You Guys Will Be Famous!

Hello, everyone. I'm back from Houston and the IWCA (Int'l Writing Center Association) Conference. All went well, and my talk was well received. While I didn't mention any of you by full name (first name, yes), I did share a few of your comments during my talk about dissertation writing groups. There was a lot of head-nodding when I talked about our desire for our work to "brilliant" and how that desire can push us to an inability to produce. I spoke about one of our member's "writing process" and how that allowed us all to reexamine our own processes. I even included a snippet of one member submitting a 28-page section of work to her advisor and we could all chime in with a, "you go, girl!"

A bit of good news, I think: One woman-- a dean at a SMLAC-- mentioned that I should polish the "talk" and publish it, that it was something other dissertators would need to know. This from a woman who has published scads and scads o' stuff. I wouldn't know where to begin with a publication endeavor, but anyway, that was fun news to hear.

But as far as *my* dissertation progress: I have a meeting tomorrow afternoon with my director, and I will give him three sections of information (info not yet formed into chapters). One is a narrative about a specific student athlete and his/her writing experiences in my class and how this particular student was very effective at storytelling (and how that plays a part in this student's culture). Another section is the beginnings of a section on learned helplessness, and how this particular section of student athletes can exhibit LH tendencies. Lastly, I'll give him the beginnings of a section on teaching / coaching and how these activities overlap. (Here, I think, Chris and I have overlapping ideas.)

My director doesn't specifically want to see sections of work; he wants to see me moving forward with the writing. So . . . move forward I will.

Progress

I just dropped off my revised IRB proposal at the Office of Sponsored Research.

I've made a good bit of progress on my diss proposal revisions and have made a few small but important methodological changes that will make my project much better, I think.

I went to Barnes & Noble last night and bought Getting Things Done. I've seen it mentioned in a few places (A Delicate Boy, CultureCat, 43folders), so I've decided to check it out for myself. Anyone here have experience with it?

I'm Sorry!

I'm bad. Very, very bad. But I'm writing, and it looks like an early May defense is possible.

Blogger Meet Up: Houston?

Any bloggers living in Houston? I'll be in Houston later this week for the IWCA conference, and I'll be speaking on Dissertation Writing Groups. Dissertation Boot Camp will probably be a small part of the conversation. Anyway, anyone ready for a blogger meet up? Send an email, or leave a note in comments below.

Cross posted at PnP.

For you guys: would you mind if I talked about you and your process of dissertating with this group? Of course, I would not name you, but I would talk about you in a general sense, about the community that's being formed here, how the work of the dissertation is isolating, but this forum helps us stay connected?

Crazy week

I've a crazy week this week -- 4 meetings tomorrow alone. Geez. That includes two student conferences, but still. So the odds of me working on my dissertation chapter aren't very good. The goal, then, is to get at least 10 issue analysis essays graded. They're relatively long, research-based, sort of intense essays, so they tend to take a lot of time.

I hope others are making better progress on their diss-related goals than I am. The summer, though. Oh the summer. I have grand writing plans. : )

How I work

I've been frustrated with myself in recent weeks because I haven't been getting as much work done as I'd like. In talking through this with a few friends, I've been able to see my own writing process with a clarity that I haven't had before.

Present business
There are two major writing projects right now. One is revising my dissertation proposal and the other is revising my IRB proposal. The projects are obviously interrelated-- what gets changed in one must be reflected in the other, thought the IRB proposal is much less detailed.

In the IRB proposal, I have one question left to address: how to ethically and responsibly recruit participants. My study is on whiteness and the Discourse (Gee!) that white students use when race is a topic in the writing classroom. I am setting up two focus groups of 4-6 white students. Given my research interest for this project, and the population of students with which I am working (predominantly white), I need to restrict the participants in that way. But I recognize that this move is discriminatory. I've talked with two of my mentors, and I'm meeting with one of the IRB members next week to get another perspective on how to work this situation. I have ideas, but it's not settled yet.

The recruiting question also factors into the revised proposal. The other significant concern with the proposal has been creating a straighter and stronger line from the conversation in composition to my research questions to my method. I have already established my project more firmly in existing scholarship, and I've refined my explanation of my method so that I show how the method will provide information that is new and needed. Revising the research questions has been far more trouble than I anticipated, however. It's been hard for me to conceive of how precise the questions need to be.

Getting back to work
I've been dancing with, around, and through these problems for a few weeks now.

When I've got a chunk of free time to devote to work, I start by addressing one of my known concerns head-on. After rereading what I've already said, sometimes I know exactly where I need jump in and add, delete, or revise.

Sometimes, I don't. In those moments, I shift to indirect work. I'll pull out an article or book that is related to the direct concern. I'll read and take notes, but it's not with the aggressive purpose of answering the immediate question. It's more like letting the roast simmer in the crock pot while folding the laundry. It's useful, it helps in the long run, but neatly folded t-shirts don't make the roast taste any different.

Sometimes that tangent will lead me back to the more immediate concern. If it doesn't I will continue to work around what needs to be done-- more reading, freewriting, rereading. I may also switch gears and grade or plan for class-- because there's always work there to be done. Again, I'm being productive, but it's not directly helping me answer the biggest questions.

My process is unreliable, though, in that I don't know how much working around it will take before I'm ready to address the direct issue. I'm still in the middle of working around these questions I described above, and I've had to do more working around than I usually do. I'm anxious to answer my questions.

- - -
(Today's indirect work is this blog post-- it's not helping me rewrite my research questions or describe my participant selection, but it does help me recognize my own tendencies.)

Cross-posted at Intent/Effect.

The Final Countdown

Who was it that sang that awful song from the 80s anyway? Was it Asia? I can just hear that synthesizer!

So, yes, eight days until my dissertation must be in the mail. Last night, I wrote the conclusion, which means I now have a complete dissertation that just needs some good, solid revising, editing, and formatting before it can be on its way. That was a very good feeling. But then I woke up this morning and realized I had to get all that good, solid revising, editing, and formatting done in just over a week. Then I felt sad.

But it's definitely within the realm of doableness. And so I will do it.

absent but not lacking an agenda

i've been neglectful of The Boot Camp. my bad, folks. i tend to post a lot of stuff over at my place instead of puttin stuff down over here. one reason might be laziness. another reason may be that i actually do feel a sense of responsibility once i commit something to this blog.

i'm back from Cs, and though i didn't get to meet up with k8, billie or meagan, i think the NY trip was generally a success. the two things that i'm committing to now that i'm back:

1. get crackin on layin out the Vygotsky, Lakoff and Johnson, and Merleau-Ponty theories of concept formation.
2. write out my proposed methodology for my qualitative study of student-athletes using Julie Cheville's Minding the Body as my primary model and then supporting/justifying the methodology via such folks as Bishop, Chiseri-Strater, Goldblatt, Newkirk, Smith and Willhelm, Sunstein, Wolcott and others.

though i'll go ahead and use the back-burner metaphor, another exceptionally important diss-related task is to meet with two particular coaches at my institution to begin to butter them up for possibly allowing me access to them and their athletes... i'll be doing this next week fo sho!

Focused!

I haven't posted for a while, I realize. Being in New York for CCCC was an obvious obstacle-- my hotel didn't have wireless (among other things). I've been very focused since I've been back, though. My teaching is strong right now and so is my work on the diss.

I heard back from the university IRB on the day I left for NYC. My time since returning has been devoted to making the changes they requested. Minor changes, really. I'm meeting with my adviser tomorrow, and will send off the revised proposal by Monday at the latest. I need to get started on my data collection before the summer is over-- I need actual first year writing students, and we only have 2 fyw classes in the summer, so I'm anxious to get going.

Chapter

After a meeting with my dissertation chair at CCCC, I am now shooting to finish my chapter on invitational rhetoric by the end of April. This seems do-able, but it's a packed month. Wish me luck.