Notes from Fred's Comments

Here are key things from Fred's text feedback

1) Research question needs to be strengthened.
(but then... he is thinking I need to include something of a hypothesis in my question which would not be appropriate for a grounded study)

2) I need to define grounded theory better in the proposal

3) He overall wanted more "tell em what your going to tell em, tell em, tell em what you told em" format for the lit review and rationale for the proposal. He wants more foreshadowing. Perhaps this is proposal form? Perhaps this is the first inkling of dissertation form? I am not sure in such a short proposal if I need this kind of redundancy?

4) He thinks also I need to include my definition of reflection. I had that in my draft #1, so I can put it back in.

5) There was some question about my use of the word critically in the statement, "We approach reflection uncritically." Fred jumped in that he does and he has no question about its value (which seems sort of like uncritical acceptance to me). Perhaps the word had too many other connotations to fit here.

6) He wanted me to define theory more, particularly Glaser and Strauss' notion of theory being judged by fit and work. I have done recent thinking on this question--if my diss is to develop "theory" I need to have a good definition of "theory." What is it that I am developing?

7) Facing Flower--In response to my section identifying how Flower focused on the "same essential questions I am focusing on," Fred wrote--"So in this regard, what are you doing that she didn't?" I think by the end, Fred got that I am seeking to answer these questions via a different methodology of inquiry (grounded theory). But this is a valid question. I need to dissect more distinctly the purposes and methods behind Flower's study and distinguish them from mine. She was seeking to explore how students develop the ability to perform "literate acts" and explored how reflection played a role in that development. I have other purposes that don't seem quite so deep or founded in a larger project to uncover how writers think in writing. I need to face Flower more.

8) Goal of research? So what?
Fred expresses that the efficacy of reflection is a forgone conclusion for him. So why study this? I need to ask my self this more deeply. I think the difficulty may be framing the inquiry around "efficacy"--proving that it works. But if I'm not looking into whether "it works" then WGRA? So what?

I am not doing a proving kind of study. The goal is to understand better what happens when students reflect and develop a theory that explains and predicts how it will work within the various dynamics of the context of reflection. I think the "so what?" simply is that we need to know more about how reflection REALLY works (that isn't tainted by our myths about how it works that come from seeing in reflection what we want to see or hope it will be).

9) Method will be as significant as the results
Here is the methods point again that we talked about. I am not sure exactly what he means or has in mind about these methods because I see myself following pretty standard grounded theory methods at first. Then shifting to pretty standard Content Analysis methods. The only new sort of stuff might be the datagogic data-mining? In my mind, I would be leaning on established methods to guide and give credibility to my own research. As I mentioned before, I won't know how my methods will work until I try them out in a pilot. I would be curious to hear what sort of vision Fred has of what methods I would use and how they would develop.

All in all, good feedback and lots to chew on.