When I think about the question of the exploitation of adjunct and graduate labor in the university, I can’t help but think of it within the specific context of English departments and to think that the current state of affairs feels almost inevitable considering the way in which our departments are positioned within the university, the role of…[Read more]

Great job reflecting on your process and recording your observations, Shreya! In the patterns/insights/breakthroughs section, the idea is to do a bit more interpretation of your own, so you may have to concentrate on generating some text that explains and expands on your observations in your own voice for the final paper. But it sounds like you’ve…[Read more]

Also, perhaps you’re saving some of that analysis for the conclusion or reflection sections. Looking forward to reading it!

Hi Nishan — your narrative is looking really good. I’m interested in how you’ll synthesize all this information — probably in the conclusion/reflection sections of the paper — since you got such varying responses. But as a writeup of the narrative itself, I think this is in excellent shape. Thanks for your hard work!

Hi Bonnie —

I’m reading through all the parts of your research that you’ve been posting here, and it looks like you’re in the home stretch! This is looking good, and quite complete to me. You’re doing an especially good job of providing a complete and detailed account of the observations you did. If I were to make any suggestion, it would be…[Read more]

Hi Daniel — this is really great. You’ve got lots of good, concrete detail. I’ve worked at a tutoring center myself, and I completely agree that the students who are able to get a lot out of it are the ones who come often and are able to establish a relationship with their tutor. Maybe there’s something in the contrast between that statement from…[Read more]

I’m glad you survived!!

Hi Daniel — this is a really nice, thorough account of what you’ve learned so far. Great job with the writeup. In terms of your direction from here, I wonder whether you might spend some time observing at one of the programs you mentioned — I don’t know much about those programs, but I’m guessing they are tutoring programs or something of that…[Read more]

Hi Shreya! Looks like you’ve got a really great start. This is a nice, detailed narrative — thanks! As you talk to more people, you’ll probably start getting more varied points of view that don’t necessarily go along with your own. If that happens, devote some time to thinking about that in your “patterns, insights, breakthroughs” section. Let me…[Read more]

Hi Nishan! We’ve already talked a little, so you know many of my thoughts. It looks like you’re doing good work even if you started late. I’d encourage you to beef up the narrative section, so you’re creating more material to use as evidence in your final paper. It can simply be a record of everything you’ve learned, whether you think everything…[Read more]

Hi Bonnie —

Don’t be discouraged that students don’t know about the policy. That’s really valuable data! If none of the students are aware of it or seem to care about it, what does that mean for your argument? I know that you have a lot of critiques of affirmative action policies…assuming that your criticisms still stand, what does it mean…[Read more]

Hi Bonnie! Looks to me like this an. bib. is already in good shape! Thanks!

I wanted to address the point Giselle makes regarding differing student/teacher perceptions when she says that students may not have much of an awareness of the scaffolding that is happening in the classroom. This has been a major barrier for me, even as I have tried to be as open (transparency again) about it as possible. The syllabus I’m working…[Read more]

This sounds promising to me, Nishan! In fact, ethnography seems like a really great mode of research for questions of grading practices, since these debates are essentially always focused on how grading affects student attitudes & performance. And you make a statement that you won’t be able to do research on Fridays — that’s no problem! You…[Read more]