Separating the Spurious from the Genuine

This place could easily become a parking lot. I'm busy finishing my lit review for Lisa's class and I came across this article:

Paris, S. (2005). Reinterpreting the development of reading skills. Reading Research Quarterly, 40 (2), 184-202. 

I'd like to spend a lot more time with this article and other pieces by Scott Paris, including this book chapter, entitled "Spurious and Genuine Correlates of Children's Reading Comprehension". 

None of this relates to my lit review, so I must put it aside, but I want to remember to go back and take all of this in.

Genre Research Process So Far

For this lit review, I'm researching two main bodies of work:

1. genre as it pertains to literature and writing in school, and
   
2. genre as it pertains to films and filmmaking

To begin a search for published research in the first category, I manually searched article titles for the past ten years (1999-2008) of Reading Research Quarterly (RRQ) for references to genre. I then searched the same time period in Research in the Teaching of English (RTE). I chose the ten year span because I wanted to capture the most recent research on this topic. I plan to review the references in the articles captured through this search to identify seminal pieces from before the ten year period. RRQ and RTE are top tier education research journals and should contain references to other work that will pertain.

To begin a search on the second category, I spoke to the research librarian for education at the USF library. We tried several searches, refining down to a search using Google Scholar (Advanced: contains "genre" AND exact phrase "film studies", 1999-2008). One of the articles produced from that search is Mittell 2001, published in Cinema Journal. That article referenced a book, Film/Genre by Rick Altman, which Mittell identifies as the key work done in examining genre as a discursive practice. Mittell also refers to Jane Feuer's essay in Channels of Discourse as the "most comprehensive discussion of television genre theory".


From here, I will move forward from Mittell 2001 to see what subsequent works cite him and return to the original search results. I also may do a title search, similar to those done for RRQ and RTE, in Cinema Journal and another journal suggested by the earlier search results. I also have to continue tracking down resources for the literature/writing side of the lit review.

Notes on Leander and Rowe 2006 Rhizomatic

Mapping Literacy Spaces in Motion: A Rhizomatic Analysis of a Classroom Literacy Performance
Kevin M. Leander and Deborah Wells Rowe
Reading Research Quarterly, Vol. 41, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec. 2006), pp. 428-460
International Reading Association
Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4151813 on 9/14/08.

This paper outlines an alternative way to describe and evaluate literacy performances in the classroom - rhizomatic analysis.

1. Research Questions
In this article, Leander and Rowe are exploring alternative ways of conceptualizing literacy practice. Looking at literacy in a representative way emphasizes stability and continuity. They posit that literacy is much more interactive, fluid, and creative than can be captured in a traditional representation. To this end, they draw upon Deleuze and Guattari's (1987) conception of rhizomatic analysis and use it to analyze a single literacy performance.

2. Subjects, Setting, Context
The researchers analyzed video recordings from a large collection of recordings of classroom performances. They sought methods of representing what they found.


Other Comments
A performance can be mapped and would resemble a map of a large root system. There are larger roots which seem to signify some orderly organization and some segmentation. Then there are many other roots that shoot off in seemingly random directions, criss-crossing and providing multiple points of departure. If this is applied to a classroom literacy performance, lines of segmentarity are those that seem to carry the idea of structure (like the introduction, following an outline, anything that is conventional and predictable) and lines of flight are the many criss-crossing other roots.
Rhizomatic analysis is primarily concerned with the movement of ideas and the interaction of concepts and bodies, not in defining and organizing meaning.

Rhizomes in this context are an analogy to rhizomes in nature. Rhizomatic relations are seen in roots, particularly things like crabgrass that grow in every direction at once. They are contrasted with arborescent, or tree-like, relations that are hierarchical.

Key Concepts
multiplicity
connection
heterogeneity
asignifying ruptures
lines of flight
lines of segmentarity
assemblage
deterritorialization

Notes on Marsh 2006, Pop Culture in the Literacy Curriculum

Popular culture in the literacy curriculum: A Bourdieuan analysis
Jackie Marsh
University of Sheffield, Sheffield, England

Reading Research Quarterly, Vol. 41, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun. 2006), pp. 160-174
Published by International Reading Association
Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/pss/4151728 on 9/14/08.
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1. Research Questions
1) "What are the beliefs and practices
of preservice teachers with regard to the use of popular-culture and media texts in the primary literacy curriculum?"
2) "How do structural and agentic elements shape the dynamic between these beliefs and practices?"

2. Subjects, Setting, Context
This longitudinal study looked at the attitudes, beliefs, and practices of preservice teachers in regards to the inclusion of pop culture in the literacy curriculum. Marsh uses a theoretical lens based on the work of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu to examine how the agency of the teachers was limited by the institutional stance on pop culture.
18 teacher education students were interviewed over the course of their 3 year program. Responses of 3 students were analyzed.

3. Procedures (briefly)
Group and individual interviews were conducted. Transcripts were coded using inductive coding. Validity was enhanced by having dyads of students independently code samples. The coded data were then organized into concepts.

4. Findings
1) Student teachers may be excited about the idea of incorporating popular culture texts into the classroom, but they are pressured to conform to norms of the school structure and not include these texts.
2) Teachers capitulate to the values of the structure that has become habitus for them and that is reinforced throughout.

5. Strengths and Weaknesses of Study
All of the data are based on self-report from the participants. Although member checks were performed, this remains the strongest limitation of the study.

6. Implications
More work needs to be done on the inclusion of popular culture texts in the classroom. There seems to be a disconnect between the vision the field of education has about what are appropriate texts for children and the actual texts that are present in the lives of children outside of school today.

7. Other Comments
Bourdieu believed that structures, such as a school curriculum, impose the sociocultural values of one unfairly advantaged group over all other groups in a society and that individuals within such a system can comply (passively or actively) or resist the reconstruction of the dominant value system.

In Marsh's section titled "Restricted beliefs and practices", the author discusses teacher concerns about the inclusion of popular culture texts in the classroom because of what is perceived as non-age-appropriate content. That section also discusses teacher anxiety over technological innovation and invokes the Freudian concept of the "uncanny" to explain this unease. This section applies to the tension that the counselors and I experience during the summer camp because of the inclusion of popular culture texts.

Notes on Zines for Social Justice

Zines for Social Justice: Adolescent Girls Writing on Their Own
Barbara J. Guzzetti and Margaret Gamboa
Reading Research Quarterly, Vol. 39, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 2004), pp. 408-436
Published by: International Reading Association
Retrieved electronically on 9/13/08 from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4151741

This is an important study for our work with Fast Literacies because of its theoretical framework and research design. It contributes to broadening understandings of the relationship between in-school and out-of-school literacy practices. The theoretical framework also includes gender and identity formation.

1. Research Questions
1) What influences and enables adolescent girls in writing zines that promote social justice and refute stereotypical notions of how gender, sexuality, class, and race should be performed?
2) How do these adolescents develop and use literacy practices to form and express their identities?

2. Subjects, Setting, Context
The subjects were three adolescent women (AP students) who write and publish a 'zine. Data collection occurred at and near a high school.

3. Procedures (briefly)
Case study - "complete study of a bounded and integrated system". Did not look at writing process; only considered the writers, their content, and their motivation. Data collection included formal and informal interviews, observations, artifact collection (including the zines, in-school writing samples, photos of bedrooms and workspaces, influential music), open-ended questionnaires, field notes, and structured focus groups. Member checks were conducted with participants.
Data were analyzed using constant comparison. Trustworthiness established. Established "warrants" for assertions. Sought outside perspectives from other researchers.

4. Findings
1) The participants were influenced and motivated by a punk rock DIY ethic and feminist and progressive beliefs. They were supported by their middle class status, their race (white), and the technology tools used for publication.
2) The participants violated writing rules and expectations of in-school writing and chose topics freely based on interest. They borrowed from and responded to popular culture forms.

5. Strengths and Weaknesses of Study
This study adds to the breadth of adolescent literacy practices described in research. It provides a rich description of this particular case. The study is not generalizable to any other population and should not be interpreted too broadly in its implications for other students. The participants are all white, middle class or higher, and female.

6. Implications
The authors conclude (with the assent of all involved) that zines should not become writing assignments in the classroom. This kind of sanctioning would fundamentally change the nature of the writing. Instead, they recommend teachers adopt more opportunities for choice in writing topics, genres, etc., and that teachers adopt the "ethos" of zines. They also recommend more opportunities for ungraded writing and unshared writing.


7. Other Comments

"Why is it important to study why and how adolescents produce and consume zines as a literacy practice? There are two reasons offered by literacy researchers. First, as Donna Alvermann and Allison Heron (2001) noted, it is important for teachers to become aware of how students use literacies to form and represent their identities, to construct meaning, and to pursue their own interests. If teachers can become aware of who their students really are, and what motivates them to read and write, and learn how adolescents develop, practice, and refine their literacies outside of school, educators will be better equipped to connect those out-of-school literacy practices to the work students do in school. " p. 411

Research cited to show that students of both genders tend to write in gender-stereotypical ways: Burdick, 1997; Christie, 1995; Dyson, 1997; Kamler, 1994; MacGillivray & Martinez, 1998

"Susan Hunt (1995) discovered that adolescent males were more likely to write about philosophical questions, adventures, and social problems, while female students were more likely to write about relationships." p. 412

Research cited to show that some girls write against stereotype and cultural expectations: Blair, 1996; Christie, 1995; Guzzetti, Young, Gritsavage, Fyfe, & Hardenbrook, 2002.

As part of their theoretical framework, the authors cite Gee 1996 and Street 1994 to establish a sociocultural perspective on literacy as more than technical reading and writing. They also cite Scribner & Cole 1981 to establish that students' beliefs about purposes and value of literacy shape how they learn and practice literacy.

The authors' theoretical frame include identity construction (Bakhtin), d/Discourse (Gee), and gender (including Lather, Heath). This theoretical frame would be useful to examine in greater detail in any study dealing with gender representations at the camp.