As I'm getting more and more into my project, I'm noticing a distinct difference in my focus. I'm getting farther away from the computer science and programming aspects, and researching more and more about the commercial nature of successful literature. I'm realizing that it's actually really difficult to quantify and computerize the issues that I'm bringing up, and the conclusions I'm finding. But, this is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it's actually more exciting. I was afraid that I'd be able to come up with concrete statistics that show what exactly makes literature successful, which would be a rather depressing set of results. Instead, I'm finding that there are far more nuances and complexities.
Well, today is the last day of Term 3. Tomorrow is when I officially begin my field work. Fortunately for me, my field work doesn't differ drastically from what I've already been doing. I'm just really excited to finally be able to have the time to make huge progress on a daily basis, instead of slowly chugging along week to week. I've made drafts of my student surveys which I'm going to show to Mr. F before sending out, and I plan on holding a focus group next week, as well as sending out my survey. Then, I'll really be able to get cracking.
I had a great big long discussion with Mr. F and Mr. C today about the direction of my project. Long story short, I decided to first conduct a survey on a smaller scale before venturing into the student population. I'm going to form a generalized survey just for the English faculty, asking them questions about what they value most in literature, and then based on those results, I'll form my student surveys. I also decided that perhaps a focus group approach would be better than simply sending out a survey. This way, I could moniter how people read and respond to my questions. I'm feeling much more relieved.
I'm not going to lie: Im facing a bit of a roadblock. I know exactly how I want to proceed with my project once I get to a certain point, and I know what I want my ideal results to look like, but I'm not quite sure yet how to get there. My plan with my surveys was to conduct some sort of student (or other target group) survey in order to identify what they believe to be the most important aspects of good literature. To do this, I want to use different samples of books to have students read and answer questions on. However, I'm realizing this is much harder than it seems..
First of all, I don't want to make students feel like they're taking the SAT. I know I wouldnt. I want to make my survey engaging and interesting, which isn't possible if I simply have large blocks of texts for them to read and analyze. Ms. Tate had the idea of using MCAS book samples, which I like, but again, I don't want to have students take an MCAS-like test. I'll talk to Mr. F to see what to do. The more I research, the more I'm realizing that the first piece of evidence, or artifact, I found for my project is actually extremely important. The Stony Brook study claiming to discover an algorithm or sorts for the success of novels is cited in at least 50% of the articles and commentaries I've found. There was a moment of panic when I thought perhaps my efforts were futile, and that everything I am attempting to find has already been found, but my fear have subsided when I realized our projects are fundamentally different.
So, I've been brushing up on my programming skills. And by skills, I am using the term very loosely. As far as I know, I'll only need basic Javascript programming knowledge for the entirety of my project, but I feel that this is the absolute minimum. I'm realizing that my project is extending further than simply using computers to analyze literature in a (hopefully) novel way. I want my project to also be an exploration between these two fields, and hopefully a way to link the two in a way beneficial to research and acadamia. In terms of fields of interest, people often classify themselves as technical or not, mathy or not, readers or not. I look to overcome these boundaries, and forge a path between two seemingly opposite fields.
Anyway, my point is that I want to really practice what I preach, and gain more computer knowledge than I technically need for my project. Strictly speaking, I could read a few tutorials and figure out how to design the basic program that I need. But I decided to take it a few steps further, and really understand the language I'm practicing. Thus, I consulted the almighty codeacademy. And, as the title of this post suggests, its harder than I thought it would be. |
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April 2015
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