Reflecting on the Sting of Rejection

So I just had word that my "revise and resubmit" submission to a journal (that will remain nameless) was rejected. These moments of failure (if we can call it that) are painful and instructive. On the one hand, looking at the two peer reviews I can see that the reviewers fundamentally misunderstood parts of my argument and thinking. Badly. Yet, on the other hand, their misunderstanding is not their fault, but mine. How could I have expressed these concepts and ideas better? The other possibility is that no matter how well I express these ideas the reader will reject or dismiss them. Reflection is no longer trendy, and what I have to say is neither significant or that new.

Processing feedback is an important part of rhetorical reflection, so I want to spend a bit of time reviewing and thinking about this feedback. Reviewer one was the most curt and stinging. His first critique was that "The theories used to support the author's 'rhetorical reflection' don't support it." His main complaint was with my use of Schon and my link with Schon's sense of "surprise" or of the "problem" and the problem that is central to rhetorical reflection. The reviewer narrowly understood Schon to be talking about "in-the-moment" sensibilities of "expert" practitioners. As he says, "adapting to a specific writing situation after a draft is written is not the kind of problem Schon is writing about." It is like the reviewer did not read my section specifically addressing this issue of what constitutes the "action present" of reflection-in-action.

So what do I learn from this feedback? I learn that many scholars in Composition often have a particular view of Schon that is fairly rigid and to my mind uninformed. He has been pigeon-holed. If I am to use Schon's ideas, then, I believe I need to position his theories as ones of resemblance and not equation. I can't base my theory on Schon's ideas, but use his theories as metaphors or springboards for understanding my own. The whole issue of expert and novice thinking when discussing Schon must also be dealt with.

The second main critique was that "the distinction between 'retrospective' and 'rhetorical' reflection breaks down in the author's own discussion of Writing Reviews which require students to look back on a draft already written for purposes of self-evaluation." The reviewer correctly points out the retrospective nature within rhetorical reflection--yes, the writer is looking back. But the reviewer misses totally, again, my distinction about what constitutes the "action-present." The draft is not finished, but will be rewritten, so the reflective thinking (like that thinking I am doing now) is different than retrospective reflection. This concept evaded reviewer 1.

One big change in this draft was the decision to shift from "curricular reflection" to "retrospective reflection" to describe this post-task reflection. Perhaps I need a different name for it? The Janus face of reflection is as John Muckelbauer would say an itinerant rhythm of differential encounter. Its "double-movement" travels within contexts, and describing its distinct features within these different contexts is difficult. That the reviewer felt that the "distinction cannot be sustained" and therefore the "exigency for the author's argument is not a persuasive one" speaks in one sense to the reviewers shallow reading of my article, but it also speaks to the importance I need to place in establishing this distinction between retrospective and rhetorical reflection even more. Making this distinction is probably the single most important goal of the article, and right now the article is obviously failing in making this distinction.

The second review was more generous in their reading of the article in that they seemed to have a better understanding of it. Her first critique was about the slow start to the article. I take too long to establish composition's "portfolio-centric" perspective on reflection. I have kept in my critiques of Yancey and Sommers, spending elaborate time trying to fairly summarize their viewpoints and then countering them. I agree that this characterization regarding compositions post-task view of reflection could be condensed.

The following critique by this reviewer is much more insightful: "I was most interested to see where the essay would go from this observation/assertion [that composition has a portfolio-centric view of reflection], and it seems that the author is arguing that the moment of reflection should change, not its process or results. This seems at odds with the idea that 'rhetorical reflection' is somehow something different and innovative."  The review is right on target to say the moment of reflection is different, and she tells me that I also need to highlight how the PROCESS and RESULTS of rhetorical reflection are different and innovative (since novelty and originality are the "exigency" that sustains interest and warrants publication). What this feedback tells me is that the reader has an interest in a more detailed description of my research results, and that somehow I need to include these more inside this article (without getting bogged down too much).

The second reviewer also finds a contradiction in my earlier description of reflection as being self-sponsored and then later prompted in the classroom. This point is well taken. How do I communicate my sensibility that the writer write's rhetorical reflection for their own purposes rather than for the teachers. I need to work on expressing this concept. Maybe the constructivist nature of this thinking is what I am getting at. I want to make the distinction that the writer is not performing or trying to display for the teacher, but thinking on the page. I need to work on this one since many people and even students see anything they do as being for the teacher. Perhaps I can tap into theories of androgogy to articulate this sense of self-owned (if not self-sponsored) learning.

The second reviewer lost some credibility with me in their third critique when she stated in reference to the review of Schon and Dewey, "I didn't see it tied to the rest of the argument in the essay." I thought I had tied them well into the argument, using them particularly to distinguish rhetorical reflection from retrospective reflection, but obviously this distinction (as reviewer 1 states) did not come through, nor did the relevance of this distinction in terms of the overall argument get across. Similar to the first reviewer, the second reviewer states, "I didn't find this essay persuasive in its larger theoretical argument about the role/practice of reflection."

So I was not persuasive. What does this mean not being persuasive? I think that reader 1 was simply disagreed with my ideas and discredited them and hence was not persuaded. Reader 2 was willing to entertain my ideas but I did not provide them with enough substance for these ideas to be persuaded.

I have invested enough in this article that I know I will revise it one more time and submit it to another journal. It is painful to receive a rejection for publication, but I am hopeful that this feedback will help my eventually create a stronger article.

Writing Review on Rethinking Reflection

I am at something of a stuck place with my rewrite of the "rethinking" article, and I believe I need to engage in some rhetorical reflection myself to see if it can help me become unstuck. I am having trouble with the very last section of the article before the conclusion. In this section, at least how I see it now, I need to give a picture of rhetorical reflection in the classroom and a stronger rationale for why it is important. My difficulty is how to condense the classroom picture and not begin to wander off into a completely other article (in fact, I have an entire draft of the What'sit; Howto for rhetorical reflection that goes into more detail on classroom practice). I am already over 7K words. Ack!

It is funny how I have gone multiple times from start to my stopping place, refining the draft. It seems I could go endlessly through these parts refining them, and my revisions from the previous draft are making a difference. But I can't seem to get over this hump. I need so cut the gordian knot somehow. First, I think I need to untangle the knot. What are the conflicting strands that are stymieing me.

Let's see:

• how can I sum up a picture of classroom practice without it getting too long?
• more challenging is how can I pull together a condensed rationale that taps into more contemporary scholarship. I love Linda Flower, but I feel like I can't lean only on her.
• Also, I have some text I have already written that I feel somehow is not leading in the right direction. I believe part of the problem is that I start down its path and reach a dead end. 

OK. What to do about the classroom practice summary. I set up this section well by saying the two things left to do are give a picture of what RR looks like in the classroom and a rationale. What is the bare minimum that I need to do to show classroom practice. These seem like they are important:
--define RR
--describe Writing Reviews and pedagogical placement
--provide and example and illustration
The challenge is doing this in less than a thousand words and in such a way that it doesn't seem too short.

Now about condensing contemporary scholarship. I think the key problem here is that I did some more reading over break and collected some good additional scholarship to add, but I have not gone back through it to pick out what I can use in this article. I think it will make a big difference to fill my leggo box with some pieces I can use and then I will be able to write. One thing I am struggling with is exploding into the areas of invention and heuristics. I need a way to summarize Kathy Pender's article on Invention and its tendrils into Bryan Hawk's ideas on invention. Ah, avoiding getting stuck in the postmodern swamp.

The one additional thing I have thought about that I think I must do is qualify my classroom picture saying that a full description of writing reviews is beyond the scope of this article.

I know also that I will need to reorient my conclusion to reemphasize the basic shift or expansion in our thinking about reflection I am advocating.

Whew! I think this helped. I now see a path forward. I have a game plan for the classroom practice summary, and I know that I need to review some literature before I am ready to get a final draft of the rationale piece.

So doing rhetorical reflection really does help--even me.

Muddled and Muddling

How is it that I am on vacation, and I don't seem to have enough time? No stacks of papers to grade. No class announcements or essay cycle assignment sheets to put together. Yet no time. Time, clearly, is relative.

I'm working now on trying to revise an article submission that I got a "revise and resubmit" on, and right now I seem to be spinning my wheels. Muddling, I call it. I think the deeper I feel muddled the better the overall end product (I hope) will be. The root of this muddling is questioning my thinking and evaluating what I have written, and most importantly sitting like a chess player staring at the chess board imagining fifteen possible moves and the trajectory for each. The danger in this muddle business is paralysis.

The foundation for revision, as I articulated for my students this semester, is rethinking. Changing your thinking, deepening, rounding out, adding to, recasting, clarifying your thinking becomes the basis for revision. To accomplish this rethinking, I've been reading a number of Fall 2012 Composition Forum articles on transfer, Kelly Pender's article on invention in The Changing of Knowledge in Composition, and Bryon Hawk's Counter-History of Composition which has led to numerous references to other work. Hence, the muddle.

My reading has been focused on deepening the "So What?" answer I might have to rhetorical reflection by linking it to contemporary notions of invention as tying into complex systems. I've also been looking for more anchors to my statements that reflection is predominantly a retrospective practice in our pedagogy. I've found some additional ammunition in the literature on transfer, but I've also found some support for the idea of in-context, in-task reflection and its connection to transfer.

My biggest challenges for revision so far are my desire to restructure the piece. I believe I start down a path with the concept of "frameworks" and then sets up a binary that is not useful. However, I want to provide some picture, some perspective, some recognition of our current commonplace for reflection. I am struggling as well with the term of "curricular reflection." I think I need to let it go because it has detracting and confusing connotations. I'm thinking "retrospective reflection" will work better, but I am still staring at the chess board on that one and thinking of alternate moves (and not really coming up with any).

So the big challenge is to create this "thinking" section which is intended to reveal our current practice and provide some recognition. Then set up the rethinking section which presents the framework of rhetorical reflection.

I think currently the Dewey/Schon section needs tightening, and I need to highlight the connections between Schon's reflection in action and the dialogic conversation of rhetorical reflection. Then I need to position this pedagogical activity more clearly as an act of invention, as a heuristic designed to promote invention or re-invention within the writing process.

One last point, Yancey poses an interesting question in her discussion about transfer by observing that we are not clear about the difference between awareness and knowledge. This question made me immediately think of my conceptual code related to "coming to know" that "to see is to know." Recognition, which we could say is a form of awareness, represents knowledge. I don't know. I have to think more about it.

This muddle still is confused, but I am staring at the chess board and soon to move.

Replication Study of Rhetorical Reflection

I want now to outline the basic research design of my replication study of my dissertation research.

General Goals of Study:
I have to ask my self seriously whether this replication is really targeted at verification at this point. If so, it changes the whole nature of the study. Grounded theory is about theory generation, not verification, so if I tip over to verification I would be altering my original study to greatly. I must maintain a sense that I am still evolving and discovering this theory. If I want to "verify," I think that needs to be another study.

However, I think verification has a double-meaning within grounded theory methodology. Verification runs through out the method of constant comparison and what might be called the double-movement of grounded theory data analysis (or coding). Here is how it works. I observe the data closely, naming phenomena, and beginning to state understandings or meanings about what is going on. When I go from my sense of "what is going on" and then look again at the data to see if what I think is going on is really going on--that is a kind of verification. As I do this same checking by comparing one instance with another instance--that is verification too. Selective coding, at least as I understood it, was a form of verification around a core concept. You took that core concept and then checked to see if it fit and worked through various instances. Hence, I think I need not be afraid of verification because it is within the fiber of grounded theory methodology, but I don't think I should start there.

Outline of Research Design:

Sample:
Six "essay cycles" from my students between Essay #2 draft 1 and draft 2.
This might be followed with another set in either draft E3-2 to E3-3 or E4-3 to E4-3.
(I'm thinking for this round I will keep it smaller and more manageable).
Data includes: assignment, draft 1, peer responses, writing review, and next draft

Coding Procedure:
 recode a fresh set of data following the procedure I used for slice 5
--initial coding and memoing
--perhaps chart the dynamic of rhetorical reflection (?)
--create problem-analysis chart of essay cycle
--further memoing and diagraming
--attempt to replicate selective coding around comparison, assessment, judgment made in terms of essay success


Member Checking:
Since I have access to students this time, I am able to talk to them about their writing, reflections, and thinking. Once I have my data and some conclusions, I will talk to them.

Final Memoing comparing my impressions with those thoughts stated by the students.

This replication can not be called "exact" and perhaps not even "approximate" or "adaptive." So my categories fall apart this quickly!  This research is really an extension. If seeks replication but it also seeks to follow the initial trajectory of the original research--taking it to the next step or level that the original research did not reach.

Hmm... So is extension really replication? In this case I believe so because grounded theory is a set of repetitions and replications of constant comparative analysis over an over again.

One complicating factor that definitely makes this replication study approximate is that I am using my own students. I already feel some anxiety about who to choose to include in this study. I know these students. How do I pick this sample based on theoretical reasons and not any sort of rationale based on getting a "representative sample" as in experimental designs?

What will be the theoretical basis for my selection? Could I base this selection upon my theory of the spectrum of reflectiveness? Between reflections that predominantly tell/report vs. those that consider/evaluate? I would anticipate to see either a high or low degree of reflectiveness (in the form of comparison, assessment, and judgment made in terms of essay success) within these different populations. Am I setting up to great a "checking" with this hypothesis testing sample section rationale?

I think at this point I will have to ponder my sample section a bit more. Perhaps continue to review my previous research up to this point and see what I wanted for the next slice of data.

Principles of Replication in Composition Studies

Becky Rickly spoke to me often about the importance of RAD research designs--replicable, aggregable, and data-driven. I believe this term goes back to a Richard Haswell article in Written Communication back in April 2005, but it likely has a wider circulation and history. I admit my philosophical acceptance of this approach to research as well as my high regard for Haswell's thinking and scholarship. But it has all been abstract for me--I've never replicated a study. I attempted to set up my own dissertation research as "RAD," but to date I have not replicated it.

So this post will begin the articulation and planning for my own replication study. I need to put up or shut up (even in my own mind) when it comes to replication. I tend to focus on replication because the other two elements of RAD seem to me to be basic parts of any legitimate research design. It will be emperical (or data-driven) and the sampling and analysis of this data should be presented in such a format that it could be compared to other similar studies. I have often wondered why composition studies has resisted replication so much. It gets no respect. I believe it is getting more respect now, but so far I have not seen it highlighted in any CCC articles.

Before I chart out my own replication study, I want to state a few principles of replication that occur to me. I have not as yet read any literature or scholarship on replication other than Haswell (and Johanek discusses it as well). I think for composition studies replication does not have to mean "exact reproduction" of a previous research study to be meaningful. Replication might exist along a spectrum that might run from exact to approximate reproduction to adapted reproduction.

Spectrum of Replication in Composition Research

Exact reproduction----Approximate----Adapted

Which place along this spectrum any replication study would inhabit would depend upon the type of study and the goals of the researcher. My impression of scientific research  that is more experimental and positivistic is that exact reproduction is very important. The study can not be called a replication unless it is exactly done as the previous study. However, I am sure that compromises happen even in the most diligently pursued exact replication study. Composition though is not a hard science, but as Louis Wetherbee Phelps states a "human science." That means it is a highly interpretive, social, and contextual "science" that should not seek the same kinds of exact knowledge as that found in the physical sciences. Psychology, sociology and some education research certainly can serve as models for a more scientific approach to the study of writing, but I don't necessarily think we need to go back to the control group experimental studies of the 60s and 70s. Where that method seems warranted, yes. Let's experiment. The first principle of replication, then, for composition studies is that exact replication is not a prerequisite for engaging in a replication study. As long as the researcher is open about the new limits--and possible adaptations--to the study and can articulate a good rationale for the reduction of the scale of the study (approximate) or the changing of some of the research design (adapted), then I think this replication is allowable. Going too far in reducing the scale or changing the design will result in nullifying the link between the two studies, so there is a degree of change from the exact reproduction that can go too far. What that degree of change is obviously would be a subject for debate among researchers.

Can we replicate qualitative research studies?
Why not? Although qualitative research is founded (sorry for that word...) upon the subjectivity of the researcher and her interpretations, I think that we gain tremendous value by having another researcher bring her subjectivity to the same research question. Just because previous research was based upon another's individual and subjective interpretations, does not mean someone else could not consider the same phenomena or data.
So another principle of replication in composition studies is that ANY methodology (not just experimental designs) can be replicated.

But what about sampling?
Unless the replicating researcher has access to the same data, it will inevitably be the fact that replication studies will use different samples. Does that then invalidate the replication? I think it depends. For a replication study to be credible, it must find a sample that is similar enough to the original sample to be comparable. I should note that in some cases one of the most interesting part of a replication study might be the change of the sample taken. For instance, what if we replicated Emig's study of the composing process of 12th graders, but instead of middle class whites from a good school constituting the sample we used 12th graders at a poor predominantly hispanic population at a high school from the West side of San Antonio. That would be an example of an interesting "Adapted" replication study.
I think the third principle of replication for composition studies is the acceptance that sampling will diverge from the original study, but the researcher should seek comparative and approximate samples to the original (unless the study moves to adapt the sample).

How about methodology and methods?
Theoretically, I believe that replication should take special care to follow the methodology and methods of the previous research study. In practice, however, this may be quite difficult for two reasons: 1) the scale of the original study may be so large that following the exact methodology could be difficult (in that case, the replication study becomes "approximate" at a smaller scale), and 2) the original research design may have flaws in either its methodological approach or implementation of methods (an all too frequent occurrence in composition research). In this case, the researcher has some decisions to make. I would say that if a researchers did make minor changes to the methodological orientation and use of methods the replication could still be called "exact" or "approximate." However, if some significant adjustment to the methods is made then the study must make clear it is "adapting" the study to improve its research design. Perhaps subsequent replications would then benefit from these methodological fixes. The fourth principle then has to do with methodology.


How about results?
Aggregable is the term RAD uses to describe how results from various replicated studies could be compared and put together. I want to suggest that aggregation may be possible in a lot of cases, but too forced in others. We have to allow for a principle of "interpolation" between results of different studies. This interpolation between different replicated studies constitutes the most interesting reason why we would want to replicate in the first place. The principle of interpolation acknowledges various contexts and various subjectivities and seeks for meaningful convergences, divergences, and patterns between them.

Now that I have these principles in mind, my next post will articulate the replication study I am embarking on this Spring.

Pounding the Rock

A number of sports teams, including the San Antonio Spurs, use a motivational device to promote persistence and determination in the face of unsatisfactory results.  It is the term, "Pounding the rock." Keep pounding the rock and eventually it will break. You pound and you pound and nothing--and then finally, something. This saying seems to capture how I am feeling post-phd. I have been pounding the rock and not gotten anywhere so far.

Most notably, I was thinking of this saying this morning as I returned to working on an article. This is my basic "rethinking" article on rhetorical reflection. I think I tugged over two sentences for two hours. Pounding and pounding. I think I finally pulled through that section, and so I am finally moving into sections that I hope will be easier to write. Somehow I need to find a way to weave in and leverage my diss work more easily, but constructing the essay is like weaving a complex tapestry with so many strands and a larger picture and pattern that I don't have completely in focus yet. I need to remind myself to keep pounding and pounding. At a certain point in the diss, I felt like I had direction and a clear path. But here I feel as if I have a dim direction and the path is choked with a jungle of brush. Perhaps it is the different context of writing for publication that has me stymied. So far I have not done so well on the publication front since my article for Pedagogy was rejected, though at least they reviewed it. The objections are well warranted, and I think I might be able to present my "how to" article to them. When I can get around to writing it. That is article #2.

One issue that I have not been able to resolve is what to call "curricular reflection." This term has no legs and was specifically disliked in my reviews. The two alternatives I am thinking of right now are comprehensive reflection (from Ramage and Bean) and constructive reflection (from Yancey). Comprehensive fits best, but then I am not sure I want to use someone else's term. Constructive is not quite right when we think strictly in Yancey terms because she has the second category of Reflection in Presentation, and I want this term to cover both. Constructivist Reflection? Ack.  I don't much like that one either. So I am presently stuck thinking of a better term. Constructionist Reflection? What's the difference between construct -ivist and -ionist? I must think more. And keep pounding the rock. I'd like to have a draft of this essay done before we return to the semester.

Dreaming of My Digital Writing Workshop

I am near the end of Troy's book The Digital Writing Workshop. It is filled with excellent ideas, and my mind is twirling and swirling with ideas. I know from many previous experiences integrating technology and attempting various other kinds of digital writing that conceiving digital writing assignments is easier than implementing them. The road to ruin is created with the best intentions and the most well laid out plans. My sense is to craft a course that has an elegance or simplicity to it where digital writing is simply there and constantly done. My current writing classes happen within digital learning environments, but they seldom get beyond text and image on the page--I have not made the leap to video and voice on the screen.

So let me for a few moments here imagine a new direction for my teaching. I wonder if a useful approach to start is to explore how a single subject or "theme" (in good traditional composition terms) might be re-presented and repurposed in various mediums. Write a piece first as text fitting and fulfilling the various textual conventions such as form, organization, development and standard edited English. (Reaching competency with this written communication often is difficult enough in a writing class.) But then take that theme and re-present it as a podcast. Make a Powerpoint presentation of the piece. Make a digital video expressing the ideas.  I wonder then about going the opposite direction. Create a digital video about a topic and then go backwards. Turn it into a Powerpoint. Create a podcast of the piece. Write it up as an "essay." This cross-medium approach might be really interesting, but it goes against some of our concepts regarding genre and how the shape or medium of the piece will fit the medium. Some genres work best for certain kinds of messages. Still this approach would engage students in experiencing and learning about the differences in these media for communicating. The problem is the material production for each media is fraught with peril in terms of functional literacy using the technology. I wonder also how shifting into different media complicates students' task representation, making it more likely that they will misunderstand and mistake the composing task.

Another element I would love to incorporate is an actual Writing Workshop where students picked what they wrote about and progressed independently in their writing. Many composition classrooms, including my own, seem to be an all-class forced march through the writing process, draft to draft, due date to due date. It is refreshing and scary to think of "letting go" the curriculum in terms of dictating writing assignments and process. Perhaps I am only thinking of letting go some and creating a more "open structure" to my curriculum and thinking. I wonder about how digital tools might help this effort. I might still have general goals and requirements to a writing task, but students then seek to fill those requirements and reach those goals on their own.

One thing I'd like to try is student blogs as the foundation of the Writing Workshop. Students regularly must post blogs that are not like this (ideas splashed on the page), but carefully thought out pieces of digital writing on topics of their choice. I think the idea blogs are important too, but these might be more formal "texts." Ideally, these also would go into a larger publication space like Youth Voices where college writers from across the country might also be posting their writing. College Voices. This online space would be a rhetorical forum where students would enter a writing community larger than just our class. Certainly, these writers could post other kinds of digital writing as well such as podcasts or digital videos. It would be nice if the interface could also accommodate the publication of compilations or e-zine like pieces. Since my two composition classes next semester are online, I wonder if I could try any of these new approaches.

I've dreamed enough for the moment. Thanks Troy for your book.