An AnnOTATEd STudEnT PROPOSAL 329Hartigan 5start in order to provide the necessary time for the forms to be
sent home and signed by the parents. (For the complete list
of questions, see Appendix A.) Upon receiving confirmation
from Ms. Smith that the consent forms had been completed,
I can then conduct focus groups and interviews with the
participating students.
I will audio-record the focus groups and interviews.
Following the end of each session, I will transcribe the
recordings. Though I will not take notes during the focus
groups and interviews in order to maintain total engagement
with the participants, I will type a series of reflections and
field notes after the completion of each audio-recorded
session. Following the completion of the transcriptions, I
will also take more notes to identify the themes that emerge
in both interviews with individual children and in the focus
groups.
After analyzing student responses, I will construct
several categories to explore the CCLC participants’ sense
of self and authorial identity across contexts: safe spaces,
expressing interest and meaningful message, and ownership.Implications
Though many unique and compelling findings support
a pedagogical shift toward new literacies, researchers
(Vasudevan et al., 2010) tend to ignore the impact of a
student’s outside knowledge, experience, and contexts
for writing. Moreover, without clearly understanding the
differences and similarities between academic writing and
multimodal writing, educators may not see the importance
of including alternative modes of literacy in the standard
curriculum. Hughes (2009) notes that the multimodal
assignments and digital media in her research helped students
engage more deeply with language and their own personal
sense of command over their written work. The need to explore
the changing materiality of texts figures as Hughes’s intriguing
concern due to its impact on the ways students construct
meaning in what they write. Hughes frames performance “as101112Having explained
her approach to
collecting data,
she now indicates
what she will be
looking for in her
analysis.In conclusion,
she points to
some possible
implications of
her research,
but first places
her proposed
study in the
broader context
of what other
researchers are
finding. That is,
she brings her
study full circle
to the ongoing
conversation
that framed her
introduction.In keeping with
approaches to
studies using
focus groups and
interviews, she
acknowledges that
she will transcribe
audio recordings.
She also helps
readers understand
her decision not to
take notes during
focus groups and
interviews.that she needs to
receive the signed
informed consent
form from each
student’s parent
in the class she is
studying. This was
stipulated by the
Institutional Review
Board (IRB).11_GRE_5344_Ch11_313_342.indd 329 11/19/14 11:02 AM