Beginning week 9 (the week after Spring Break), each student in a given research group will be assigned to prepare a significant summary and analysis of what you have discovered for yourself in the research you have conducted, which you will share with your research group, and then the class, and to which group and/or class members will reply thoughtfully, and in ways that help forward that student's inquiry.
The research each student selects to share must be significant--one or more larger works, such as a novel, book of poems, academic book, a play, or film, or a collection of smaller works, such as a group of related academic articles, or book chapters, short films, or a mixture. A short craft blog or magazine article is insufficient, unless part of a much larger cluster of substantial sources.
During the class session after having shared your research in writing, each student in the research group will have an opportunity to discuss the piece of writing they have shared with the instructor and the rest of the class.
What each student shares will likely be selections from their Annotated Bibliography and Research Journal, revised in such a way that guides the class to appreciate the value of what you have researched and more importantly, what you have discovered for yourself.
The central focus is on what you have discovered for yourself. While you will likely include information (facts, arguments, etc.), the value for you will be in what the application of the methods we learned during Stage One have revealed.
Composition
During Stage Two of the course, as you explore research methods, as you aggregate sources, and as you research and write about them, the students from a research group will each share research progress, what you have discovered for yourself, as well as responses to such discoveries, including breakthroughs and/or breakdowns experienced in the research process, toward which other classmates will respond appropriately and with thoughtful inquiry.
Each Friday before the Tuesday class session in which the presentation is scheduled, each student from a given group will share (in separate Google docs) summaries and responses to a significant portion of their research. Everyone in the group is expected to read these documents, and across Stage Two, each student is expected to provide at least 3 interactive comments (embedded in the text itself, with your initials)--see below.
Each significant reply during Stage Two is worth up to 10 points, which allows each student to compose at least 3 responses (30 points for all 3 replies during stage 2).
Replies should not merely applaud the work of the student, or merely express agreement, and nor should it merely point out something "wrong." You must attempt to contribute to the conversation, to foward the action of the conversation in some way, coming from the methods introduced to you in stage one.
Please refer to the four steps to guide your responses and to assist you in interrogating the writer's efforts.
What counts as a sufficient reply:
First, you will add your reply directly to the Google document itself, setting off your text as its own single-spaced paragraph, using your initials at the beginning of your text. Please select a legible color that is not already taken (I am sorry, but I will always be this shade of blue). Once you have completed your reply, select your initials and add a comment assigned to the writer, indicating that your reply is ready.
Second, sufficient replies will attempt to “try on” what the writer has brought forth from the research. Strive to put their research to work in your own life and your project, revealing insight and critical awareness. Such replies may also bring forth other aspects of the research that might challenge the writer’s take on it, or add new complications, engaging with how the writer wrote about the text.
Seek to discover for yourself what is being shared, and share that discovery in your reply.
Class Discussion
During the following class session, each student who shared their progress (as part of the research group presenting that given week) will have an opportunity to share and discuss their discoveries. This is not meant to be a customary presentation, but an open-ended, free-flowing inquiry into whatever opened up for the student during their research. The instructor will facilitate the discussion with the intention that something continues to open up for the student regarding their research while at the same time impacting everyone else's research progress.
Sometimes this discussion will be between the student and the instructor, especially when something unpredictable is unfolding; other times the discussion will be a chaotic overflow. No matter what, if you are not "presenting," your job is to participate in the conversation, at the very least, in your listening to the conversation: cheer on the person who is going; listen authentically from the topic you have invented for yourself so that what you do actually contribute forwards the action of the conversation.
Methodological steps to be taken when writing about each source:
While your customary approach to responding to any items of research is valuable and to be included, it is not sufficient. Therefore, you need to interact with each item using the four methodological steps provided by McKee, Gallop, Seitz, and Rabinowitz, which must be addressed in your summary and analysis, as they are to be addressed in your research journal entries for each item you are researching.
Step 1:
Distinguish and articulate the research question the rhetorical artifact you are researching is a response to (the "premise"), and what relationship this question has to your research question(s). This question ought to articulate the "disharmony" the artifact is responding to in some way (see Spinosa, Flores, and Dreyfus: Disclosing New Worlds). To what degree does this research question reflect your research question(s)? How does it contribute to, challenge, or even disrupt your research project?
Step 2:
Distinguish the controlling idea and counter idea, that is, the purpose and context of a controlling topic/value. Does the artifact's values and the discoveries it guides you to make reinforce your inherited inventory? In what ways is your inventory and research project challenged?
Step 3:
Discover and share surprising details the dominant reading of the rhetorical artifact normally keeps hidden, and distinguish and share opposing controlling topics/values (context and purpose), as any topic/value might find many values in conversation with it.
Step 4:
Having submitted to the expectations anticipated in the text, having become the reader (with the appropriate controlling topic/value) the text would have its reader be, having undergone the dialogic, polyphonic play between virtual readers, wherein the submissive reader is but one of many roles to play in relation to the text: explore what it takes to become the authorial audience of the artifact. In what direction will you go in your research having encountered this artifact?