Dividing transcripts into episodes

To ensure careful application of Storch’s coding scheme to this data, transcripts were first divided into episodes. While Storch (2002) does not report dividing data in this way, Zheng

(2012), a study which applies the patterns of interaction scheme to peer response data, also uses

episodes, which in that study were generally structured as a presentation of the problem,

discussion of possible solutions, and (possibly) reaching consensus about how the writer should revise. A similar procedure was employed in Nelson and Murphy (1992), who divided peer response transcripts into thought groups, which were generally a single clause. These units have also been referred to as idea units (Chafe, 1980); Lockhart and Ng’s (1995) peer response study used idea units in their transcript analysis. Thought groups and idea units, though, are smaller units of analysis than episodes, because they divide speech around syntactic units rather than topics.

For the current study, an episode was considered to be a section of the peer response transcript where students discussed a single topic of the paper being reviewed. When students moved on to another topic, another episode began. An example of a clear episode is given below. Here, Alex is giving Dan feedback on his summary-response paper about the class book,

Outcasts United, which chronicles the struggles of a soccer team comprised of refugee children.

The team is named The Fugees:.

Alex: Okay, um, the first part is your summary, right? Dan: Yeah.

Alex: Um, it’s really good about, uh, your summary, about the introduction of the book, but I think um you need to put more detail about what’s going on in the

background, the background of the novel. Where they come from … Dan: Like everybody? I was … I didn’t know if I should put all the people.

Alex: Yeah, that was hard for my paper too. I think not like everybody, you know, just key people. Like the background of the novel, like what kind of team it is. Dan: Background. Yeah, background of, of the team. Like Fugees?

Alex: Like Fugees, yeah.

Dan: Yeah, uh, a little bit more details? Alex: Yes.

Dan: Okay. I wrote this in a very short time, so it’s not very good. Alex: It’s okay. Just a rough draft.

Dan: Yeah.

(Dan and Alex, Peer Response Session One, February 2013) This excerpt illustrates what was considered to be a single topic. In this case, the topic was how much background information about the book’s characters Dan should include in his summary. From here, the pair moved on to discuss the next paragraph, which was marked as a separate episode.

Pairs did not always spend as much time on one topic, and take turns discussing it, as Dan and Alex did in the last excerpt. Sometimes the reviewer would speak without waiting for the writer to respond, or would move quickly from one topic to another. Discourse like this was difficult to divide into episodes, as doing so would not result in sections of transcripts that could

be not be easily coded with a pattern of interaction. An example of this kind of talk is provided

in the following excerpt. In this excerpt, HaeSun is reviewing JeeHae’s summary-response paper about the class book, and it seems that rather than engage in discussion about the questions provided in the peer response handout, she is simply listing her answers to them:

HaeSun: So I like that you have good, um, details, good details and good supporting ideas. You are very detailed at giving data and stuff like that, and you list out your supporting details. Length is good, too. I like your structure also, but I think your conclusion is a little bit short.

JeeHae: Mm, yeah. Just so hard to do conclusion.

(HaeSun and JeeHae, Peer Response Session One, February 2013) If this part of the transcript were divided into episodes (defined by conversation about a single topic) there may be considered four episodes within HaeSun’s first turn: one about details and supporting ideas, one about length, one about structure, and one about the conclusion.

Dividing the transcript in this way, however, would not aid in coding for patterns of interaction,

as episodes that consist of a single phrase of only one student’s speech do not reveal much about the dynamics between the pair. I thus decided that HaeSun’s first turn would not be divided into episodes, but considered as one. After JeeHae admits that it was difficult for her to decide what to include in the conclusion, the pair spend some time thinking about how she might expand it. The resulting episode, then, includes HaeSun’s initial positive comments about idea

development, length, and structure, while the remainder of the episode continues to discuss the conclusion.

Another unclear aspect of episode division was that during the interactions, students did not always talk about the drafts. Because the objective of this phase of data analysis is to identify patterns of interaction that occur when students are discussing writing, off-topic episodes were marked as “no code” (NC). In these NC episodes, students negotiated topics such as whose paper to discuss first, how to turn the digital recorder on and off, or they talked about things not related to the papers being reviewed. In the excerpt below, which was marked as NC, I give Joe and SongWoo a digital recorder, and they negotiate whose paper to review first:

Researcher: Alright. We’re recording, so just talk normal. You know, like the last time.

SongWoo: Alright.

Researcher: Okay? Thanks.

SongWoo: You go first.

Joe: Me? Okay. About your paper, right?

SongWoo: Yeah.

(Joe and Song Woo, Peer Response Session One, February 2013) Episodes like these generally occurred at the beginning of transcripts, where students decide who will be the first reviewer, and at the end, where they determine how to turn off the digital

recorder. There were some episodes where students’ conversation veered away from the paper being discussed and toward personal matters. These were also coded as NC, but they were infrequent.