Diaz 1 Madelyn Diaz ENC 1101 0045 11:30- 12:20 Autoethnography It has always been said that in order

to love anyone else, you have to love yourself. In other words, the first step in accomplishing a healthy relationship begins with the ability of appreciating and understanding yourself enough to open your heart and allow others to love you. Similarly, in writing, one must begin by understanding themselves as writers and their writing styles before they can appeal to a broader audience while expanding their own writing techniques. Over time, more and more researchers became interested in trying to understand the writing processes of students. The goal of most researchers was to strive to understand students as writers to help teachers understand their writing processes to improve teaching methods better suited for their students. Researchers such as Sondra Perl and Carol Berkenkotter, set forth to understand the writers process through a technique called the think aloud method. This method required writers to say everything that they are thinking aloud while answering a prompt for the researcher to gather an understanding of that particular writer and their way of writing. During this experiment, the researchers would record the writers thoughts and use that information for further analysis. Researchers would use a set of coding to help organize the thoughts of the writer; similar to the one I used listed in Appendix B. Through the coding process, Perl and Berkenkotter observed unique patterns that helped examine the processes of different types of writers. Sondra Perl studied a group of 5 students that were labeled as unskilled writers. She

Diaz 2 wanted to further understand a group of writers that previous researchers have ignored and to collect data to help improve the education system of future English departments. Carol Berkenkotter, on the other hand, conducted her research on an individual that was classified as a highly skilled writer, Donald Murray. While Perl studied her writers in a more controlled environment, Berkenkotter allowed Murray to write wherever he felt the most comfortable to obtain a greater understanding on Murrays true writing process. Combining the work of Perl and Berkenkotter, I wanted to understand my own writing process by writing down my thoughts while responding to a prompt similar to Perl, but in my most comfortable environment such as Berkenkotters experiment. Thus, I chose to do the think aloud method. I want to further examine the way I write in the hopes of understanding my processes of writings enough to help improve my writing abilities. My research sets out to fill the gap within the study of an average writer while writing at my leisure. This could provide more information about writers similar to my skill level, and the effects of carrying out this experiment in my own environment, without a professional. Methodology To start my research, I chose to respond to a prompt from my World History class. The reason being, I knew I would struggle a lot more with an English prompt that was very broad with no direction as opposed to a World History essay topic that tells you exactly what to write about. My prompt was to analyze how geography and the environment shaped the rise and development of civilizations in at least two of the following ancient civilizations: Sumerian, Egyptian, Indian, and Chinese. Before I could work on my essay, I set up the program I used to record myself talking while answering the prompt. I used a program on my laptop called iMovie because I knew that they had a voice recorder option that I have used before for previous

Diaz 3 projects. However, for future research, I would recommend using an easier program, such as a recorder on your phone. With iMovie, you can only enable the voice recording software when you have a photo or video to go along with it. So I placed 6 pictures in the iMovie project in the maximum number of time incriminates they allowed, which was 10 minutes. Thus, I had 60 minutes to record and write my response to my world history prompt. After setting up iMovie, I began writing my essay in the comfort of my dorm room, after all of my suitemates have gone to sleep for complete tranquility. While answering the prompt, I said everything that went through my mind regarding the prompt, my day, or other irrelevant comments in order to have appropriate data for my research that could really help my understanding of my own writing processes. After the hour was complete, I stopped writing and began the process of transcribing. I opened another word document and started to replay the audio recording. At the same time, I typed everything that I have said for the hour while I was responding to the World History Prompt. Occasionally, I would have to play it again to make sure I have written down everything I said. After copying down my thoughts, I was finally ready to start coding. I followed the code found in Appendix B. To code, I reread the transcript I made of my thoughts while I was writing the prompt, and sentence-by-sentence, I labeled them accordingly. For example, if I took a pause, I would label it P, or if I made an off topic comment, I would label it OT. While I was working on the coding process, I slowly started to notice a pattern in my writing. Findings My coding followed an interesting pattern that consisted of first, off topic comments and space fillers so I would have things to document for my research, followed by a distraction from talking so much, which would lead to frustration from not focusing on my writing prompt in front of me. After I became frustrated, there would be a pause for me to gather my thoughts and I would

Diaz 4 start typing again. Once Ive typed up a couple of sentences in silence, I would remember that I am suppose to say my thoughts aloud as Im writing, thus resulting in more irrelevant comments, distractions, and frustrations and allowing this cycle to happen over and over again. To further examine my findings, I counted the 5 main actions that were included in the cycle of my writing process. In the chart below, the first column explains the codes that I focused on to support the Code OT, U D F P SW/RR 18 4 18 42 61 pattern that Ive recognized. The codes OT, U, D, F, P, and SW/RR can be decoded in Appendix B. The second column shows how many times each code appeared in my transcript. It was interesting to see that I made the same number of off topic and frustrating comments and only 4 distraction comments. I noticed I only made a distraction comment after a period of

time rambling and saying things just for the sake of having something to write for my transcript. This was a little surprising to me because I felt that I would have counted more codes for D. This made me realize, instead of being distracted for a good amount of time, I found this assignment to be more frustrating. Most comments that I made out of frustration consisted of something about grammar, as well as comments that expressed how difficult it was to concentrate on my writing and say my thoughts aloud at the same time. Out of the 18 F comments, 5 of them were related to grammar. Looking over my World History essay, however, I still found a lot of grammar mistakes. It is important to note that whenever I would speak, there wouldnt be much substance, or in other words, relevant to the topic at hand. I spent the majority of my time with off topic and frustrating comments. To look at it at a different angle, I decided to calculate percentages of time I spend for each code. To see the pie chart, refer to Appendix D. I spent just under 4% of my time talking about grammar aloud. It was fairly obvious why I still had grammar mistakes in my essay because I barely spent anytime focusing on it. This may have contributed to the fact that my assignment

Diaz 5 wasnt to write a fantastic world history essay to turn in with this project. My assignment was to say what I was thinking aloud while writing, but I only made comments about 24% of the hour I spent answering the prompt. If I knew my assignment was to analyze my thoughts while writing, why would I talk so little? After reviewing my transcript once again (found in Appendix C), I realized that I made most of my comments in the beginning of the hour. The reason being, the assignment was fresh on my mind, and I wanted enough information to document and analyze after the hour was up. After about 20 minutes of writing, I slowly started to talk less and began to type silently more. The comments towards the end of the hour contained most of my grammar comments and comments about forgetting that I had to say my thoughts aloud. Now, how does this relate to the way I write? During the 60 minute writing period, I spent 72% of my time writing silently, taking pauses, and rereading the essay or prompt to myself. It is safe to say that I am the type of writer that needs complete silence to fully concentrate. Having this type of assignment where I had to talk and write at the same time, it was hard to focus on both. This could explain why I had so many grammar errors in my essay (found in Appendix A). I wasnt able to fully focus on the content of my writing because in the back of my mind, I knew that wasnt the only task that I needed to do. Environment To further analyze my findings, I sought out to see if there was a connection to my environment and my writing. Although, I did not conduct an actual experiment to support my hypothesis, I believe that my environment played a major role on the type of findings I received. In my findings I realized that I spent the majority of my time silently writing and trying to really focus on writing the World History prompt. With my research being conducted at my own leisure, I chose to work on my think aloud experiment in the early hours of the morning, around 1am. For

Diaz 6 the last couple of weeks, I have observed that once I finish all of my classes for the day, I head back to my dorm room to take a nap for a couple of hours until I feel well rested. Then, I will go on with my daily routine, and start my homework after my suitemate and most of my friends fell asleep so I would not be distracted. Also, most social networking sites are not very active around the time I start my work. With very limited distraction, this answers why I counted so little codes for D. To figure out why I didnt spend a lot of my time saying my thoughts aloud was a little bit harder understand. Starting my homework at such an odd time, it was obvious to conclude that at around 1am, I am tired and ready to go to sleep. I would think that this would make me ramble more than I actually did. Looking back at my findings, I was reminded that talking aloud made me frustrated with the assignment because it was hard for me to focus on both, writing and talking. It is possible that this frustration was caused my erratic sleep schedule. I begin my homework at a time when my mind is almost ready to shut down and relax, thus any work I start around this time, I try to complete quickly so I can fall asleep. Once I realized that talking aloud made me lose focus on my writing, I started talking less and less. Towards the ends the only time I made comments was to say something for the purpose of say it, or to fix a grammar or spelling mistake. Conclusion Through my own research, I realized a lot about myself as a writer as well as ways to improve my writing for the future. I learned that I am definitely the type of writer that can only focus on one thing at a time. I put a great amount of effort in my writing, so with an experiment asking me to talk and write, it proved to be more difficult than I could have ever thought. Reviewing my findings, I learned how much my sleeping patterns could truly affect my writing, and more than likely, my other work as well. Although, working at a time where there is very limited distractions is a great idea, I have to keep in mind that at this time as well, my ability to

Diaz 7 write and concentrate is most likely at its lowest level of productivity for the day. If I choose to conduct my research during a time where I was not tired, it is possible that I could have improved my writing or gathered more information. For future experiments, to accurately provide information on an average writer, I would have done a more similar study as Perl. I would not choose to do the think aloud at the leisure of my own dorm, and instead, I would have conducted my research in a more controlled environment. The think aloud method, in my opinion, isnt meant to be at the leisure of the writer if they dont have enough discipline to be able to focus on both writing and talking aloud. Also, I would recommend using an easier program, such as a recorder on your phone.

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Works Cited Berkenkotter, Carol. Decisions and Revising: The Planning Strategies of a Publishing Writer Writing about Writing. Ed. Elizabeth Wardle and Douglas Downs, St.Martins: Bedforf, 2011. 218-230 Pearl, Sondra. The Composing Processes of Unskilled College Writers Writing about Writing. Ed. Elizabeth Wardle and Douglas Downs, St.Martins: Bedforf, 2011.191214

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Appendix A How did the geography of Mesopotamia and Egypt shape the rise and development of their ancient civilization? During the rise of the ancient civilizations, geography was a very important part of their success. Geography was the only thing that people could rely on for everything that they needed. Rising civilizations such as Mesopotamia and Egypt replied heavily on their geography for food, as a unifying element for the people as well as religious authority. In the region of Mesopotamia, there lied the Tigris and Euphrates River. These rivers were the central point of the civilization as most people lived around the river for food. The region around the river was the more fertile and supported agriculture better than areas away from the rivers. His area is commonly known as the Fertile Crescent. With the stability of food, the river allowed the civilization to gain a greater population that lived around this area. However, although the rivers were a blessing, Mesopotamia experienced frequent flooding that would be fatal to people and crops. On the other hand, the ancient civilization of Egypt experienced light flooding. Similar to Mesopotamia though, the floods brought fertile soil for agriculture. In both, Mesopotamia and Egypt, the rivers brought the people together, acting as a unifying element. The water was the source for everything they needed, therefore, you couldnt avoid interacting with others. This allowed for the civilization to grow politically. In Mesopotamia, the Tigris and Euphrates required their people to cooperate and allowed for social and political cohesive in order to avoid conflict. To do this, Mesopotamia developed city states. Without the availability of these rivers, our ancient history would consist of groups of hunters and gatherers. Especially within the region of Egypt, the Nile was very influential in the development of their polytheistic beliefs. The flooding of the Nile was very gentle, and the flooding allowed the soil to come back to life and revitalize all the nutrients necessary for a new year of cropping for the people.

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Appendix B U RR Sn OT Q BR Ed F S WL WS DW D En R C AQ Dc Fr M Rv Se Hum TF Ums/ Space fillers Rereading Snacking Off topic Asking questions Breaks Correcting grammar/ editing Fidgeting/ nervous tics Silence Writing out loud Silently writing Describing the writing you are doing Distractions Encouraging (oh! Perfect!) Revise (going back and changing content, not grammar, spelling) Complaining Asking then answering questions Discovery (aha!) (oh!) Frustration Motivating Reviewing materials (thinking about/ talking about materials from class) Searching for a word or phrase Humming Talking to fill space bc of think aloud assignment

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Appendix C (pause) I feel like Im hitting writers block cause Im being recorded. (rereads the prompt) Ive read this question so many times, but Im just feel like Im hitting writers block. I just keep looking at the timer and how many seconds Ive already wasting and I just feel like Im talking to my self. Ummm. Wow. This is a lot harder than I thought. (starts typing) Thank god for auto correct. This timer thing is really distracting. I feel like I have to cover the document so I cant see it. During the.. (typing) yet again, Im distracted by my phone. Awesome. I feel like im not even making sense cause Im so distracted. Ummmm. (fixes a typo). Pause. Typing. Humming. I feel so awkward cause I feel like I should be talking but I dont really know what to talk bout cause I just ant to focus on my writing and its really hard to like, say everything that Im thinking cause its distracting me from what Im trying to write so it just seems kinda awkward. Mesopotamia I have to capitalize that, and Im pretty sure I spelled that right. Yay for writers block. Of course my suitemates always wants to play music. They dont care about anyone else but themselves. I feel like Im making so many more error cause my mind is going so many different places, I cant tell if I spelled this word

Diaz 12 right, there lied the Tigris and Euphrates river I dont know. Typing for a couple of minutes. Oh I love hearing my suitemate arguing with her boyfriend when im trying to do my work. But its kinda interesting.. long pause for writing. I almost forgot I was being recorded for a second. Oops. Ummm, Mesopotamia experienced.ummmm. typing. Wow im so tired. La la la yawn. Agriculture I cant think of the right words to say. Hmm okay, I think Im done with that paragraph. Its really annoying cause I think can hear a bed above me that speaks all the freakin time and its really distracting. Wow its really hard for me to think of words right now. I keep sleeping Mesopotamia wrong.. I hate when I spell a word wrong, but I spell it so wrong, spell check doesnt even know what it is.. I feel like im talking less because I know if I talk more Ill be distracted and lose focus..

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Appendix D

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