Cambridge epitomised

I think this image captures my sense of Cambridge - the bookishness, the green lawns, the tree of learning, the grandeur, wealth and privilege associated with the education it offers, represented by the magnificent, but equally, ostentatious St John's College in the background and the solitude of the learning experience. You cant help but come away thinking about the inequality that seems ingrained while almost invisible in this type of education, yet at the same time feel completely fascinated by it.

Reflecting on the mini-viva

After weeks of anxiety associated with the mini-viva, the actual event could easily be described as a non-event. I remember sitting in the room fielding the questions from my assessors and thinking "Is this all? It can’t be this easy, surely?" But it was - I had over prepared, thinking of the most challenging and technically tricky questions I could possibly be asked, mulling over my report fearing that I wouldn’t remember everything that I had written. And at the end of the day it just passed by seamlessly. The feedback I received was interesting - I've been warned not to make a particular theorist a hero (sorry Mr Bernstein) and to consider what other linkages can be drawn between academic literacies and curriculum i.e. what does academic literacies have to say about curriculum and what does curriculum studies have to say about academic literacies.




My assessors also highlighted the issue around attainment and equality of success - I make the argument that I am interested in a fairer HE system, and they suggest that one can only start to tackle this challenge by considering attainment. This is an issue I hadn’t even contemplated. Maybe it doesn’t have much relevance in my PhD, but if my intellectual project is about a fairer HE system then, seemingly I need to put attainment on the agenda. This is something I will need to get my head around before making a final decision on the merits of their argument.



My thoughts on the mini-viva and the whole PhD process are that it’s really all about self-confidence. You have to be confident about yourself, your ideas in an environment where a lot of the activities are about questioning and challenging that very confidence. You need to be so sure about yourself and what you chose to do and how you chose to do it - from how you write, when you work, what activities you get involved in on campus, how you deal with your supervisions, what you think is good academic work etc, etc...Basically, everything about being here and all the engagement with the work and the community. I've really been taken out of my comfort zone and I'm trying to find my place within a very transient and fleeting environment where nothing has currency beyond a short time frame. But hey I’m still standing, I’m confident about all I need to be at this very moment and that what’s important for now.

doing simple things

Its two days post mini-viva, the sun is shining outside and I'm back at the OU. I spent a really gorgeous day in Cambridge yesterday, marvelling at the beautiful old city with education, academia and heritage filling up the air. It felt so good to just do nothing and think about nothing in particular.

Today I'm back to the more practical things of life - like putting in expense claims, sorting out printing, making copies of articles, picking up books at the library, spending time in my garden and doing a big clean up of my house. My focus on these seemingly mandane things has made me realise that the past 6-8 weeks have been really tense in so many ways. I'm happy to just slow down a bit - not just in relation to the 'things' I need to do, but also just to allow my mind to accept the natural order of things.

The night before jitters and wikipedia

I spent the day grappling with terminology - all the taken for granted "stuff" littering my report; socio-cultural (or should it be sociocultural?), political, knowledge constructs, context, interpretative epistemology, qualitative epistemology, academic literacy practices, knowledge practices....shall I stop now?

So I say these words, terms, concepts and even use them in proper sentences, but what exactly do I mean? I spent a lot of time on wikipedia (how very academic of me) trying to get some common-sense definitions, thinking - "So this is what a PhD is all about, trawling through wikipedia?"
 I'm feeling a bit anxious that I wont remember things, especially things I'd written in the report, or that I'll muddle my arguments or sound incoherent, unintelligent etc, etc, etc...To add to my growing nervousness I did a little 'talking head' video interview for an academic at the OU today - and in my estimation I was crap. The descriptions I was meant to give was all about why I use academic literacies as a theoretical frame and its significance to my research. God I think I sounded like a real 'twat'; (I could easily replace this with any number of the more appropriate and wonderfully descriptive Cape Flats expletives describing someone who is worse than an idiot) I just couldn't bring it all together. Sure I was feeling the pressure from being put on the spot in a rather contrived set-up. But still, I'm a first year PhD student, I should be expressing myself coherently in my sleep.

Anyway - I have to be positive and I've been doing some visualisations of a positive outcome, setting aside any last minute jitters I seem to be focusing instead on a more grounded confidence and developed sense that I know what I'm doing, I know what the shortcomings of my research are and  I can handle whatever they throw at me. And if that fails, hell I've decided that the first day of my 40th year on this earth will not be tarnished by some English academics (bless their cotton socks) trying to make me squirm.

a Bafana Bafana day

I devoted the day to Bafana Bafana and in honour of my national team I didn't do any work. But it was wonderful watching all the positive, excited and lively coverage of the World Cup and particularly, South Africa on TV. I felt really really proud to be a South African today. In strange way I think maybe through this tournament people outside South Africa, outside Africa, will get a taste of the dynamic, textured, vibrant and deeply complex country and society I call home. Viva Bafana Bafana viva...

Pre-mini-viva meeting

Today has been a long day, a tiring day but a good day. Only about 20 hours to go before the Bafana Bafana open the World Cup in South Africa (I'm sobbing inside I tell you, but I'm an adult and I'm not going to whinge about not being in SA during the World Cup ANYMORE!). I'm pleased my mini-viva is on Tuesday so I can spend most of my days idly watching too much soccer (yes soccer and not football...in defiance of the English hegemonic claim that you cant call football soccer!) hopefully without an overwhelming sense of guilt in relation to my studies.

I met my supervisors today to go through the presentation I prepared for my mini-viva next week. It was a really informative, useful meeting - they pointed out some useful issues I had omitted, helped me frame some of my arguments more articulately, made some suggestions about the structure of my presentation and the clarity of diagrams I had included. We also discussed possible questions I might be asked and again they offered some angles that I hadn't really thought about. But more importantly, I feel ready for the oral and confident with the progress I have made to date. This weekend I will work through the list of questions I have developed trying to formulate appropriate answers. I might also need to re-visit some of the seminal articles in the Academic literacies literature to do justice to some of the points  raised by my supervisors today.

I am feeling surprisingly calm and prepared for my mini-viva, think I'm starting to internalise what I'm being told - that I'm making good progress with my studies. Today I seriously feel I can DO THIS THING!

How to get a PhD done!

I read in The Guardian this weekend that by limiting the hours you work you actually increase your output. Very encouraging argument I think especially when I am constantly feeling guilty about not putting in enough time per day. Well the article also talks about the importance of effort (the 10 000-hour rule i.e. the amount of practice required to become an expert at anything) which offset common sense ideas associated with genius. No I'm not a genius because I'm doing an PhD - I just put a lot of effort into trying to understand the concepts and theories I'm working with.

But the juicy bit that I'm trying to get to is that experts also tend to spend a lot of time not practising, maximising their working time into reasonable stretches, sandwiched with breaks and healthy sleeping patterns. "We need to shift the perspective from seeing life not as a marathon, but as a series of sprints. We are most productive when we move between periods of high focus and intermittent rest".

What I get from the article is that it seems we need to respect our bodily rhythms and mental cycles - put another way - our 'off' periods are essential to our 'on' periods. I had a conversation once with my previous housemate 'H'; she came to the conclusion that 5-6 hours per day of the kind of academic work required for the PhD is probably a maximum threshold, another colleague of mine spoke of the 'consistent 2-hours-per-day rule' guaranteed to ensure the completion of a PhD in 3 years. I think there is a lot of method in this seeming madness. Find your body and brain's rhythm, accept it, get comfortable with it and therein lies the path to balance and success.

8 mistakes

I found 8 errors on my report - stupid little oversights I didn't see when I was reviewing the draft before submission. I'm slightly comforted by the fact that you ALWAYS find hidden mistakes after submission - lets hope my assessors take a similar light-hearted view on the matter.

I've finished my mini-viva presentation. Will spend the rest of the week fine-tuning and working on possible questions I might be asked and strategic answers. I also need to start work on my HECU5 paper - but that isn't too bad as it will be good preparation for the mini-viva. The paper deals with the inclusion of a Bernsteinian lens into my academic literacies framing and the implication for methodology of such an inclusion.

The wheels never seem to stop turning, sjoe! And my guilt complex about the amount of work (or lack therefore) seems to be the grease that keeps it all turning smoothly.

Taking advice

When I asked a colleague of mine, today, if she was nervous about the mini-viva, she answered without batting an eyelid "Irrespective what I say or do, they cant fail me, so why should I be nervous". My colleague was referring partly to the bureaucracy involved in the assessment process associated with probation and also that she meets all the criteria - I have no doubt this also applies to me, with my supervisors having told me this in no uncertain terms before; so why then am I so anxious about the whole process? 

My typical response was...but aren't you blah, blah, blah? 

The missing bits to my response I guess are; aren't you nervous or worried

- that you will come across like an idiot?

- that they will recognise that you don't know what you are talking about?

- that you didn't really do enough work?

- that you wont sound intelligent?

Reflecting on this conversation today I have to question why I don't trust myself or feel confident in my work, intelligence and right to be here doing this freaking PhD? Its something my supervisors picked up in my writing too - how I shy away from taking the centre stage and making MY claims MY OWN! Making a claim implies belief and confidence in that claim...no?

 My housemate also made a comment today about how she was 'making a significant contribution to the knowledge' and in my somewhat cynical voice - I said "Oh I don't have such lofty ideals for my work".  But I've been here before though, I know how hard it is for research to really impact and change your practice and how hard it is to get your research, even if it does matter, published to a larger audience. How many PhD's get published???? But that is another issue and it distracts from point I was trying to make above.

Its not the first time I've discussed and rationalised the Probationary Review evaluation policy and the OU bureaucracy as a strategy for dealing with this assessment - I've had long conversations about this before with SP and it didn't help to stem my anxiety. BUT is that the point really, to simply use the probation as a evaluation check list,doing the bare minimum to get you through? Maybe its a strategic approach, but not one I want to take - I want to use this process to get some insightful feedback about the direction my research is taking, and as a stepping stone to the next set of activities I need to engage with - and of course its about my ego too. I don't want to come across as if I'm an idiot, that hasn't done enough work, someone who doesn't understand her research topic or the research process. I guess I want to learn something, show that I am learning something and if possible not get my ego bruised too much in the process. 

Although there is something to be said about the bit of advice I was given today - its about being confident and knowing that I can't fail because I do have what it takes to be here and be successful!

Submitted!

Indeed it has been submitted on a rather anti-climactic note. As usual the copying took longer than expected - the machine in my building decided it didn't want to play along - and why do I also have to used colour paper? It just complicates the copying and collation tasks!
 I didn't look at the report since Thursday and all I did yesterday was correct two paragraphs as suggested by my supervisor, and double check spelling mistakes (yes the world's worst speller was checking her own spelling mistakes - is that irony or an paradox?). First weekend in 6 weeks where I spent less than 2 hours on my work. I decided to channel my energies into physical activities so I - cut the grass, cleaned, cleaned and cleaned the house, did my ironing, sorted and rearranged my papers, did some crafty tasks I've been wanting to do for so long and watched some movies. Of course I've been thinking - so what's next? Well I now need to prepare for my mini-viva presentation and write a paper for a conference next month - I've already lined up a reader and said I would have a draft by month end...so here we go again. I'm just hoping I can inject some balance into my life and maybe become more efficient in the way I use my time.

Being clear and authorial in my writing

Version 1

My research is interested in understanding how students in digital multimodal disciplinary environments demonstrate their learning through the assessment texts the curriculum requires them to produce. I argue that implicated in such text production are academic literacy practices which account for the socio-cultural values, principles and regulation of the ways in which texts should be produced. I am further interested in uncovering empirically the influence of the social structuring of such academic literacy practices and the research proposes to do so by considering knowledge construction in the curriculum using a Bernsteinian lens. Bernstein's pedagogic device offers a way to explain how certain knowledge is privileged in academic contexts and how this privileging is directed through the legitimisation of particular assessment texts. By analysing what knowledge becomes situated in academic literacy practices, and how academic literacy practices reflect the privileging and legitimisation processes of certain texts, the social basis of academic literacy practices can be revealed. The implications of the contextual structuring on academic literacy practices on student learning and success can then be considered from a position that challenges current student deficit discourses.

 

Version 2

My research is interested in understanding how students in digital multimodal disciplinary environments demonstrate their learning through the assessment texts the curriculum requires them to produce. I argue that implicated in such text production are academic literacy practices which embedded socio-cultural values, regulating the ways in which texts should be produced. I am further interested in uncovering empirically the influence of the contextual structuring of such academic literacy practices and the research proposes to do so by considering knowledge construction in the curriculum using a Bernsteinian lens. Bernstein's PDv offers me a way of explaining not only how certain knowledge becomes privileged in the academic contexts of my research, but also how assessment texts legitimatise such privileged knowledge. The argument I am making in my research is that by analysing what knowledge becomes situated in academic literacy practices, and how academic literacy practices reflect the privileging and legitimisation processes of certain texts, the contextual basis of academic literacy practices can be revealed. I hope to be able to show the implications of contextual structuring on academic literacy practices and student learning and success and in this way challenge current student deficit discourses.

 

 

Version 3

In my research I am interested in understanding how students in digital multimodal disciplinary environments demonstrate their learning, through the texts the curriculum requires them to produce for assessment. I argue that academic literacy practices which embed socio-cultural values are implicated in the production and assessment of these texts, regulating the ways in which they should be produced. I am further interested in uncovering empirically the influence of the contextual structuring of such academic literacy practices and propose to do so by considering knowledge construction in the curriculum using a Bernsteinian lens. Bernstein's PDv offers me a way of explaining not only how certain knowledge becomes privileged in the academic contexts of my research, but also how assessment texts legitimatise such privileged knowledge. The argument I am making in my research is that by analysing what knowledge becomes situated in academic literacy practices, and how academic literacy practices reflect the privileging and legitimisation processes through certain texts, the contextual basis of academic literacy practices can be revealed. I hope to be able to show the implications of contextual structuring on academic literacy practices and student learning and success and in this way challenge current student deficit discourses.

 

All of this reworking happened over a period of 1 week as I tried to become more clear about what I wanted to say and assert myself more directly in the text. In version 3 I had a lot of help from my supervisor who suggested some subtle changes in how I arranged my sentences. On a pedagogical point, my supervisors and I will be looking more carefully at my writing style and I am keen to find out exactly how to spot 'problems' and then correct it.