From Inquiry to Academic Writing A Practical Guide, 3rd edition

328 CHAPTER 11 | OTHER METHOdS Of InquIRy: InTERvIEwS And fOCuS GROuPS

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collaborative atmosphere. Classes and programming range from English

as a New Language (ENL) to financial literacy, entrepreneurship, basic

computing, and one-on-one tutoring for area children conducted by

college volunteers.

The creative writing class and the CCLC’s curricular

environment will provide an appropriate population and unique

space to explore the possible affordances between creative and

academic writing. With the after-school programming divided in

weekly, day-by-day activities centered on enrichment, academic

tutoring, and creative writing, the CCLC’s after-school context is

inherently connected to the student’s school context. Thus the CCLC’s

efforts to help students with their day-to-day school work and also

offer enrichment unique to an after-school program can enrich my

understanding of the way students’ contexts (in school and after

school) influence how they see themselves as writers.

Participants

At the CCLC, I will focus on Ms. Smith’s class. Ms. Smith

is a former fourth-grade teacher serving the center as a full-time

AmeriCorps member. As an AmeriCorps member, Ms. Smith works

in a federal program funded by the state of Indiana for a full-time

forty-hour week at the CCLC. Taking place every Wednesday, the creative

writing class centers around brainstorming, drafting, and publishing

the student work for display inside the center and on a developing Web

log. I have chosen this specific class and student population because

it offered the opportunity to talk to students about their school

and after-school writing experiences alongside the physical creative

artifacts they created in Ms. Smith’s class. Due to the participants’

weekly experience of academic tutoring and creative class time, the

choice was based on the wide range of writing activities that could be

probed by the broad, experience-based focus of the question script.

Data Collection Procedure and Analysis

I will conduct focus groups and interviews with the students

in Ms. Smith’s class over the course of three weeks. To obtain

parental consent in order to conduct the focus groups and subsequent

interviews, I will e-mail consent forms requesting each student’s

participation in my research. I will do so two weeks prior to the study’s

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She identifies the

specific class that

she will focus on in

her research and

why the context

for conducting this

study makes sense.

Importantly, she

describes who will

participate in the

study and why

she has chosen

this particular

teacher and class.

Note that at

this preliminary

stage, she offers

a brief sketch of

the teacher and

her credentials.

However, she has

not yet met the

students.

She explains the

methods she will

use to collect the

information she

needs to answer

her research

questions and,

importantly, notes

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