Overview

Scaffolding the Language of Power: An Apprenticeship in Doctoral Level Writing offers an accessible, practical, hands-on guide to developing the skills needed to successfully write a doctoral dissertation or thesis. This textbook-workbook hybrid can be used both as a program/course text and as a supplement for individual doctoral students in education and related social science and humanities fields. The book is built on three main ideas. First, writing is fundamentally connected to issues of social justice. Doctoral-level writing is part of the ""language of power"" in academia, which builds on the linguistic patterns of the dominant culture and serves as a gatekeeping mechanism. Second, writing is genre-based. This means that doctoral level writing is a particular way of using language, or a specific genre, with distinct rules and structures that can be taught. And third, writing can be scaffolded. Approaching writing as a pedagogical act that supports readers' understanding through purposeful scaffolding is not just a way to successfully complete a doctoral dissertation—it is a way to make academic writing more accessible in general. In its first chapter, Scaffolding the Language of Power provides a general framework for the rules of the doctoral ""language of power."" Chapter two offers an in-depth look at organization and scaffolding as key features of academic writing at the doctoral level, with discussions and activities to practice drafting supportive headings, chunking text, creating road maps and topic sentences, and strategically linking sections, paragraphs, and sentences through transitions and connector phrases. Chapter three provides lessons and exercises to develop argumentation, evidence use, synthesis skills, and academic voice. The remaining six chapters address each major task of the dissertation, including the problem statement, literature review, theoretical framework, methodology, findings, and discussion. Each of these chapters explicitly teaches the purposes and elements of its specific dissertation task, guiding students through warm-ups, annotated examples with elaborated explanations of writing moves, and carefully sequenced activities. Ultimately, these pedagogical features support students to build out the pieces of their doctoral dissertations or theses, chapter by chapter. This book is appropriate for any course on academic writing in EdD or PhD programs. It is also useful for courses that teach how to write a problem statement, literature review, and/or theoretical framework. Additional courses include: Qualitative Research; Qualitative Practicum/pilot study courses; and Dissertation seminar and support courses.

Full Product Details

Author:   Kathryn Strom
Publisher:   50 Amp Productions, LLC
Imprint:   50 Amp Productions, LLC
ISBN:  

9798218501228

Pages:   248
Publication Date:   09 December 2024
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Temporarily unavailable  
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Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction: A Three-Pronged Approach to Writing at the Doctoral Level  1.1 A Critical Approach to Doctoral-Level Literacy: Social Justice and The Language of Power  1.2 A Pragmatic Approach to Doctoral Level Literacy: Systemic Functional Linguistics  1.3 A Pragmatic Approach to Doctoral Level Literacy: Sociocultural Theory and Learning Chapter 2: The Rules: Writing as a Pedagogical Act  2.1 Rules of the Language of Power  2.2 Organization and Scaffolding  2.3 Headings and Chunking  2.4 Road Maps  2.5 Topic Sentences  2.6 Transitions and Connectors  2.7 Signal Words and Phrases Chapter 3: The Rest of the Rules of the Language of Power  3.1 Making a Well-Reasoned Argument  3.2 Supporting Arguments with Sourced, Credible Evidence  3.3 Using Detailed, Specific, Precise Language  3.4 Striving for Synthesis Over Summary  3.5 Developing Original Voice and Research Chapter 4: The Problem Statement  4.1 Purposes of the Problem Statement  4.2 First Steps: Exploratory Reading and Writing  4.3 The Problem Summary  4.4 The Problem Background  4.5 The Problem Rationale  4.6 The Purpose Statement Chapter 5: The Literature Review  5.1 Purposes and Structures of the Literature Review  5.2 Getting Started  5.3 Analysis of Literature  5.4 Building Out Themes: Levels of Claims  5.5 Making an Argument with the Gap in Literature  5.6 Putting It All Together Chapter 6: The Theoretical Framework  6.1 Understanding Theoretical and Conceptual Frameworks  6.2 Pre-Writing Supports for Theoretical Frameworks  6.3 The Theoretical Rationale  6.4 Theory Definition and Purpose  6.5 The Theory Background  6.6 Key Theoretical Concepts Chapter 7: The Methodology Chapter  7.1 Elements and Purposes of the Methodology Chapter  7.2 Methodology Description  7.3 Participants and Context  7.4 Data Sources and Collection Procedures  7.5 Analysis  7.6 Trustworthiness  7.7 Positionality and Reflexivity  7.8 Writing Your Abstract (For Your Proposal) Chapter 8: The Findings Chapter  8.1 Purposes of the Findings  8.2 Communicating Findings  8.3 ""Answering"" the Research Question(s)  8.4 Providing Evidence and Analytic Explanation  8.5 Demonstrating Trustworthiness  8.6 Scaffolding Understanding for the Reader Chapter 9: The Discussion  9.1 Purposes of the Discussion  9.2 Drawing Conclusions  9.3 Connecting to Extant Research  9.4 Theorizing Findings  9.5 Making Recommendations  9.6 Concluding the Dissertation  9.7 Updating Your Abstract A Beginning Note References

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Author Information

Kathryn (Katie) Strom is an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership at California State University, East Bay, Director of CSUEB's Center for Research on Equity and Collaborative Engagement (CRECE), and co-founder of the Posthuman Research Nexus (a global organization that supports and connects scholars engaging in posthuman and other complexity perspectives). Dr. Strom's research combines multiple critical and complex theories to study teacher learning and practice (particularly in support of multilingual learners), as well as to advocate more broadly for more relational, difference-affirmative ways of thinking-being-doing in education and academia. The latter includes her commitment to supporting doctoral students and early career scholars to successfully navigate the hidden curriculum of writing a dissertation and publishing afterward. A scholar of teaching and learning, Dr. Strom has used her knowledge of social justice, scaffolding, and systemic functional linguistics to develop lessons and workshops to support her doctoral students and junior academics in their writing over the last decade. Her most recent book, Scaffolding the Language of Power: An Apprenticeship in Writing at the Doctoral Level, turns these lessons into a comprehensive and interactive guide for doctoral-level writing. She is also the co-author of Becoming-Teacher: A Rhizomatic Look at First Year Teaching and Decentering the Researcher in Intimate Scholarship: Critical Posthuman Methodological Perspectives, along with many peer-reviewed articles and several special issues. Her most current work is in partnership with the Smithsonian Institute's Network for Emergent Socioscientific Thinking (NESST), exploring ways to support educators and their students in shifting to the complex ways of thinking needed to create sustainable futures in the Anthropocene era.

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