Reflections on the Literature Review process.

I spent a lot of time going over what we had already gathered and reading about what exactly an outline for a literature should have. I looked at the CSUS advice page. I googled "How to write a literature review" and limited the search to the .edu domain.

I read the article that Mary found "Using Storytelling Trays to Scaffold for Young Writers"

I read the narrative bibliography I had written before.

I tried grouping the research into logical catagories...

• "Storytelling and Literacy"
  
• "Storytelling and Technology"
• "Video and ELL"
• "Video Production"
  

I found some new keywords...I "Generated a list" and used the new words to do some more research.

Using the new keywords of "Oral History" "Biography" "Language" "Learning" I was able to find a whole new area of research. There is even a scholarly journal called "Language, Learning and Technology"

This is great, because while I was willing to pat us on our collective back for coming up with something so completely original, I was at the same time reluctant to make a stance that there has been so little research on the subject. The article that I first found that ended up pointing me to the "LL&T" journal was written by Lorie Hammond of CSU Sacramento.

I still need to read it. I found at least 3 more articles that seem to more directly deal with some of the issues we are running accross in our project.

Speaking of issues, Mary is running into something that we anticipated somewhat, and that is the issue of building trust with the subject.

OK I have reading to do...Remember, take notes and look for patterns.

First Meeting - AR

Gardener
Originally uploaded by mphoenix.

Yesterday I had my first meeting with Georgina. During this first meeting which lasted about 45 minutes, we explored different subjects in her life (from her cultural background) that could be the basis of her story. I had technical difficulties with the voice recorder (pilot error). It will be working for our next session on Tuesday. The discussion was good from the standpoint of getting started and also for building rapport with the student. However, it is obvious at this point that some direction and some scaffolding will be required in order to help the student stay on track and to make sure that relevant details are included. Non-relevant details also need to be identified in order to keep the story focused enough to understand. A graphic organizer of some kind, along with direction as to elements of a story seem a necessary addition. Part of the process of recording the story will be to guide the student to the understanding that their life is indeed a story. Georgina seems to think that nothing of relevance has occured in her life. A thought that just occured to me is that perhaps having her make a timeline of her life would be appropriate. This could be a drawing project that she would do. I see this taking perhaps a session or two. At any rate, meeting with Georgina has brought up some intriguing questions.