Kyle > Recent Status Updates

I am warming up to the idea of discourse analysis as a way of seeing research, as opposed to a method that must be followed by part of a certain academic camp (or silo), but not entirely convinced it is an effective approach to list every stutter and hum uttered by participants. Plus the focus on words and gestures leaves out much of the common sense, problematized in this chapter, given by a clearly labeled graphic.

It would be a treat to perform a sustained discourse analysis on this play: to examine up close, as Ben Crystal does with the Macbeths, the tyrannical rants of Leontes, the assured audacity of Paulina, the careful manoeuvring of Antigonus and other lords and even the pre-pubescent preference of a lady's eyebrow by Mamillius, all within a few short scenes. There is evidence of Petruchio in Antigonus' uxorious replies.

It is going to be a long and frustrating read, as the authors themselves (all nine of them) have already introduced elements that make a straightforward reading less likely: they suggest reading other books on DA to get a better sense of what it is, and have their excuse ready that those who don't follow their ways are either fixed on one truth or relativists. I am just happy I dropped a course on DA for Shakespeare.

Remarkable how quickly the scene is set and an innocent friendship gets established between Leontes and Polixenes. Nothing that Hermione says or does tips the scale towards any infidelity, but the sudden change in Leontes' affection is all the more startling the longer it takes to make his mind-poisoning discovery. Polixenes' chief mistake is trusting honest Camillo too soon, and running away before finding out more.

Out of all the Shakespeare play that I love, and it should be no surprise that all of them deserve equal amounts, The Winter's Tale holds that special place in my heart associated with first love as one that will be fondly remembered: seeing it staged well aroused many of the excellent points mentioned in Ernest Schanzer's exciting introduction that presents its many possibilities without limiting it to one.

For a play which, in euphemistic terms, had a limited engagement on London stages - more bluntly was a box office flop, it captures so many interesting aspects of pre-Cromwell's England. If his puritanical revolution was more permanent and later generations had lost all the works of William Shakespeare, there would still be this play to demonstrate what early modern was like, much of it based on Merrythought's songs.

Seems closer to a postmodern than early modern play, which barely gets through the prologue without interruptions from the Grocers. They want less of the romance, more of the raucous adventuring of their apprentice Rafe. To say his role as the Knight was too silly would be giving too much credit to the Merchant, his daughter, her fiancé and the Merrythoughts, which only seemed to add fuel to the Grocer's Wife's ire.

As admirable as it is for the publishers of The Revels Plays to bring Shakespeare's contemporaries into the field of modern scholarship, the editor who wrote this introduction does much to undo the goodwill of current readers. His focus on textual variants, questions of authorship and similar plays performed before he even mentions what the Burning Pestle is even about, or indeed why a pestle burns!

Finishing off just under 150 page guidebook on case study methodology with advice about generalizations seems a bit cheeky, as if the warning becomes a blunt reminder of what researchers should try to avoid yet almost seems to be the whole purpose of collecting data: to generalize about what goes on at a certain location with specific practices and circumstances. Celia and Anne blur the boundaries of study and hobby.

The author re-case their outline of the research method by describing a room scattered with books, videotape and piles of field notes, all to indicate that the researcher must weave all the diverse threads of data. The whole purpose of a case study is to present unit of analyses as a worthwhile knot of information that can be untangled with helpful commentary notes and somehow resisted tying off with a narrative bow.

Not only are the case study neophytes back on Madlenka's block, but high in the sky above, where we are continually told about "the house for GOd" as reported by co-author Anne Dyson. This report conversation already made an appearance in her (2004) Diversity as a “handful”: Toward retheorizing the basics. Research in the Teaching of English 39(2) and I suspected numerous other articles, maybe video too.

If Shakespeare were to be compared to such filmmakers as Kurosawa and Lean, the Two Gentlemen appears as his homemade student film: rough cut, some stilted dialogue (and longish monologues) but at its heart signs of wonders to come. In particular, parts of Valentine and Proteus foreshadow Benedict and Claudio, just as Julia and Sylvia will become Viola and Imogen. As for Launce and Speed, it's what you will.

Scholars and theatre-goers alike have their work cut out for them with this play: how to find the good in what appears to be Shakespeare's least liked play. While Norman Sanders introduces his edition with a collection of possibilities for this play being more than the sum of its questionable parts, in particular Valentine's offer of Sylvia in Act Five, there is enough mystery to keep me searching all night.

The strange fairy tale world starts suddenly with a world weary sadness, increases to a money-driven madness, seems to pause to examine Venetian law, and ends up with a disharmonious exchange of wedding rings. Most of it goes to show the London audiences how messed up and prejudiced the rest of the world seems to be, and yet there still remains Shylock's plea to give one another as you would receive, even in revenge.

With a long and detailed introduction to themes and sources of influence behind the festive, fairy tale-like play, it is refreshing to read so much about this play without resorting to whether or not Shakespeare and Hitler saw eye to eye. It may be enlightening or evasive, depending on the reader's social justice stance, to consider editor's W H Merchant list the 19th and early 20th century actors who played Shylock.

Reducing the large, amorphous case study site from a block to a "two inches wide" bit of ivory for the researcher to polish and refine, as Jane Austen once described crafting her novels. The details get worked out in minute, usually a folder full of papers, before the video camera start taping, but unlike the dispassionate eye the researcher will stand behind, with case study's researcher will get to design her role.

Madlenka's block gets mentioned again, this time only in passing, and the city-block is transformed into a geometric cube where different aspects of a researcher's observation occurs between opposing faces. So time and schedule, place and space, people and participants all occupy a position within this cased-out cube. The two classroom examples show the data inside, yet the world outside this cube also has influence.

The game's a-foot learning how to conduct a case study, and the introduction sets up a few of the advantages along with well-advised caution. I was still surprised, however, to find so much of this chapter concerns a fictional child's loose tooth and suspect this is not the end of Peter Sis' Madlenka. What I hope to discover instead is inspiration to get started on case study or two by the end of this month.

A peculiar tale staged at some point during King James' rule, presents an Italian court brimming with awkwardly named royals - none spoken in the dialogue - but each representing deadly sin that gets justly revenged. As for the revenger himself, Vindice, a curious enabler who would prostitute his chaste sister and entrap his mother. At least he found some novel uses of poisoned remains of his wife and the lusty duke.

At first glance (and by this I mean the first four or five pages of Hanako's chapter) it seems really odd to end a book on literacy practices with a narrative account of a student, not yet a doctor, who at some points during her lengthy studies barely had enough energy to hold a pen. As an example of autoethnography and narrative inquiry, however, this story more than any of the preceding captures how doing is being.

A co-authored chapter that makes very little attempt to cross-reference the other writer, it demonstrate how narrative inquiry works on the self. Paul presents himself situated in daily life, evoking the CDs, blends of coffee and frequency of e-mails he reads. In the same screenplay-like format, Young-Kyung narrates most of her life leading up to doctoral studies. Compare and contrast how these twain would ever meet.

Far from being the final word on Narrative Inquiry, Nick Sousanis makes visual the many ways that information seems to float across my mind - including a timely mention of Kurosawa's Rashomon, echoing a previous post on Akutagawa's brilliant stories. Plus this is the next book, after reviewing Masny & Cole's (2012) Mapping Multiple Literacies to conclude with comics. Good news for my study!

Taking a page from the masterful Akutagawa, Jun, his wife Hiroko and mentor Brian each narrate their perspective in a twisted academic Rashomon where being on tenure track before completing a dissertation opens up usually submerged tension. Not so much a recipe for disaster but rather an acceleration of a process that happens to everyone at the post-graduate level. A lightening round of the usual PhD "game."

Some researchers revel in all the possibility a topic, or more importantly a participant in the study, presents as potential. There are so many stories to tell, it is disappointing that only 250 or so pages remain to tell a part of it. Rather than writing the never-ending thesis, Randi describes the process of refining all the data and finding herself, the researcher, playing an equally important role: a storyteller.

The transoceanic journey So Jin makes to becoming a Doctor of Philosophy in the United States seems like less of a sea-change than her former English teacher, also a world traveler, who had settled into the habitus of her native language. Marcia learns that she still needs to understand the disciplinary language of graduate school, and finds the ethnographic participant So Jin has dissertational lessons to teach her.

This child of summer, Natsuko, shares her fear of not belonging in a PhD program, and while I can sympathize with her, knowing the slim chance that got me into my program, I did not have the added pressures of acclimatizing myself to a foreign culture. Having just read Kilmer & Thomson (2008) discuss situating oneself as a graduate student, rather than just surviving on writerly advice, I empathize with her strength.

Many of the connections Lu made at Purdue generously comment on her progress through graduate school, and while breadth is well on display, depth is naturally lacking. Many of the insights mentioned in this chapter would make good slogans to print onto t-shirts. One professor whose influence was described happens to be a professor at my university. For the first time in this book I've read digital literacy, my topic.

Try as best as I could, I could not get to the end of this most excellent play by this morning's class, mostly due to those dreadfully long articles on Ben Jonson's masques! However an all-nighter with such a delightful play as Love's Labour's Lost is hardly a thing to complain of, in fact, brings back find memories of the triple bill this summer in Montpellier's Domain d'Or, ending with Branagh's 2000 film.

Yanbin captures in a nutshell (that was really a narration of her thirteen-week WebCT course) two and a half years of my life, staring at a computer screen while completing my Master of Educational Technology. Very much like her initial impression of how much she needs to learn, I found the best examples were the students who seemed to know how to post and respond to other classmates. Gayle shows an instructor's POV.

Kerrigan refutes the claim that there is a source for this play, perhaps as lost as Love's Labour's Won. If there was something that might have come close to inspiring Shakespeare, it would have been Sir Philip Sidney's pedagogical clown Master Rombus in The Lady of May. Yet as the French lords learn from each other, or true folk like Costard and Jaquenetta, anyone can end up playing a foolish part.