagrees with my characterization of a sample of writing, or the implications of an idea or experience that was shared with me, I will offer the individual and opportunity to rebut my interpretation, or, if they choose, I will remove the offensive material.
posted by CA Lund at 7:08 PM
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