This semester I have been exploring how different theories allow me to explore the writing center as an object of study. Different theories allowed me to look at different aspects of the writing center, helping to approach big picture issues or more narrow foci depending on the theory. All theories bring certain things into focus…
Writing Instructor & Scholar
Tag: Foucault
Case Study 3: Ecology of the Writing Center
My first case study examined the writing center broadly using Foucault’s archaeological method. My second case study examined my specific writing center in light of Spinuzzi’s activity theory and Latour’s actor-network theory. These theoretical frameworks allowed me to examine either the discursive writing center (Foucault) or my specific writing center (Spinuzzi and Latour) in interesting…
Case Study 2 Outline Responses
I looked at Megan’s and Adrienne’s outlines for Case Study 2. It was really interesting to view both of their outlines because Megan is using two theories that seem to really go together and work in conjunction (hypertext and ANT) while Adrienne is using two very different theories (Foucault and CHAT). Seeing both of these…
Case Study Responses & Assessment
I commented on Laurie’s case study. Since Laurie also used Foucault, it was really helpful to think about how we approached this theory differently, and at times seemed to reach different conclusions. Here is a link to my comment: http://lstankavich.blogspot.com/2016/02/894-case-study-1-foucault.html For the theory application assessment, I chose to examine Alex’s case study, so I created…
894 Case Study #1: Archaeology of the Writing Center
In The Archaeology of Knowledge, Michel Foucault articulates a methodology that counters the history of ideas, which seeks linearity and continuity within discourse, with one focused on moments of discontinuity and disunity. This methodology, which Foucault labels archaeology, presents an interesting theoretical framework to examine writing centers. This theory takes what appears to be a…
894 Reading Notes: Spinuzzi’s Genre Tracing (Week 5)
My notes this week will be a bit sparse because life happened this week, but I wanted to take some time to reflect on this week’s reading because I really liked it Spinuzzi’s Tracing Genres Through Organizations. Spinuzzi’s notion of changing the frame of the conversation in system design of one of workers as victims…
894 Reading Notes: Genre Theory (Week 4)
I really enjoyed our readings for this week on genre theory as they helped me to begin to draw connections to my previous thoughts on genre, our discussions of rhetorical situation and Foucault’s archaeological method. Caroline Miller and Charles Bazerman both emphasize that genre is more than form or a set of requirements that must…
Working Mind Map
Since WordPress does not seem to support embedding Popplet maps, I will continually add new images with a date and link to the active map. April 27, 2016 The final version of my mind map is my reorganization of the map. This reorganization was driven by the theory tree activity. Like that map, the texts/theorists…
Reading Notes: Foucault (Week 3)
While reading The Archaeology of Knowledge, I was particularly attuned to Foucault’s use of the term archaeology, since that seemed to be the central metaphor of the methodology. If I’m honest with myself, my first association with archaeology is probably Indiana Jones. From these movies, we get a view of archaeology as the project of trying…
