Our reading of “Theories from the Middle Range” was shaped through many different social constructions, but primarily by our (re)readings of the text, our research in the fields of writing, literacy, and sociology, our conversations with one another about the work, and our preparation for, participation in, and reflection of the interview with the author, Dr. Bazerman.
These four categories moved through three different stages of development—basic, developmental, and synthetic—each of which was characterized by a particular focus and state of understanding. In the basic stage, our understanding was limited by our poor understanding of middle range sociological theory and other background knowledge, and was centered upon our need to formulate framing questions as we entered the work to begin preparing for the interview.
Once we felt we had sufficient knowledge to answer the framing questions, we moved into the developmental stage, which was a two week period of independent research and occasional collaborative discussion. The focus of this stage was creating our questions for Dr. Bazerman and specifying them as our understanding of the article increased.
The start of the interview represented a shift into the synthetic stage of development, when our understanding of Dr. Bazerman’s logic of inquiry became, with the help of other sources, concretized for future forays into both this work and other literature in the field of writing research. Further investigations into the text and discussions about the text were shaped by the information gleaned from the interview and the resulting transcript.
As we looked back on our development throughout this project, we realized that our reactions to and understanding of each category and stage were, to a degree, independent of one another. This wiki is an attempt to show our independent and mutual development in each category at all three stages in order to reveal the individual but socially situated learning that occurred.
Our reading of “Theories from the Middle Range” was shaped through many different social constructions, but primarily by our (re)readings of the text, our research in the fields of writing, literacy, and sociology, our conversations with one another about the work, and our preparation for, participation in, and reflection of the interview with the author, Dr. Bazerman.
These four categories moved through three different stages of development—basic, developmental, and synthetic—each of which was characterized by a particular focus and state of understanding. In the basic stage, our understanding was limited by our poor understanding of middle range sociological theory and other background knowledge, and was centered upon our need to formulate framing questions as we entered the work to begin preparing for the interview.
Once we felt we had sufficient knowledge to answer the framing questions, we moved into the developmental stage, which was a two week period of independent research and occasional collaborative discussion. The focus of this stage was creating our questions for Dr. Bazerman and specifying them as our understanding of the article increased.
The start of the interview represented a shift into the synthetic stage of development, when our understanding of Dr. Bazerman’s logic of inquiry became, with the help of other sources, concretized for future forays into both this work and other literature in the field of writing research. Further investigations into the text and discussions about the text were shaped by the information gleaned from the interview and the resulting transcript.
As we looked back on our development throughout this project, we realized that our reactions to and understanding of each category and stage were, to a degree, independent of one another. This wiki is an attempt to show our independent and mutual development in each category at all three stages in order to reveal the individual but socially situated learning that occurred.