WRA 150: Evolution of American thought

1. WRA 150: Evolution of American thought THURSDAY, OCT. 15, 2013

2. AGENDA • Housekeeping • Email workshop • Learning the language discussion • Interviews • Annotated bibliographies • What’s next

3. REMINDERS • Some tentative deadlines are up on the course website: • 10/25: Annotated bibliography due • 10/31: Rough draft of Project 3 due/PEER REVIEW DAY. Bring in 2 printed copies of your paper to class • 11/11: Final drafts of Project 3 due by 11:59 pm • Grades for the cultural artifact analysis paper will be given back to you by the end of the week • Btw, no office hours today

4. GOALS FOR TODAY • Workshop our emails • Get a better sense of the types of questions we want to get out of this project and in particular, the kinds of information we want from our potential interviewees. • One way to do this through our discussion of “Learning the Language” • Get some interviewing practice under our belts • Get a better understanding of what’s expected of you for your annotated bibliography

5. EMAIL WORKSHOP • Get in groups of two to three and share your email drafts. • Although this is low stakes, this process underscores the importance of peer review for even the smallest tasks • I want you guys to have polished drafts that include all the things on the email checklist from last class • Remember that the biggest thing you guys need to negotiate is being descriptive yet clear and concise.

6. LEARNING THE LANGUAGE • Get into groups of two to three. • Answer these questions • What were your general impressions/takeaways from the reading? • Why reasons does she pose as to why doctors use that kind of specialized language? • Name two specific examples • What are some other literacies that you guys can compare and contrast to the claims Klass was making about the language of doctors?

7. LEARNING THE LANGUAGE • Think about the discourse communities you belong to—not the ones you will be researching—and think about the literacy practices you guys use to communicate to each other. • This can be anything from your workplace, to a sports team, to your dorm—and describe some of the language you learned as you became a part of that community • phrases, vocabulary, pronunciations. • What language marks you as an insider? What language do/did you resist? Finally, how does this language affect your identity?

8. LEARNING THE LANGUAGE • Klass makes clear the literacy practices of doctors and gives really good examples of specialized language. • Not only that, but she makes an argument for why doctors practice, employ and train members of that discourse community to use such language • To strengthen bonds between members, to assert knowledge as an expert—an insider—and to distance oneself from outsiders—patients. • How does this reading help you think about how you will research your papers? • What kinds of questions can you form, knowing what you know about this one specialized field, for your interview?

9. INTERVIEWS • Like I’ve said before, the interview gives you a chance to have a conversation with people that are doing the things you will hopefully be doing in the future. • Give you the opportunity to ask them how they got to where they are and the types of experience necessary to secure their positions • If you’re choosing to interview a student in a higher level, pick one that has a lot of experience with the literacy practices of their field under their belt • Otherwise, you won’t be gaining much perspective or insight.

10. INTERVIEWS • What types of questions have you guys been brainstorming for this interview? • What sorts of things do you want to know? • Remember to focus on literacy—how they gained this literacy, what it means to be fluent in this literacy, and how it functions in their field. • Think back to “Learning the Language”

11. INTERVIEW ACTIVITY • This will act as a practice round for the interviews you will be doing with professionals/practitioners in your field. • Get with a partner. • Decide who will be the interviewer/interviewee. • You will each be given a slip of paper with directions. • The goal of the interviews is to talk about the disciplinary literacies paper project, progress you’ve made, fields of study, etc. • But be sure to follow directions on the slip of paper.

12. WHAT DID WE LEARN? • Things likely, if you guys followed directions and played along, went really poorly. • This is all just to illustrate how interviews, no matter how well prepared for them, are circumstantial • There are a lot of things that are out of our control • So how can we resolve the problems we ran into today?

13. TROUBLESHOOTING THE INERVIEW AS AN INTERVIEWER THE INTERVIEWEE • Ask open ended questions, follow up question • Switch the question around: reword • Start with conversation • Be personable • Don’t as leading questions (yes or no) • Make eye contact • Be patient • Time crunch: set follow up interview

14. ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHIES • Annotated bibliographies consist of three major parts: a citation, a summary, and an annotation. • The citation occupies one or two lines, and conforms to whatever style you guys see for this assignment [just be consistent]. • The summary should be short—maybe a couple sentences—and gives the reader an idea what your source is all about. Paraphrase the authors main argument. • The annotation is the rest, the meat of the assignment.

15. ANNOTATIONS • Instead of just merely summarizing, annotations give you the space to evaluate why you’ve chosen the source—discuss what’s great, what’s not so great—and how it ties into your final project. • This should be around 100-200 words or so. • Remember that you must include no less than five sources for this paper.

16. WHY DO THIS? • Nobody has ever enjoyed writing an annotated bibliography. Ever. • They are tedious, detail-oriented, time-consuming, and less interesting than some [most] other things. • If annotated bibliographies aren’t any fun, then why do we need to write them? • To make you do your research early. • To give you the opportunity to really understand your topic. • To encourage you to be selective and deliberate with your sources. • To make you reflect on each source you choose, and to help you complete your final project on time [task sequencing].

17. WHY DO THIS? • Along with that, as you move forward in your academic careers, published annotated bibliographies act as a resource for any research you’re doing. • If you decide to publish yours somewhere [online], you can be adding to the conversations that are happening in your discipline, connecting you to other, like-minded scholars.

18. WHY DO THIS? • As if all of those reasons weren’t enough, this assignment is also a sneaky way of getting you to learn about research. • Sure, I could just tell you the things you’ll learn while making an annotated bibliography, but it’s much better to learn by doing instead of listening… • To reiterate: the due date for the annotated bibliography is tentatively10/25.

19. TO SUM UP • Hopefully you leave today with the draft you will use to email your prospective interviewee. • Hopefully you have a prospective interviewee in mind • Like I’ve said, these interviews are an integral step that you might want to schedule sooner rather than later. • Interviews are dynamic and largely unpredictable. Hopefully you gained some insights into how implementing risk management for your interviews will help you avoid mishaps both as an interviewer and if the interviewee is difficult. • The annotated bibliographies are meant to work for you and to help survey the kinds of research you want to incorporate into your paper and why.

20. QUESTIONS? • Is there anything thus far that is unclear to you? • Any concerns as we move forward?

21. FOR NEXT CLASS • READ • “One carpenter’s Life” by Larry Haun • To access: • www.pearsoncustom.com/mi/msu_composition/ • User Name: msu_fall • Password: fall2012