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Commentaries As a Conversational Community In Company With Others: Commentaries as a Conversational Community Practice Towards Philosophical Thinking by Nicole Callahan A DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2017 ©2017 Nicole Alana Callahan All rights reserved ABSTRACT In Company With Others: Commentaries as a Conversational Practice Towards Philosophical Thinking Nicole Callahan In the interest of fostering deep student transactions with texts, the purpose of this research is to study a particular approach to teaching writing, and to observe and investigate the impact of a dramatic shift in the methods and frequency of assignment of writing in a college- level philosophy class, and the ways in which the students and instructor negotiate this new territory and these different demands over three cohort years, from Fall 2014 to Spring 2017. This dissertation is a study of what happens when an inquiry-based apprenticeship approach to teaching academic writing (Blau 2011) is employed in a required sophomore- level interdisciplinary humanities course in a highly selective college. This classroom research project seeks to undertake an examination of whether students can be successfully inducted into the academic community through a particular assignment in a Philosophy course. This writing assignment, the “commentary,” encourages students to focus on questions and therefore functions as an instance of writing-to-learn, which belongs to a long tradition across disciplines and cultures. This dissertation will also undertake an examination of the potential capacity of the commentary to create an academic discourse community of practice that supports critical reading and interpreting of literary and philosophical texts. The strategy of this new method is to have the students write twice-weekly 300-500 word commentaries of exploratory and sometimes argumentative writing on assigned texts twice a week, posting the writing in an online discussion board. They receive responses immediately, from each other, and get credit for completing the assignment (on time, relevant, and of appropriate length). The instructor never replies to their postings and never grades their postings on a scale or for quality. Students simply earn credit for completing the full number of required commentaries. The research is not experimental, but rather a qualitative observation of the effects of an approach established by the instructor in this class and in other similar classes as an adaptation of a model for learning academic writing through participation in an authentic academic discourse (Blau). The approach represents an enactment of situated learning theory (Lave & Wenger) in a college classroom and is constructed to advance academic learning while providing an opportunity for situated performative assessment indistinct from instruction. The place of the commentary in this course is established in a literary and historical context as it is authorized, valorized, and illuminated by a tradition of writing-to-learn grounded in the ideas of Isocrates, Quintilian, Cicero, and Montaigne. It is also supported by current seminal research in writing instruction, including James Moffett’s theory of abstraction in writing (1983), Sheridan Blau’s pedagogical applications of apprenticeship systems (2011), James Gee’s theories of discourse analysis (2001), and John Dewey’s “How We Think” (1910). Where decorum permits, there will be deeper meditations and excursions into and elaborations on the auto-ethnographic metacognitive writing of Michel de Montaigne, exploring the history of the practice of writing to learn and its relationship to critical thinking and Dewey. My analysis is situated in examining the culture of writing in this class and the markers of growth in thinking in student writing, using tools out of ethnography and the tradition of teacher research. Based on asking the initial question, “What happens when students write regular commentaries on their reading of difficult texts?” analysis of the collected student writing explores students’ attempts to channel curiosity into productive interpretive techniques, embrace uncertainty, make meaning and connections, and grow in the capacity to welcome and seek out productive confusion and doubt. I will focus primarily on whether this assignment contributes to the construction of a class culture whose implicit and explicit rules, conventions, and patterns of interaction are consistent with those that characterize the knowledge-building communities of the kind that colleges and universities aspire to in their departments, organized research units, and professional associations. I am also interested in exploring whether this shift in the culture of writing impacts whether students come to perceive themselves as contributors to the construction of knowledge as members of an academic community. Table of Contents Title Page Copyright Page Abstract Table of Contents i List of Charts, Tables, Graphs, and Illustrations v Acknowledgments vi Dedication viii 1. The Story of My Question 1 1.1 Background of the Problem 1.2 Purpose of the Study, Statement of the Problem 1.3 Context of the Study 1.4 Research Question 1.5 A New Kind of Assignment: The Commentary 1.6 A First CC Class: A Socratic Dialogue 1.7 Definition of Terms: Thinking, Philosophy, and Academic Writing 1.7.1 What is Thinking? 1.7.2 What is Philosophical Education? 1.7.3 What is Academic Writing? Mis-Inventing the University’s Discourse: Mimesis v. Mathesis 1.8 Essays, Excursions, and Explorations in the Montaigne Tradition: 1.8.1 On Being Resistant to Writing: A Meditation After Montaigne 1.8.2 What Makes a “Good” Text or Reader: Is Literature Just Quiet Conversation? 1.8.3 Why Don’t I See Most Academic Writing As Thinking? i 2. The Story of Writing to Think and to Learn 45 2.1 Search Description 2.2 Conceptual and Theoretical Framework 2.3 Review of Literature: The Story of Writing to Think and to Learn 2.3.1 Learning to Think Through the Rhetorical Arts: The Greeks, The Romans 2.3.2 Renaissance Rediscovery: Writing to Learn and Writing to Think 2.3.3 Writing, Composition, or Literature: Two Schools of Thought on “English” 2.3.4 Writing to Learn and to Think Since Dartmouth 2.3.5 Writing to Learn and to Think in a Community of Practice 2.4 Essays, Excursions, and Explorations in the Montaigne Tradition 2.4.1 Radical Writing: Bringing New Life to the Ancestral Rootstock 2.4.2 Radical Writing: Practice, Process, Risk, Result 3. The Story of My Ways of Looking 97 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Research Design 3.3 Research Methodology 3.3.1 Insider and Observer: Teacher-as-Researcher 3.3.2 Classroom Research Tools Out of Ethnographic Traditions 3.3.3 Qualitative Method: Discourse Analysis 3.4 Research Questions 3.5 Research Setting 3.5.1 Recruitment, and Procedures 3.5.2 Participant Demographic Information 3.5.3 Student Profiles ii 3.6 Data Collection and Analysis 3.7 Essays, Excursions, and Explorations in the Montaigneian Tradition 3.7.1 Meditations on Emic Research: Inviting Self-Researcher into the Writing 3.7.2 Meditative Metacognitions on Power and Authority, Teacher-as-Researcher 4. The Stories of the Commentary in Our Community of Practice 141 4.1 Introduction 4.2 So What Happened? 4.2.1 Did Engagement Lead to Success? 4.3 Did Their Writing Show Philosophical Thinking? 4.3.1 Discourse Analysis: A Half-Chapter Where I Learn From Failure 4.3.2 The Stories of Their Philosophical Thinking in Writing 4.3.3 What Do The Stories Reveal? 4.4 Are They Becoming Philosophers? 4.5 A Socratic Dialogue Among Students 4.5.1 Defining Contemporary Civilization and the Commentary 4.5.2 Commentary in a Philosophical Community of Practice 4.5.3 Establishing Identities as Philosophers 4.5.4 Ongoing Influences: A Philosophical Life 4.6 Meditations on the Effects of the Commentary on Our Community of Practice 4.7: Epilogue: Last Essays, Excursions, and Explorations in the Montaigne Tradition 4.7.1 Transforming Composing and Revising into Methods of Inquiry 4.7.2 Responding: Commentaries and Conversations as Conferences References 195 iii Addenda 203 Appendix A: Course Writing Assignments Appendix B: Handout: First Class Commentary Choices Appendix C: Course Syllabus Fall 2016 Appendix D: Course Syllabus Spring 2017 Appendix E: Informed Consent Appendix F: All Three Cohorts’ Commentary Data Appendix G: Commentary Statistics of Nine Students Appendix H: Full Interview Responses Appendix I: Full Email from Steve Appendix J: Full Email from Peter Appendix K: Full Commentaries from Ben iv List of Charts, Tables, Graphs, and Illustrations 2.3.2 Ceiling Beams of Michel de Montaigne’s Writing Room 2.3.2 Front Page of Michel de Montaigne’s 1588 Edition 3.3.1 Chart of Factors Influencing Development of Writing 3.5.2 Participant Demographic Information 3.6 Student Interview Questions 3.6 Chart of Classroom Artifacts Used in Study 4.2.1 Overview of Cohorts’ Commentary Statistics Appendix F All Three Cohorts’ Commentary Data Appendix G Commentary Statistics of Nine Students Appendix H Full Interview Responses v Acknowledgments Professor Sheridan Blau served as advisor, mentor, inspiration, therapist, and sponsor for this dissertation. His signature appears on my father’s dissertation, from 1985, his imprint is on my mother’s 42 years of teaching, and his influence has shaped my life. He has also become my valued friend. Without his encouragement and support this research would not have been completed. He repeatedly found ways, sometimes at odd hours and places, to help this student, often working too much on her teaching, become a teacher-researcher and, perhaps more importantly, a writer about teacher research. Professor Roosevelt Montás hired this nervous doctoral student in English Education to teach Contemporary Civilization with a bunch of Classicists and Political Scientists and Philosophers. He made me feel welcome, eased my outsider fears, and has truly always had an open door for my many questions, concerns, and sometimes odd ideas.
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