Our purpose and frame experiment

Within that context, how would we explain (1) the nature of our "frame experiment" and (2) the purposes of our research?

We are testing the theory about stasis strategies that we built based on Schon and the examples from our practitioners in the special issue of Reflections. The experiment will extend our knowledge of those strategies and both their explanatory and applied power.

The purpose of our research is thus to further develop our theory of stasis points and strategies in the writing classroom, thereby identifying productive and counterproductive practices.

What problem are we trying to solve?
What the CIQ offers us particularly is a way to think about teacher and student responses to situations together and try to identify best ways of responding and conversing together.

We want teachers, including ourselves, to be the most rhetorically savvy readers of their classroom situations and to learn to identify the most effective rhetorical responses to those situations. This takes communication between rhetor and audience, reflection on the communication. It is too easy to misread a stasis point and respond in a counterproductive way. Therein lies the problem.

" The effective professional begins by noticing a dilemma,"
Teaching is a communicative process in which it is easy to misread a stasis point or point of crisis and respond in such a way that learning is not enhanced.

"framing what he or she will consider as part of the new situation (and thereby eliminating some factors)"
The frame surrounds the courses in which we have used the CIQs: mine has primarily been English 358, a required upper division course on writing in the humanities and social sciences. We've also framed in "writing classes" as our focal points. In this first instantiation, we are directing our gaze a bit more fully toward the teacher's reflection in response to student comments and actions.

"drawing on previous knowledge and theories"
Schon, our own early stasis strategies thinking

"while adapting them to address the newness of the situation, and testing the new knowledge in action." (155)