The multimodal Literate practices of female military-service personnel

1. The multimodal Literate practices of female military-service personnel Mariana Grohowski | Sept. 11, 2013

2. Overview • Theoretical framework • Driving claim of project • Exigency and relevant conversations • Project details • Key terms • Research questions • Approved methods • Methodologies • Complications & limitations • Potential contributions • Closing remarks

3. Impetus for project part 1 | theoretical framework Feminist standpoint theory makes three principal claims: Knowledge is socially situated. Marginalized groups are socially situated in invaluable ways; their awareness fosters the potential for more critical perspectives. Research, particularly that focused on power relations, should begin with the lives of the marginalized. (Harding, 1987, 1991; Naples, 2003; Cockburn, 2007). The goal of standpoint is to subvert established norms in an effort to construct systems based on social justice. 

4. Impetus for project part 2 |my father My father served in the 25th infantry division (tropic thunder, US Army) during the Vietnam war(April 1971 – Feb 1972). This picture was taken shortly after he was discharged.

5. Driving claim writing specialists must continue making efforts in our teaching and scholarship to foster inclusivity and accessibility to our students and research participants – we can do so by affording them the modes (and as much as possible) the content of their literate practices.

6. Increase in research on the needs, abilities, experience of female military-service personnel and student veterans [Exigency & relevant conversations] • Voices of female military-service personnel (past & present) are under-studied and under-represented. • D. Alexis Hart (2011) female military-service personnel’s digital communication practices • Baechtold & De Sawal (2009) needs / behaviors of female student veterans in post-secondary education • Hart & Thompson (2013)needs of student veterans in post-secondary writing classrooms

7. Growing relevance for “veteran studies” [Exigency & relevant conversations] Military Involvement 2003: US invades Iraq 2009: US troop surge, Afghanistan 2010: 31, Aug. Obama declares the end of combat operations in Iraq 2011: Osama bin Laden killed; US Iraq status agreement stipulates U.S. will be out of Iraq at year’s end. 2012: The war in Afghanistan continues; the number of student veterans pursuing higher ed. on significant upswing 2013: The war in Afghanistan continues; threat of involvement in Syria looms Writing Studies Involvement CCCC (4C) Resolution 3 TETYC, in a time of war; WarriorWriters est. Valentino 4C Chair’s Address; Kairos, dot-mil; Hart & Thompson 4C research grant student vets Travis Martin establishes the Journal of Military Experience, Veteran Writers Project est. 4C Veteran Workshop, Liam Corley, CE; Valentino CWPA keynote; 4C Veteran’s Taskforce est.; MEA est. 1stVeteran Studies Conference; Edwards & Wilson, CCO; Hart & Thompson, WOE; Hart & Thompson, CF, student veterans.

8. Understanding & advocating for contemporary war / trauma literature [Exigency & relevant conversations] • Peebles (2011) & Robbins (2007): contemporary war literature is multimodal • War literature helps bridge “the military-civilian gap” (Peebles, 2011). Military – Civilian Gap Pew (2011)

9. [Exigency & relevant conversations] Advocacy for increased inclusion & access “Composition studies has never taken its diverse student populations for granted” (Utz; 2013). Thus, writing specialists must continue making efforts in our teaching and scholarship to foster inclusivity and accessibility to our students and research participants – we can do so by affording them the modes (and as much as possible) the content of their literate practices. [Driving claim of dissertation]

10. [Project details] Key terms • Female military-service personnel (Calvet, 2012) • Literate practices (Brandt & Clinton, 2002) “literate practices are not typically invented by their practitioners. Nor are they independently chosen or sustained by them . . . literate practices depend on powerful and consolidating technologies — technologies that are themselves susceptible to sometimes abrupt transformations that can destabilize the functions, uses, values, and meaning of literacy anywhere” (p. 338). • Multimodal (Shipka 2011; Palmeri 2012; Dunn 2001; Freire 1973): “beyond the digital”; “aural, spatial, visual, & kinesthetic ways of knowing.”

11. [Project details] Research questions & methods Research questions HSRB Approved methods What are some of the literate practices of current and former female military-service personnel? Specifically, what are the modes and content of those literate practices? What are the impetuses for these women’s literate practices? Specifically, does the exigency to compose for a particular rhetorical situation influence the modes and content of their literate practices? • 2 Case studies • 10 Interviews, female military-service personnel • 10 Interviews, male military-service personnel • 10 Interviews BGSU student vets • 2 mixed methods surveys

12. [mostly] Feminist methodologies [Project details] Feminist methodologies forward material feminist analyses of discourse in order to elucidate how power operates during research processes and narrative accounts. (paraphrased from Naples 2003). • “Rights of co-interpretation” (Newkirk, 1996) • Transparency (Cockburn, 2007) • Self-reflection (Cockburn, 2007) • Positionality: identity (as ascribed) & the self (as experienced) in relation to others (p. 7). • Intersubjectivity: “how positionalities cross-cut one another” (p. 8). • Reciprocity & collaboration (Cushman 2010, Selfe & Hawisher, 2012). • In vivo coding (Sadaña2013)

13. [Project details] Limitations • Engaging feminisms(methodologies & epistemologies) • Time, messiness, bias, risk of essentialism, politics, constraints of qualitative methods • Mixed methods research • methods of triangulation • Secondary research • (memoirs, auto- & biographies, academic sources, art, poetry, fiction) • “social relation” (Kelly-Gagol, 1987) • Assigning the personal narrative = a contentious debate

14. [Project details] Challenging controversy Writing for trauma recovery is multimodal, as is war literature (MacCurdy 2000; Herman 1997). Trauma is more common than we may recognize(Herman 1997; MacCurdy & Anderson 2000; Borrowman & White 2005; Valentino 1996, 2010). Universal Design for Learning removes barriers from learning and meaning-making (Dolmage 2008).

15. [Project details] [tentative] Chapter abstracts 1: Introduction: overview, framework, definitions of terminology, literature review, & overview of subsequent chapters. 2: Methods / methodology:multiple& mixed methods, feminist & disability studies (UDL) methodologies explained. 3: Investigating women’s literate practices, Part I: surveydata, use of secondary sources on women’s literate practices to highlight multimodal range. 4: Investigating women’s literate practices, Part II: case studies, interviews, coding methods, data patterns, limitations. 5: Conclusions & implications:implications, contributions, & suggestions for future research.

16. Potential contributions [Closing remarks]

17. Thank you mgrohow@bgsu.edu | @maregrohowski