Annotated Bibliography:  Beyond the Proposal

 

Note:  This bibliography constitutes my current research, done after writing the prospectus.  While many of these sources are not cited in my proposal, all of them will continue to aid and inform my research.

 

Bishop, Wendy.  Ethnographic Writing Research:  Writing it Down, Writing it Up, and Reading It.  Portsmouth:  Boynton/Cook, 1999.

 

Wendy Bishop’s book is a good introduction to doing ethnographic research.  She begins with an overview of writing research and how ethnography has recently become a larger part of the field, thus proving the motivation for this kind of book.  Since it is a newer mode of inquiry, Bishop writes this book as an introduction to the method.  In each chapter, Bishop walks the reader through step-by-step how to do effective ethnographic writing research.  While this information is useful to any type of ethnographic research, Bishop tailors it specifically to composition researchers.  At the end of the book she includes examples of how to write a prospectus and several examples of mini-ethnographies, which are very helpful to see ethnography in practice.  I plan to use this book to help inform my ethnographic work in my project.

 

Bolter, Jay David.  Writing Space:  Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print.  2^nd ed.  Mahwah, NJ:  Lawrence Erlbaum, 2001.

 

Bolter’s updated text explores the trend of electronic, or hypertext writing, and its effect on print culture.  Bolter argues that hypertext does not eliminate print, but blends it together with other writing techniques of the past.  Hypertext, because of its dynamic nature, enables the reader to take an active, participatory role in the text, as they have the ability to move through the text in any order or method they wish—unlike traditional print texts, which impart a specific (linear) method of reading, and thus have control over the reader.  Bolter’s argument furthers Kress’s discussion of multimodal texts, in that both assume that space (in this case, cyberspace) affects cultural assumptions of knowledge and literacy.  A new kind of space (hypertext) presumes we must develop a new way to think in order to comprehend it.  I plan to use this book to further develop my understanding of print and multimodal text.

 

Duke, Nell K. and Marla H. Mallette, eds.  Literacy Research Methodologies.  New York:  Guilford P, 2004.

 

This anthology is similar to other methodology handbooks in that it devotes one chapter to each relevant mode of inquiry.  The common ones are included, like case study, discourse analysis, ethnography, experiments and quasi-experiments, and historical research.  However, as this anthology is tailored to literacy research specifically, it also includes chapters on meta-analysis, neuroimaging, and verbal protocols.  It also includes separate chapters on issues specific to literacy studies, and provides advice on how to create useful instruments to measure data.  The authors also note that while these methodologies listed are not exhaustive, they do represent the most common methodologies being used in the field today.  In each chapter, the authors provide specific examples from successful literacy research works.  I plan to use this to help focus my methodology choice and understand more about it in terms of literacy research.

 

Edmunds, Holly.  The Focus Group Research Handbook.  Chicago:  NTC, 1999.

 

Similar to the other books in this annotated bibliography on focus group research, Edmunds’s work is very straightforward and easy to follow.  She writes in a concise, simple style which makes it easy to skim to find information.  Her use of subject headings and boldface words helps as well.  Edmunds shows the reader step-by-step how to plan, design, implement, and evaluate a focus group study.  She also devotes an entire chapter to specific focus group situations, such as focus groups with children, teens, or senior citizens, or what to do if the recording equipment breaks down.  She also includes a couple of pages on ethics.  I plan to use this book to help design the focus group part of my study.

 

Gere, Anne Ruggles.  Intimate Practices:  Literacy and Cultural Work in U.S. Women’s Clubs, 1880-1920.  Chicago:  U of IP, 1997.

 

Gere’s book narrates a history of women’s organizations at the turn of the century, at the point this type of women’s culture exploded in popularity.  Rather than merely providing a historical account of these women’s clubs, Gere digs deeper into their social structure, arguing that the clubs used a wide variety of literacy practices (such as pamphlets, essays, meeting minutes, bylaws, memorials, poems and sketches), shared with other women in other clubs, to construct their intimate culture.  At the point in which America was expanding greatly in size, Gere argues that these women used literacy practices to unify themselves and the U.S. as well, during this time of change.  I plan to use this book to help inform my work with women’s groups and the rhetoric produced within them.

 

Heath, Shirley Brice.  Ways with Words:  Language, Life, and Work in Communities and Classrooms.”  New York:  Cambridge UP, 2006.

Heath’s work is somewhat similar to that of Radway’s Reading the Romance, as Heath also does an ethnographic study of literacy practices, although not using feminist method.  Set up much the same way, Heath’s text begins by setting the scene of the two communities she studies:  “Roadville” and “Trackton.”  Heath explores the cultural and linguistic differences between these two nearby communities, and does this through studying children’s language learning.  While she does not identify as part of New Literacy, Heath’s conclusions on the social practice of literacy seem to support the beliefs of that research area.  Heath brings her linguistic background to the study, and approaches the data from a more scientific standpoint than Radway’s exclusively feminist ethnographic work does.  I plan to use this work to help inform my research design, as it is a landmark text in literacy studies.

 

Hesse-Biber, Sharlene Nagy, ed.  Handbook of Feminist Research:  Theory and Praxis.  Thousand Oaks, CA:  SAGE, 2007.

 

This enormous anthology attempts to be a comprehensive handbook of current feminist research methodologies and issues within the field.  As the concept of feminist research is very broad, the book attempts to be as well by providing a wide variety of perspectives on method and research.  Instead of the usual organization format, Hesse-Biber’s handbook divides the chapters not by methods but by general topics such as “Perspectives on Knowledge Building” and “Perspectives on the Research Process.”  The varying perspectives and methods give an accurate picture of feminist research as a complex field with many possibilities.  I plan to use this book to help inform my use of feminist research methods.

 

Krueger, Richard A.  Analyzing and Reporting Focus Group Results.  Thousand Oaks, CA:  SAGE, 1998.

This book, volume six in a series about focus groups, specializes in what the researcher can do with their data.  As there is so much potential data to be analyzed from a focus group session, Krueger expertly breaks down the process of organizing and analyzing it.  Krueger presents a variety of potential approaches to the data, offering the reader choices for their analysis.  He gives advice both for new scholars and seasoned professionals, and discusses issues present in dealing with data.  It works as an effective companion to his Focus Groups text.  Written in an easy-to-read, straightforward way, this text is useful for practical issues of focus group research.  I plan to use this text when I have to begin working with my data after I hold my focus group(s).

 

Krueger, Richard A., and Mary Anne Casey.  Focus Groups:  A Practical Guide for Applied Research.  3^rd ed.  Thousand Oaks, CA:  SAGE, 2000.

This book is a helpful and comprehensive guide to organizing, implementing, moderating, and analyzing the results for focus group research.  Krueger and Casey have updated their work in this volume to include a comparison of focus group research styles (market research, academic, public, participatory).  This guide is organized well and is easy to skim to find relevant information.  It is also geared towards any discipline, and can easily be used for research in social sciences and business as well as the humanities.  It includes sections on planning the study, how to write questions, how to choose participants, how to moderate, and how to analyze the results.  I plan to use this book as a guide to helping me set up my focus group. 

 

Lankshear, Colin, and Peter L. McLaren, Eds.  Critical Literacy:  Politics, Praxis, and the Postmodern.  Albany:  SUNY P, 1993.

This anthology attempts to identify literacy in the present age—a “post” age, where the present is identified in relation to past events.  Lankshear and McLaren gather fourteen essays on what they identify as critical literacy, which analyzes knowledge-making as discursive production.  Set in this framework, the authors and editors of this volume explore the ways in which literacies transform ways of thinking into ways of acting, a central belief of the New Literacy Studies (NLS).  I plan to use the introduction by Lankshear and McLaren as a way into the concept of literacy in the present age.  I also plan to use Giroux’s and Gee’s articles on literacy as social practice, as they go further into exploring literacy as describing and informing relationships.

 

Naples, Nancy A.  Feminism and Method:  Ethnography, Discourse Analysis, and Activist Research.  New York:  Routledge, 2003.

Naples’s text clearly explains the variety of research methods useful to feminist scholars.  Written for the social science field, Naples’s work is also useful for my research as well.  She takes current issues in the field of women’s studies (such as sexual abuse, welfare reform, and economic development) and demonstrates how feminist research methods can be used.  She also includes helpful resources for further study.  Meant to be a practical and useful text, Naples provides advice and suggestions for useful methods and practices.  She also discusses the many issues that are present in feminist research, such as objectivity, the problems with standpoint, and challenges of being a feminist and activist researcher.  I plan to use this book to help inform my methodology as I plan out my research design.  I also plan to use this book as a guide for writing ethnographic scholarship.

 

Pahl, Kate, and Jennifer Rowsell.  Travel Notes from the New Literacy Studies:  Instances of Practice.  Buffalo:  Multilingual Matters, 2006.

This anthology on current work in literacy studies is the first and most prominent work of its kind, in its attempt to identify New Literacy Studies.  Editors Pahl and Rowsell explain the purpose of this anthology is to bring together scholarship on multimodality and New Literacy studies.  As scholarship in NLS has shown, literacy is a social practice.  In studies of multimodality, the concept of literacy is expanded to include not only textual but also aural, spoken, gestural, and other modes as working together in a text.  The authors and editors in this work attempt to make both areas of study “speak to each other” (vii), as they both encompass current research in literacy scholarship.  Pahl and Rowsell explain their purpose for the volume:  “What we, as editors, value is the bringing together of the ethnographic with a focus on literacy as a social practice and multimodality with its emphasis on the variety of communicative practices. In other words, we see identity and social practice in the materiality of texts” (2).  I plan to use this anthology to learn more about the ways in which NLS and multimodality can work together, and the various methods used to study each.  I also plan to use this work to explore the issue of materiality of the text and how that affects literacy practices.

 

Pearce, Lynne.  Feminism and the Politics of Reading.  New York:  St. Martin’s, 1997.

 

This work attempts to theorize the female reader, arguing that she is implicated in the act of interpretation.  Analyzing the text-reader relationship, Pearce notes that while a reader may or may not read as a feminist, depending on the context, a reader is always reading as gendered and as part of a specific social class.  In this way, it is less of a direct, balanced reader-text relationship and more a reader-interpretive act relationship.  In past reader-response theory, the author explains that “the reader” is assumed to be an upper-class, well-educated male.  For this reason, reader-response theorists assume the reader always looks to understand a text.  Pearce challenges this assumption, and names the reader as a lover of the text, as reading not necessarily to understand but to enjoy.  I plan to use this book to further inform my understanding of feminist reader theory.

 

Radway, Janice A.  Reading the Romance:  Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature.  1984.  Chapel Hill, UNC P, 1991.

 

This book represents one of the first and most influential feminist research on reception.  Radway’s work, in conjunction with other feminist scholars of the time, effectively created the field of feminist reader theory.  Radway did an ethnographic study of a women’s romance reading group in a small town.  Through this research, Radway argues for the value of romance novels and other “women’s” texts.  She explodes the assumptions surrounding these texts, and challenges those (often demeaning) myths.  Through her reception study (which consisted of questionnaires, one-on-one interviews, and focus group research), Radway is able to explain why women are drawn to romance novels—it is a text they can escape with and also be empowered by.  By allowing the women readers their voices, Radway’s ethnographic approach enables her to explore the discourse created by the community of women as strong and empowering.  I plan to use this study as a model for my own reception research.  I plan to look at her methodology explanation as well as looking at her questions asked, and the ways in which she presented and analyzed the data, to inform my research design.

 

Williams, Bronwyn T.  Tuned In:  Television and the Teaching of Writing.  Portsmouth:  Boynton/Cook, 2002. 

 

Williams’s book, a study that came out of his dissertation research, argues that students have literacy skills—ones that the academy does not value.  Even if students themselves don’t realize it, they are highly literate in televisual texts.  Students are able to parse the complex storylines, analyze the situations, predict what will happen, and evaluate the results—all things they are not as familiar with in printed texts.  Williams brings together interviews from a sample of college composition students on their television watching habits, and from this empirical study begins to form an argument for including and valuing visual literacy in the composition classroom.  I plan to use this book for Williams’s methodology to get ideas for my own study.