Thanks to Judy's persistence and initiative, it seems likely that there
will be SOMETHING in the way of a mentoring and learning opportunity about
CHAT for grad students at AERA in Chicago next spring.
Hopefully Gordon Wells, Stanton Wortham, Vera John-Steiner, and I will be
available in some combination of more and less structured formats to talk
with students about their interests and questions and our own work and
approaches.
It remains to be seen whether the preference of those who'd like to
participate is more for a mini-course (more time listening to the senior
researchers, more specific goals of learning particular concepts or
techniques), a workshop (looking together at data and research issues
around some concrete instances), or a more informal mentoring opportunity
(chat about CHAT: the people, the current issues, research agendas,
history, future of the field). All these could be combined in some way.
I myself am not particularly inclined towards a teaching-oriented "course",
and if it's all-day or four-hours, I would probably not be able to be there
for all of it. What I am interested in is the informal interaction with
grad students, finding out what they want to know more about, and answering
questions or setting up a means for continuing dialogue. I'd be happy to:
= talk a bit about my view of CHAT and its relationship to similiar
perspectives, e.g. social semiotics, discourse analysis, dynamical
sociocultural theories that cross from micro to macro; this could include
discussing some critiques of CHAT
= enter into discussions with others about issues such as CHAT and more or
less compatible perspectives and issues, e.g. gender/sexuality, social
conflict, social organization, ethnomethodology and CA, phenomenology,
hermeneutics, etc.
= talk about new directions in my own current research, what I see as
important research questions and agendas for the future, such as material
and symbolic connections across timescales for activity and social
processes, embedding multimedia semiotic tools in larger activity agendas
including educational ones, formulating more clearly the relationships
among notions of activity, identity, and social categorization (such as
class, gender, race, age, ethnicity/culture, etc.).
If Judy is going to submit some sort of formal proposal to AERA, she needs
some input from all of us ahead of a Sept 13 deadline (and her own
impending house move at the end of this month) regarding: format(s),
emphasis, content. My sense is that if the community gives us some guidance
the organizers of the event can then make key choices and Judy can fashion
a coherent proposal.
Whatever is proposed officially, I think we can still improvise a bit at
the actual event to be responsive to what people find they want closer to
the time of AERA itself.
"What do you think?" -- JAY.
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JAY L. LEMKE
PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION
CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
JLLBC@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
<http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/education/jlemke/index.htm>
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