Ethnography As a Way In
Writing Meets Research in First-Year Composition
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/wap.v3i1.17Keywords:
Ethnographic research, Teaching writing, first-year writing, compositionAbstract
In this article, we describe an approach to teaching first-year composition that is built on a qualitative design for undergraduate research and writing. As writing instructors at a state teaching college, we see the need to move our students beyond the boundaries of expressivism, personal narrative, and argument and into the murkier, messier, and more critical territory of considering subjectivities, interpreting cultural texts and contexts, and, ultimately, coming to see the dynamic and dialogic nature of rhetorical situations and knowledge production. We have discovered that asking undergraduates to do field work as a way to enter the academic conversation allows them to shift from high school writing to college-level writing. Inviting them to delve into a primary research project of their own design grants them permission to construct their ownership, authority, and intellectual engagement of ideas. Case studies of the experiences of five student research writers illustrate the process through which, as ethnographers, students become actors in their own learning process.
References
Archibald, O. (2009) Representation, ideology, and the form of the essay. Writing & Pedagogy 1(1): 13–38.
Bahbha, H. (1994) The Location of Culture. New York: Routledge.
Bartholomae, D. (1985) Inventing the university. In M. Rose (ed.) When a Writer Can’t Write: Studies in Writer’s Block and Other Composing-Process Problems 134–166. New York and London: The Guilford Press.
Berlin, J. (1998) Rhetoric and ideology in the writing class. College English 50(5): 477–494.
Bizzell, P. (1992). Academic Discourse and Critical Consciousness. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Calkins, L. (1985). Forming research communities among naturalistic researchers. In B. McClelland and T. R. Donovan (eds.) Perspectives on Research and Scholarship in Composition 125–44. New York: Modern Language Association.
Didion, J. (1968). Slouching Toward Bethlehem. New York: Farrar.
Downs, D. and Wardle, E. Teaching about writing, righting misconceptions: Re(Envisioning) “First-Year Composition” as “Introduction to Writing Studies.” College Composition and Communication 58(4): 552–584.
English, L. (2005) Third-space practitioners: Women educating for justice in the global south. Adult Education Quarterly 55(2): 85–100.
Geller, A. E., Eodice, M., Condon, F., Carroll, M. and Boquet, E. H. (2007) The Everyday Writing Center: A Community of Practice. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press.
Grobman, L. The Student Scholar: (Re)Negotiating Authorship and Authority. College Composition and Communication 61(1): W175–W196.
Heath, S. B. (1983) Ways With Words. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Holland, D., Lachicotte, Jr., W., Skinner, D. and Cain, C. (1998) Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Kill, M. (2006) Acknowledging the rough edges of resistance: Negotiation of identities for first-year composition. College Composition and Communication 58(2): 213–235.
Lamott, A. (1994) Bird by Bird. New York: Pantheon Books.
Miller, R. (2005) Writing at the End of the World. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Perl, S. (1983) Reflections on ethnography and writing. The English Record 4:10–11.
Powdermaker, H. (1966) Stranger and Friend: The Way of the Anthropologist. New York: Norton.
Seidman, I. (2006) In-Depth Interviewing as Qualitative Research. New York: Teachers College Press.
Senge, P. (1990) The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. New York: Currency Doubleday.
Shor, I. (1987) Critical Teaching and Everyday Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Spear, K. (1997) Controversy and consensus in freshman writing: An overview of the field. The Review of Higher Education 20(3): 319–344.
Sunstein, B. S. and Chiseri-Strater, E. (2007) FieldWorking (3rd edition). Boston: Bedford / St. Martin’s.
Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Williams, B. T. Seeking new worlds: The study of writing beyond our classrooms, College Composition and Communication 62(1): 127–146.