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Thursday, January 29, 2009

What am I doing here?

I am figuring out the balance between thinking and writing. Writing helps me think and thinking helps me write. SAM reminds me that both are important. Right now I would rather not do either.....

When I talked to SAM about what to do regarding my literacy questions. He reminded me that I have a committee for a reason and suggested that I send that piece of my diss. to the literacy person on my committee. I spoke with her and she was very helpful. She helped with that piece and gave me some suggestions that improved the quality of the entire piece.

I have revised my deadline and I am now looking at an April 1st defense. I am trying to get a draft of the finished product to SAM by the end of February. He will send it back to me and I will spend Spring Break revising it so I can have it to the committee by March 20th.

I keep fussing with chapter 4 and feel like I have done a sufficient job of looking at the data I have for one of my teachers. I need to finish chapter 4 this week. - I will spend the next few days with the data and send 4 to my reader by Sunday.

I still need to tackle chapter 5 and the Significance.... oh and by the way I am teaching an undergraduate class this semester. What am I doing?

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

thinking vs. writing

I have been doing too much thinking lately.... thinking as a means of avoiding writing is insidious.

It works like this.... it is important to think through what you are going to write to ensure that you are clear and concise. It is important also that your writing is connected to what has already been said but brings something new to the discussion. Thus reading is an important part of the writing process - but twice recently I have been distracted from writing by thinking.

1) one element of my dissertation is the unique teaching practices of Margaret Anderson. I am using the lens of "third space" to explore her teaching. BUT the authors of the original piece use a bunch of terms such as "heterglossia, discourse and identity" which I don't want to take the time to explain or explore. I get stuck thinking about the critical nature of the original piece and whether or not it really fits what I saw happening in the classroom and it does but I just spent an hour thinking and now it is time to go home......

2) success and reading.... As an early childhood person - somehow the topic of reading is off limits to me.... reserved for the language and literacy folks, but perhaps not - perhaps the notion of reading (literacy development) is an important success for the students in these classroom aside from the success they are experiencing on the reading TAKS test. I just went to find two books on the literacy elements and haven't written a word.

Now perhaps all of this thinking is necessary and important and ultimately productive BUT I just want to finish this thing.