Goal for Friday
I got someone off-track on Thursday bogged down in an article from 1998 on examining how students responded to images of African-American history using think-alouds.  I am scouring all the research work related to using think-alouds since that is an approach I'm going to take with my history teacher subjects.  I will be asking them to look over their curriculum and think-aloud about how they use images and what are the strengths and weaknesses of their approach.

So on Friday I want to go back to the methodological piece and see if I can make a little progress on that before meeting with my adviser.

Goal for Thursday

I feel like my writing was rich and substantive but perhaps not quite on track in the literature review.  I'm hoping to discuss that with my adviser on Friday afternoon.  In the mean time, I am shifting to respond to his request for a piece on why I am using the methodological approach of narrative inquiry.  This will mean examining how narrative inquiry has specifically been used in my field - history education - as well to address issues of teaching race.

Goal for Wednesday
I received an email from my adviser that he liked the revisions I made to the first chapter but that I needed to add a few paragraphs at the beginning so I'm working on that.  Now I will shift to my second chapter, literature review, and flush out a section on the development of social history based in debates over agency and determinism coming out of African-American history.

Goal for Tuesday
I am working on my first three chapters.  I have sent a detailed outline to my adviser and gotten responses about where to focus my efforts.  Right now my priority is reshaping the first 20 pages of the first chapter to present a compelling introductory narrative and lead into my research questions.

I don't see race: Examining History Teachers' Use of Images to Further Historical Thinking

The current ways secondary history teachers employ images in history classes does not adequately address historical thinking skills.  This study examines how a professional development program, the Teaching American History program, provided space to experiment with new ontological employments of images through the content lens of African-American history.  It examines how teachers who participated in TAH thought about using images differently after the end of the program.

I anticipate the findings will be that secondary history teachers are struggling to use African-American images in ways that further historical thinking skills based on 1) limitations of predominant art history model; 2) lack of knowledge of African-American history and 3) resistance to discussing race.