Hi all,

Earlier in this discussion Brian shared that he was involved in garnering 
inputs from critical friends at certain stages in his writing process. That 
prompted the following practice memory from me ...

During 2007-8 I was involved in marking, for a subject called Introduction 
to Educational Research, as part of Masters by coursework studies.

The course was designed around a form of 'narrative inquiry', which involved 
students being given help to articulate an area of educational/ professional 
interest where a 'critical/significant incident' was still on their mind, 
and by writing up, as their first assessed exercise, a narrative vignette of 
the incident, finished off with a couple/ series of questions that might 
drive/focus the next phase of their research as they started to explore 
relevant literature, and think about some primary data collection 
(interviewing was the mode of preference, but not the only possible route).

After they had submitted their final report assignment for marking, they 
were asked to also share that report with a 'critical friend', and have a 
meeting to hear feedback from the friend, and perhaps (if the friend had the 
wit to see this as a particularly important exchange) then engage in an 
ongoing and now informed professional discussion about the matter raised in 
the report.

As a further assessment task the course asked for a report on that 
discussion.

Indications were that some of those discussions were particularly helpful, 
and probably more meaningful, (and certainly more useful, in an ongoing 
sense, and because there was the potential for the discussion to be ongoing) 
than the mark and comments from the marker!

The guidelines for the students were as follows:

Share your narrative with a critical friend for comment - construct at least 
10 questions for them to respond to.

Students should ask a critical friend to read their personal narrative and 
then they should engage in a reflexive dialogue with them about the problem 
and how they went about researching and responding to the problem through 
their self-study. A small report of this dialogue should then be submitted. 
The report should include:

  1.. Beginning paragraph setting the scene, introducing the critical 
friend, the activity and the setting for the dialogue
  2.. Transcription of key aspects of the dialogue thematically organised
  3.. Short reflective response to the dialogue.

Dianne