TY  - CHAP
AB  - Abstract This chapter examines the practical and conceptual limitations and possibilities of using ethnographic methods in the college writing classroom for the purpose of instructors’ professional development. The study is based on ethnographic research with a second-year course in Stanford University’s Program in Writing and Rhetoric. The study’s dual foci included the teacher–researcher’s pedagogical practices and students’ learning, and entailed participant-observation and the recording of ethnographic fieldnotes. It builds on the anthropology of literacy, a tradition of action research among educational ethnographers, and scholarship on composition pedagogy. Participant-observation could be helpful to other college instructors interested in improving their teaching. However, combining participant-observation with direct student feedback through interviews or surveys will be most effective in shaping educators’ professional development. Using participant-observation for professional development in the college writing classroom did not only situate me, the ethnographer, as both subject and object of research. Unexpectedly, my research also placed ethnographic methods as objects of research. By examining student learning and teaching practices ethnographically, researchers create opportunities to illuminate assumptions related to research as well as broader lessons about the study of teaching and learning.
VL  - 13
SN  - 978-1-78441-623-2, 978-1-78441-624-9/1529-210X
DO  - 10.1108/S1529-210X20150000013007
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1108/S1529-210X20150000013007
AU  - Davie-Kessler Jesse
PY  - 2016
Y1  - 2016/01/01
TI  - Ethnography as Subject, Ethnography as Object: Experimenting with Research in a College Writing Classroom
T2  - New Directions in Educational Ethnography
T3  - Studies in Educational Ethnography
PB  - Emerald Group Publishing Limited
SP  - 193
EP  - 212
Y2  - 2024/04/20
ER  -