About the Study
Sheehy focuses on an
eight-week period of time in which she acted as a participant observer in a
seventh grade classroom. During those eight-weeks, the class worked on a
“Building Project,” which culminated in a speech based on the five-paragraph
essay that was given to the school board by one of the students. Sheehy uses
ethnographic research methods to examine standardization in composition
studies.
Theories that Inform the Research
Standardization: Sheehy suggests that “standardization practices occur in social life
and occurred prior to this testing era” (336). She writes that forms and
standardization can be useful in the “game of social life,” citing Bourdieu,
Milroy & Milroy, and Shuman (336). In terms of standardization in the
essay, Sheehy first looks at Farr’s theory of decontextualization, but refers
to Shuman and Miller’s discussions of recontextualization and genres to provide
more insight (337-338). Based on Shuman and Miller, she concludes that
“standards and forms cannot be fixed” (338).
Dimensions of Standardization: Sheehy bases her dimensions of standardization for
this study – text as a trajectory of exchange, articulation of relations, and
centrifugal and centripetal forces – on Kamberelis and de le Luna’s “three
coconstructed dimensions” (338). In terms of text as a trajectory of exchange,
she discusses how the essay is a commodity to be produced, distributed, and
consumed, citing Wells, Appadurai, and Fairclough. She then explains Gramsci’s
theory of articulation and rearticulation through Grossberg’s more contemporary
analysis: “‘Articulation is the construction of one set of relations out of
another…Rearticulation occurs through constant struggle to reposition practices
within a shifting field of forces’” (340). She also discusses Gramsci’s theory
of hegemony and Grossberg’s demonstration of it as an event, or a practice in
which “reality is transformed” and is situated in a specific context (341-342).
Finally, she outlines Bakhtin’s theory of heteroglossia, in which centripetal
forces and centrifugal forces are used to standardize and stratify language,
respectively (342).
Methodology
Participants and Data Collection: Sheehy was a participant observer in a seventh grade
classroom. She helped plan and teach the eight-week project, which was composed
of five phases. Participants included all of the 30 students and teachers in
the classroom during the second 90-minute block, but she focused on two small
groups based on her “rapport with some of the students” (345). Data collection
methods included observation, audio recordings, field notes, interviews, community
surveys, and Focus Group B’s speech drafts.
Data Analysis: Sheehy
outlines two levels of analysis: “Charting production, consumption, and
distribution as articulation of the Building Project” and “Centripetal and
centrifugal forces in writing” (346, 353). In the first level, she explains how
she coded her data and filled out a Production Trajectory Map based on it
(346). The map reveals that “the consumption and distribution columns are
replete with difference of opinion; yet the production column (the speech
itself) is strikingly unified” (353). From there, she outlines and examines the
tensions evident in the map using Bakhtin’s theory of centripetal (unifying) and
centrifugal (stratifying) forces (353).
Findings
Sheehy writes that the
teacher’s graphic organizer, Bakhtin’s idea of genre memory, or the knowledge
of a genre based on the understanding of similar genres, and the teacher’s
comments were the three most unifying forces at work while the students wrote
their speeches (357). She points out that the tensions that she outlined led to
“strategic use of dearticulation/rearticulation” (360). By delinking ideas that
they learned in class and relinking those ideas in their speeches, Sheehy
writes that the students were able to “effect cohesion” with strategies such as
emotional appeal, veiling contradictions, and interdiscursive alliances (360). She
concludes, “[the speech] was a rearticulation of many texts and relationships,
which changed constantly as ideas were produced and consumed in this example of
a game of social life” (366).
Limitations
Sheehy explains three
limitations of her study. First is that her methodology did not find many
connections between the situation in the classroom and the history of teaching
essay writing in schools (366). The second limitation is that she framed the
speech as an essay, which is not the case. She concedes that the forces that helped
to create a successful outcome for the speech may not have worked if they were
not addressing the school board (367). Finally, she explains that her research
is only on one of the speeches that the class wrote, which suggests that they
were all “produced similarly” (367). She clarifies that they were not all
produced similarly, and suggests a cross-essay analysis for further research.
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