Goals and progress

Those two goals I set for myself in my last post? About writing every day and finishing a draft of the proposal? Neither happened.

But I don't want to focus on the negative. Instead, I'll take credit for doing a lot of work on the proposal yesterday. I pulled out a notebook (because for the life of me I can't put my thoughts directly into the computer) and restarted the proposal. I wrote for an hour, and then pulled out the proposal draft and decided what I wanted to keep and what needed to go. Much progress. Still not done, but much progress.

On an academic and personal note, I also set up a time budget for myself. I don't know if this will work or not, but I set up a spreadsheet where I can record the hours I spend each week on diss work, teaching, prep, tv watching, blog reading, etc. I don't do well with a rigid schedule, but this time budget might work. I'm hoping it will. I've not been as motivated as I should be lately.

My goals for this week:
1) write every day
2) finish a solid proposal draft
3) email draft to committee

Week of January 15 (I'll be the ant or the tortoise)

Hi, all. I've been writing, but writing very slowly. I know that dissertation writing is a slow process, but I want it to be faster than it is. Because I'm not just flying through this work, I feel like a loser . . . I think to myself that I should write 10 polished and perfected pages a day so that by the end of the month, the diss will be finished.

But I know it doesn't work like that. I know that. Really I do.

I was thinking the other day about the tortoise and the hare . . . or the ant and grasshopper . . . or something. I want to be the fast one, but I need to be the slow one. I need to remember that all it is, all it really can be, is one foot in front of the other.

I read on a blog several months ago (in comments, so I can't link to it easily), that dissertation writing is a different genre and it's one that we (as grad students) have not had to write before. This commenter noted that writing a page a day (which for most of us is manageable) could equate to a completed diss in about a year.

I'm holding onto that idea today. I can't write 10 pages today, but I can write one. Anyone with me?

i suppose i should oblige billie as well...

cross-posted over at Wind Farm

i'm currently working on my prospectus for my diss at Temple Univ. i'm a comp/rhet/literacy studies guy, and i’m having a small issue with getting started on my prospectus. so, if i may, i'd like to briefly describe my project to see what you guys think.

I’m interested in theories/models of reconfigured classroom spaces (Dewey, Hawhee, Sirc, and even J. Rice are examples). “Reconfigured” b/c “traditional” models of classroom instruction are “unnatural” (see Dewey) and inefficient/ineffective for many students (see Hull and Schwartz, Mahiri, and Smith and Willhelm). What I’d like to do is use student-athletes as a subject site for examining how humans learn in non-traditional spaces. The theoretical framework that I plan to use includes, primarily, Vygotsky’s notions of concept formation in the development of higher mental processes, but with a twist: Lakoff and Johnson (Philosophy in the Flesh) and Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s (Phenomenology of Perception) theories of phenomenology which articulates that concept formation in the mind is actually an embodied phenomenon. I THINK that student-athletes and coaches might be a really productive sight of inquiry and possibly serve as a sort of model for effectively reconfiguring classroom space. Now, there is a danger in holding onto this assumption before starting my research (whatever form that takes – though it’s likely to be ethnographic in “intent”); obviously I’m going to need a really good and “objective” Grand Tour Question to help in mediating this bias (which is partly formed due to a small pilot study I conducted about 2 years ago).

Now that I have provided a perfectly ambiguous summary of my dissertation dreams, I present to you my question: What ideas come to mind for a good GTQ? This is not a simple question by any means, but I don’t expect you to ruminate for hours over it – just an idea or two that pops in your head. By way of example, my committee chair suggested that I explore this topic through an examination of “motivation”: how/in what ways is a student motivated to learn? how/in what ways is a student/athlete motivated to learn? Another example is the GTQ for my pilot study: “How do you learn stuff?” Originally it was something like, “How would you describe the mind/body synthesis or lack thereof that you experience in classroom learning situations viz. athletic learning situations?” but the 17 year old boys to whom I posed this question looked at me like I was an alien when I uttered something similar to those words. Since my access to them was limited, my quick goat-thinking helped me come up with, “Uh, how bout you just start with telling me how you learn stuff.” Whatever the GTQ eventually is, I’m inclined to have it be as simple/basic as possible (yaknow, K.I.S.S. – keep it simple, stupid).

one last thing: for a long time now I’ve been thinking about how my diss would go – the methodology, the subjects, the site, the data collection and analysis, etc. The more I think about what I thought my project would be, the more I lean towards practicality. And then I think about how I’m already ready to be done with it. That last statement can be as complex or simple as you want it to be; though, what I really mean by all of it is I’m not so committed to any particular aspect that I wouldn’t consider making minor or major changes. I’ve done what might be considered a substantial amount of ground work already. So, in a nutshell, I guess what I’m aksin for is some help in shaking things up… After all, the best dissertation is a done dissertation. yaknowhatimean?

At Billie's Request...

I'm a 20th century historian and the diss is tentatively titled, " 'Just Step Over 'Em 'cause the Line Keeps Rolling': Black Women in the Poultry Processing Industry of ElDorado, AR."

Narrow as all get it out and I'm still dragging my feet.

Intro & some modest goals

Hi all--

I'm currently working on my diss proposal at UNH (Working Title: Race in the Composition Classroom: Purpose, Pedagogy and Students’ Interpretations), which I'm hoping to defend by the end of January. There's more about me here.


Two goals for now:

(1) Write something every day (I'm copying off of elle here). For someone from the land of expressivism, process, and Don Murray (may he rest in peace), I haven't been keeping up with writing to learn lately. I need to get back to doing that.

(2) Complete a solid, intelligible draft of the whole proposal by Monday, January 15th. (This is an achievable but aggressive goal. I think.)

Monday and Back to Work (literally)

It's Monday, and I had to come back to campus today to prepare for this semester. Last night I made a list of things I needed to accomplish for course preparation, so I can work through that list, checking off items as I go. I can THEN work on the dissertation. Oh, how I wish I could reverse the order of those items, dissertation first, other stuff second. Anyway, my goal today is to chop through the list of things to do (email, copies, phone calls, syllabi prep) then write this afternoon. Specifically, today I want to write about the death of Darrent Williams (this may or may not make it to the dissertation, but the issues surrounding him are important and they could inform my chapter on perception). While I didn't know Williams, I did once work with students at the high school he attended when I directed a dual-enrollment program at another university. On Saturday, Williams was buried and the local newspaper had coverage of the funeral. How the paper chose to portray the man in this article (explicitly but also implicitly) was highly unfortunate, and that's not even the right word. There are such negative perceptions associated with African American men, athletes, that I need to write about it. I might post more on my other blog, but that's the goal: write about this specific case and let this inform my other work.

Coward that I Am...

...I'm going to start off with a very general goal. My first goal is to do what everyone around me has insisted is so important: write something everyday!

Trust me, that will be a step up for me.

Billie's Goals 1/5/07

I've felt good about my progress the past few days. My work hasn't been constant, but it's been steady, and I've gotten quite a bit done. And that's good. My goal for the next few days (by Monday) is to produce at least 20 pages that will morph into an introduction for the dissertation. I'm going to strive for more, but my goal is 20. Wish me luck.

First goal

Now that comps are done with (THANK GOD!!!), my next task is to knock out this lil thing called a prospectus. Since Boot Camp is (primarily?) a place for setting goals and submitting drafts, i'll spare the details for my place. By this time next week i'd like to have completed my reading of Philosophy in the Flesh (Lakoff and Johnson's enormous follow-up work to Metaphors We Live By) and have a substantially revised draft to an article that i submitted to a journal in our field. Now, you might be thinking that focusing on an article at a time when i should be drafting my prospectus would be a distraction. The truth of the matter is, you're probably right. In some ways it probably will be/is a distraction. However, my justification is that i'm just double-dipping. The article - which is on some research i did on high school student athletes' effective ways of learning in classrooms and on bball courts - needs to have some serious beef added to the theory section. And here is how i plan on making this a useful prospectus exercise:

The theoretical framework for this article (and, at this point anyway, my diss research plans) includes Dewey and Vygotsky's notions of play, Vygotsky (and Neo-Vygotskians) theory of concept development, Bakhtin's/Dewey's/Vygotsky's social theories of dialogism, Merleau-Ponty's theory of phenomenology, and Lakoff and Johnson's elaboration of and unification of phenomenology to concept formation/development.
All of this may sound like a lot. And it is. I know this. I should note, though, that dialogism and social aspects will, for the time being, remain in the back seat - very subtle, almost implicit-like. Primarily i am concerned with concept formation and development as it relates to the body and language use. This means i'll focus mainly on Vygotsky, Merleau-Ponty and Lakoff and Johnson (with some words, possibly, about Dewey and experiential stuff).

So there it is. My first diss-related goal: establishing a theoretical framework for research on student-athletes' learning as an inquiry model for reconfiguring classroom space for 21st century learning/training.

Billie's Plan for 1/4/07

OK, since it's a new year, it's time to get to work on this dissertation. Let me introduce myself . . . My name is Billie (aka Partsnpieces), and I'm writing a Rhetoric/Composition dissertation on an institution's ethical responsibility to underprepared student athletes. As I work on this, though, I'm refining my topic. It's moving itself toward a dissertation that outlines a new pedagogical approach to teaching marginalized students, a teaching as coaching model, but it's just that my students happen to be student athletes at a Division I-A institution.

Since my prospectus was approved last semester, I've felt overwhelmed about how to get started on the diss, as it all seems so massively overwhelming. So I do what I when I'm overwhelmed: nothing. Today, however, I went to the library and organized my dissertation hard drive and I realized that I have **a lot** of raw data to work with. After seeing that I have over 100 pages of writing (bad writing, but writing nonetheless) and knowing that my data from surveys is complete and is ready for analysis, well, I feel excited to begin the work. I have something to work with.

Today, I constructed a Gantt chart that outlines my writing plans for this semester (dissertation, plus some conference presentations), and at least on paper, it looks doable.

Now a quick caveat: I have a tendency to think really big, and I have another tendency to make claims about my abilities that I can't actually support. "Oh, yes, I can have 150 10-page essays graded by tomorrow morning, no problem!" OK, a slight exaggeration, but I am going to work hard at keeping my goals manageable and realistic.

So, Goal #1 (for Thursday, 1/4/7): I will head to my PhD institution library and will spend at least five hours there writing, 10 pages on my introduction.