Preface
Acknowledgments
JOURNAL WRITING AS A SOCIOPOLITICAL PROCESS
Journal-Keeping
The Social and Institutional Contexts of Writing
The Uses of Writing Across the Curriculum
PROCEDURES: REFLEXIVITY IN CLASSROOM COMPOSITION
Research Methodological Background: Reflexivity in Ethnography
Finding a Topic
Identifying Problems
Finding a Setting
Entering the Setting
Collecting Data
Inscribing
Interpreting Journal-Keeping in "Spaceship Earth"
JOURNAL KEEPING AND CLASSROOM ACTIVITY IN "SPACESHIP EARTH"
The Journal Assignment: Responding the Weber's Expectations
Classroom Functions of Journal-Keeping
THE SOCIOPOLITICS OF JOURNAL KEEPING IN "SPACESHIP EARTH": TWO STUDENTS
Beth: Goals for Journal-Keeping in "Spaceship Earth"
Beth's History as a Student and Writer: Learning a Rhetoric of Role-Playing
Beth's "Spaceship Earth" Journal: Negotiating Her Approach
Tina's Goals for the Assignment
Tina's History: Using Writing to Learn about Science
Tina's "Spaceship Earth" Journal: Negotiating a Useful and "Suitable" Approach
THE SOCIOPOLITICS OF JOURNAL KEEPING IN "SPACESHIP EARTH": THE PROFESSOR
Assigning Writing in "Spaceship Earth"
Carl's Expectations for the Journal: Making Connections
Carl's History as a Writer and Teacher: Developing Expertise in Informing and Persuading His Audiences
Putting Ideology into Practice
Managing the Class
Addressing Institutional Expectations
An Effective Compromise?
A POSTSCRIPT AND SOME CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS
Postscript
Concluding Observations
References
Author Index
Subject Index

This text reports on an ethnographic study of journal-keeping in a university science class. The author spent a summer semester attending a general education class in geology as a participant observer, took extensive notes, interviewed class members and the professor, and analyzed journal entries and other documents related to the class. She provides an example of ethnographic methods to be of use to other composition researchers, especially in her careful attention to reflexivity, that is, the effect of the researcher and the research on data. The book provides a detailed exploration of journal keeping from the perspective of both the students and the professor, as well as case studies of how two students in particular used journal keeping. Journal entries are examined not simply as texts produced by individuals for a class assignment, but as the outcome of a socio-political process, including the goals of the general education curriculum, the goals of the geology course and its instructor, the students' personal and educational goals, the institutional constraints on the professor, the methods of the researchers, and the dynamics of classroom interaction.