Welcome back to the world of blogging!

Hi everyone,

I've been away for quite some time. With that being said, I want to reactive this blog to record my thought process down as I venture along in my PhD journey. On June 25, 26, 27 I take my qualifying exam (eek!) and hope to god I pass. :) For the past month or so, I've been reading, writing outlines/summary charts, and a reference sheet for each of my areas of interest. For those of you not familiar with a qualifying exam, it's the make or break it point in the PhD journey...until you get to the dissertation that is. In my department you have two options--take a 3 day test (which is what I am doing) or write a long paper (that needs to be publishable once you are finished). I talked to everyone who recently graduated or passed quals to see what they advised me to do and everyone, with the exception of one person, said take the three day! Get it over with and move into dissertation mode. So alas, on the good faith of those who have come before me, I am taking the three day. I am still nervous as heck. I know what areas I will be asked about (disciplinary literacy and my conception of it; historical literacy and aims of social studies; and methodology--design a study at the UACC). However, I don't know the exact questions. Because of this, I am starting later this week or at the latest, early next week, timing myself and writing for four hours straight (the time allotted for one question on the qualifying exam) for three days to do a mock qualifying exam session. I want to do this at least two-three times before the end of June.

I've also been thinking about the big dissertation. I know I want to look at historical thinking and most likely writing instruction in (ideally) an AP US History class next spring. There is not as much about writing in the literature as reading and while the reading research being done is important, I really am leaning towards writing at this point. I need a study population. Anyone out there who has any contacts in the local schools, I'd greatly appreciate it. I've thought of some questions, however, they are not 100% by any means. I'd love some feedback on them though:

1. What does discipline-based writing instruction in a high school classroom look (or not look) like?

(i) What discipline specific instructional practices do two high school history teachers implement in the classroom?

            (ii) What opportunities to write historically do the teachers provide?

            (iii) How often do the teachers provide opportunities to write historically?

(iv) In what ways do these teachers writing instructional practices coincide with student improvement in writing historically?

I want to use Wineburg's seminal work (1991) on the processes historians use when writing (corroborating, sourcing, contextualization) as well as reading historical documents as part of my framework as well as Monte-Sano's Rubric on Historical Evidence (can't remember what it is called off the top of my head). 

I'm also thinking about using as a theoretical frame Bakthin's speech genres (especially secondary speech), Lave and Wenger's communities of practice, and Vygotsky's constructivism. 

Methodology: comparative (if I can look at two different schools and teachers) or intrinsic case study. 

Thoughts? 

I also have been forwarded, by like 4 people, the LRA link to the open tenure track position for adolescent/middle grades literacy at Maryland, College Park. They are looking for people who can go across disciplines in their work--and I can do that with social studies education. They have a phenomenal group at Maryland, although they are losing C. Monte-Sano to Michigan this fall (so disappointing because her work I so admire!). I'm thinking about applying but don't want to do so until I've passed quals. I want "doctoral candidate" listed on my CV. :) 

Enough ramblings for one day.

Thanks for reading,

Steph