Mike Calou

Mid-Term Responses

Question 4. Brenda Jo Brueggemann’s writes about existing in the hyphenated world between participant and researcher. She candidly struggles with her part in the process and the cohabitation of both roles. Unfortunately, by occupying the hyphen, she suffered a moral dilemma and alienated her subjects. When conducting ethnographic research, what role should the researcher occupy in order to report the most accurate findings? What internal and external factors should they consider? Should the researcher follow a code of ethics and if so, who or what creates that code? Refer to our readings to support your answer.

Response:

This is a good question because the role of participant and observer must be regulated by the ethnographer. What I mean is that as I observe classrooms I am aware that my participation in that classroom affects the culture of the classroom. Why wouldn’t my participation affect the dynamics in the classroom? For that matter any outside stimulus will alter the classroom environment to some extent. The ethnographer must remain in the role of the observer in order to maintain impartiality. This is a difficult task to accomplish; the Brueggmann example is a case in point. She tried to “be on the fence” so to speak about her role; she tried to be perceived as a participant (she is hearing impaired), and as a knowledgeable observer. I’m not implying that Brueggmann botched her ethnographic research; her career speaks to the fact that she was successful as an ethnographic researcher because she was able to become an author and professor of English at a prestigious university.

My own instincts as a teacher and observer of people; which is, I think, one of the definitions of a teacher, leads me to a conclusion that the ethnographer must remain in the role of the observer. In order to provide answers to a research question the ethnographer must remain independent. For example, a research question such as; how does this teacher engage students to develop a topic? The ethnographer must observe the teacher and student interact as the teacher goes about the task of instructing students to develop a writing topic. According to Spradley and McCurdy:

In addition to being more systematic, persistent, and thorough, the ethnographer consciously seeks to be more objective. He wants his account to be free from distortion and bias, to accurately represent what people know and believe. (quoted from the Carolyn Frank, “An Ethnographic Perspective” article. Week 2 reading)

I believe objectivity is the key term to focus on here. How can an ethnographer be objective if they participate in the environment they are observing? Ned Weidner, in our English 5870 class, has made a similar observation. He has observed a class in which the teacher allowed him to become a participant. To paraphrase Ned; it was difficult to be involved in the class and observe at the same time. Brueggmann started off on the wrong foot immediately as she conducted her research on “a sociocognitive study of the writing process of deaf students in ‘remedial’ English courses” (22). Brenda Jo attempted to assume the role of observer and participant and she felt she was not successful at either:

For most of my four months there, I felt instead confused, angry, crushed, belligerent, beleaguered, weepy, and vindictive by the ways they repeatedly made it clear that I was suspicious at least, intolerable at most. I had wanted to roll with the flow; I took a lot of punches instead. For the most part, the representative participant-observer roles I tried to play were either rearranged or ignored by the “natives” at Gallaudet. They would have me represented otherwise (22-23).

I think Brueggmann began her research with a preconceived notion that the results of her research would benefit the deaf students she was studying. By beginning her ethnographic study with this notion in her mind she subjected herself to the situation described above and the results of her study may not have been as objective as she would have hoped.

Before beginning her research, Brueggmann should have considered some of the internal and external factors she would be dealing with. For example, Brenda Jo is “hearing impaired” and she thought that if she revealed this fact that the “natives” would be more apt to relate to her and she could obtain more honest or accurate information. This is an example of an external factor that backfired on Brueggmann. I’m not sure that Brueggmann approached her research in the wrong way. I think that she was altruistic in the sense that she wanted her research to in some way possibly “benefit” society. The idea that their work will “benefit” society is a noble goal for the ethnographer.

So, I don’t think she was wrong from a moral standpoint. However, from an ethical standpoint Brueggmann compromised some credibility when she tried to become a participant in her own research. She admits this conundrum herself:

For most of my time in the field, my representation (self- or other-imposed) as either Deaf or Hearing (which is essentially how Deaf culture labels those who call themselves hearing-impaired) were caught and confused somewhere in the hyphen of that word itself… caught in the crossfire, as I ran across the hyphen (23).

I like the use of the term,” caught in the crossfire.” Brueggmann was caught in the crossfire because she failed to recognize the ethical considerations of her attempts to be viewed as an “insider” (a part of the hearing impaired/ deaf culture). Brueggmann could have avoided this problem by remaining exclusively an observer. Purcell-Gates makes a point in Chapter 6, Ethnographic Research:

Nor is it appropriate for studies that seek to describe, count, or index items, groups, or events that are identified as of interest prior to the research (descriptive), although descriptive data may be incorporated within an ethnography.

Brueggmann may have begun her research as a result of some prior interest in the writing of deaf students. Assuming this provides some explanation for why she may have been “surfing the hyphen” during her ethnographic research. Brueggmann, in her attempts to be thorough, may have jeopardized the ethical code of the ethnographer. There is a code of ethics that guides the research community. The Association for Institutional Research (AIR) publishes a Code of Ethics. This code provides research guidelines for competence, practice, confidentiality, and relationships (both to the community and the profession). It doesn’t appear as if Brueggmann developed her own set of ethical guidelines. According to the Association, “The institutional researcher should develop and promulgate a code of ethics specific to the mission” (AIR Code of Ethics, Section IV, (b)). The objectivity required by ethnographic research is jeopardized if ethical considerations are not adhered to.

In conclusion, the ethnographer should consider a position as observer when conducting ethnographic research. As an observer, the ethnographer is in a better position to provide objective and unbiased information. The information provided by the ethnographer can then be used by other researchers who can then build on and improve, in this case, the writing of deaf students or any other classification of student for that matter.

Question 5. Ethnography is not for researchers who already know what they are seeking or for those who have strong hypotheses to test. Rather, it is for those researchers who are truly wondering, seeking, curious about some aspect of literacy as it occurs naturally in sociocultural contexts (Purcell-Gates 94).

The readings in this class have focused the ways that ethnography is particularly suited to those researchers who are truly wondering, seeking, curious.  Share your experiences in your classroom observations, and connect these observations to the texts we have studied.

Response:

This is a good question because teaching is a “sociocultural” endeavor. An ethnographer should seek to pose a research question that will provide an answer for the benefit of this “social-culture.” The classroom is a culture unto itself: a culture created, hopefully, through the efforts of the teacher and students both. This is why ethnography is so important. Ethnography provides a research format to study a culture and glean important observations about that culture that will provide insight and improvement for those who utilize the results of a particular ethnographic study.

My chief interest in doing ethnographic research is to learn how to teach writing to my students. Currently I teach fifth grade children: the average student is ten years old. I would also like to teach adults how to write. In particular, adults who are learning English as a second language. I have always felt a desire to become a better writer myself. I really believe now that I can become a better writer. After learning about the ancient orators I realize that writing is an art. Writing is the last element that we learn as part of our journey to language fluency and literacy. This is because when we write we are in effect taking thoughts, complex or simple, and transporting these thoughts to the page; this is a cognitively difficult task. My perception of the writing process is greatly influenced by the thinkers who have charted a course for teaching writing: Isocrates, Plato, Aristotle, Quintilian, Vico, Ramus, Burke, and Elbow, to name a few. However, the “course” I refer to is not set in stone. In other words, I think that becoming a writing teacher implies that the teacher should be forever learning to teach writing; in other words, “continually improving.” What I mean is that ethnography is an integral part of the process of becoming not only a teacher of writing, but also an “effective” writing teacher.

The reason I am back at school studying rhetoric, and English in general, is that I felt a gap between how I was teaching students to write and the developmental progress my students were making with their writing; both children and adults. Up to this point in my graduate education I had not been able to articulate the previous sentence. My own writing, I truly believe, has improved as a result of learning what the “thinkers” mentioned previously has said about the writing process. Intuitively, I knew there was something missing in my pedagogy (the term pedagogy generally refers to strategies of instruction or a style of instruction). The point I am making is that writing is a difficult task. Ethnographic research can provide a real life example of the theory guiding the writing process.

As I stated in my first commentary:

The first part of the ethnographic research process is the formulation of an objective. What does the researcher want to accomplish by observing a classroom? I will need to answer the following questions before I begin observing a classroom: What questions do I need to pose before observing in a classroom? Will I be able to observe objectively? What is my “location,” or perspective, relative to the classroom being observed? What do I need to observe in the classroom that will help inform my teaching? Purcell-Gates discusses the importance of developing research questions or designing a foci to guide the observer (95).

The objective is an important aspect of ethnography. Without an objective the researcher does not have a focus to “direct the attention” (Burke, Language as Symbolic Action, 44). Each ethnographer has a different objective. My objective is to inform my teaching so I will become a better teacher of writing. Victoria Purcell-Gates agrees when she says the ethnographer needs to have an objective:

It is important to note that ethnographic questions do not emerge spontaneously or serendipitously. Rather, as for other types of research, they need to surface within a theoretical framework and to relate to issues recognized by others as significant and interesting (95).

When I am preparing lesson plans for any subject I start by thinking about the goal of what I am trying to teach. The teacher’s goal is to teach a concept and the student’s goal is to learn; both of these goals become one, the objective. The same principle applies to the ethnographer; the question posed by the ethnographer is based on an objective.

Initially, when I observed in a classroom I was overwhelmed with all of the activity. After a few observations I began to focus on a question that I would develop prior to my observation. For example, the first time I observed Dr. Foreman in his English 4610, Literature and Writing for Secondary School English Teachers class, I did not have a focus on any particular thing to observe. As a result, my observation was more of a “log” similar to the “logging” we do for this class (English 5870). When I discussed my observation with Dr. Foreman the first thing he said was “What kind of ethnography are you doing? There are many different kinds.” He was asking a good question and I began to think about the question I would pose next time I observed his class. I replied that I was doing classroom ethnography in order to learn the ways of teaching writing. Dr. Foreman helped me understand my initial observation by clarifying what he was teaching. He said his students were working on a project that will involve the creation of a thematic unit: writing combined with literature study. He also said his objective was for his students to create a teaching unit that they could present to a prospective employer. Dr. Foreman has graciously offered to provide me with the documentation he is providing to his students. When we meet again I am going to ask Dr. Foreman if he will share some of the completed projects. I am curious about the multiple approaches his students will presumably take when they create a thematic writing unit.

As I am writing this mid-term response I am thinking about the next question I will pose when I observe in any writing class; what type of culture does the instructor create in the class to help in the teaching of writing? I think this question is important because the classroom environment has a direct bearing on the comfort level of the student. This question has a direct bearing on the sociocultural aspect of writing. When I observed Matt Moberly’s class he made a comment to me about the atmosphere he is attempting to create in his English 1001, First-Year Composition class. Matt says many of his students are older and are returning to school after having been in the workplace for a while. He went on to say that he felt it was important for these students in particular to have a “voice” in the creation of the topics they would write about this semester. When I first observed Matt’s class I noticed on the board that he had written down several writing topics: evidence that he was trying to collaboratively create an environment conducive to the writing of his older students because he said the list was student generated. So, not only does a writing teacher need strategies to teach writing, the teacher also needs to be aware of the sociolcultural make-up of the writing class.

There is an essence of “ownership” in what Mr. Moberly is trying to provide to his students in the First-Year Composition class. This ownership is similar to the concept of “staking a claim” (Percy, 11) that Walker Percy makes in “The Loss of the Creature.” In order for our students to “stake their claim” we must provide an “educational package” (Percy, 7) or “media” that will allow the student to be successful. Percy’s metaphors about the tourist and the dogfish, when applied to the classroom, give the teacher some perspective on the nature of learning through a cultural lens. Matt is attempting to provide an appropriate “media” for his students by allowing the students to participate in the creation of a writing topic.

I hope that I have shown, through the readings and my own observation examples, that as ethnographers teachers should be aware of two important factors: the importance of objectives as a spring board to obtaining answers to ethnographic questions and the fact that there is a sociocultural aspect of their class that must be considered. Ethnography provides a framework for the teacher to continuously improve on their pedagogy. The student will be the beneficiary of this “continuous improvement” process.